A message from our JAFI Israel Fellow
Thanks to the support of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), we have the distinct honor of having an Israel Fellow on staff for at least two years providing Israel education and engagement. Our Israel Fellow, Hila Banay, is originally from Yavne, Israel. She served in the IDF for two years as a multimedia producer in the Air Force. In 2014 she worked as an A&C specialist at Emma Kaufmann Camp, West Virginia. Hila has a degree in Education a minor in English. For the last five years she has worked as a high school English teacher and homeroom teacher.
My grandparents came from Iraq and Iran to Israel. They had to leave because the regimes changed. They taught that in Israel they could be free. As it said it the Tikva - להיות עם חופשי בארצנו - To be a free nation in our land. But they were wrong. We are not free. I was a child during the second Second Intifada, I was a child during the second Lebanon war and I was a teen, a soldier and adult during several operations in Gaza. I was scared then but now I am scared like I have never been before.
People keep asking me how are you? How are your friends and family?
To be honest, I find these two questions so difficult to answer because I think we are okay, but only physically. Mentally we are broken. And we have been since October 7th.
On Friday night, October 6th, I was with a group of Israeli friends. We started receiving alerts about hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. As soon as we heard the news, we reached out to our families and friends to make sure they were okay. We all thought that like previous times, it’s going to end soon but we soon found out that we couldn’t be more wrong.
Family members, friends - all of Israel is under attack. Babies, children, teens, women, men, elderly and people with disabilities. As of this moment, there are over 3500 injured, over 1300 people who were brutally murdered and over 200 kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.
Since that night I am scared to go to sleep. I am terrified to wake up and see on social media or the news a name that I know personally. I am terrified for the safety of my friends and family back home. I am terrified for the safety of my friends here and over the world. I am terrified for my community here. I am terrified for my students who don’t feel safe on campus and are too afraid to speak up or to be identified as Jewish or supporters of Israel. I am terrified for my two brothers who are in the army right now. The younger one just got enlisted two months ago and now they are going to speed up his training so he could fight and defend Israel.
As I am far away from home, I am terrified and scared like I have never been before. I have thought about going back home. I want to help my country but I have realized that I can help my country from here and you can too.
Even though we are broken and scared we must stand together, we must take action and speak up against injustice and untruths about Israel. We must stand up against antisemitism. We must stand up against terror.
Israel is not perfect but it exists and has the right to exist. Until 12 days ago Israel was divided like never before, but within 24 hours all of Israel came together, helping each other, donating money, housing, equipment for soldiers, food and many more beautiful initiatives. You can help too, whether talking about all the civilians who are kidnapped, donating money for people who have lost their homes and much more.
Israel is broken. We are broken, but we will rise up like we did so many times before.