I have been in twenty-three bomb shelters. As a teenager who grew up in San Diego, most people I know do not get to say such a statement, as most of us grew up going to school, and spending our weekends at the beach.
I grew up in the Jewish religion. Going to temple every Sunday, practicing Hebrew, and discussing Israel overlapped with my adolescence. I was always taught that no matter what, I was to stand by Israel, and my identity. My mother always talked about her trip to Israel when she was fourteen, and I could not wait for the chance that it would be my turn to travel to the country that I had heard about since the moment I could talk.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my temple offered the opportunity to travel to Israel for two weeks over the summer to eight teenagers, including me. In preparation for this trip, we had meetings to discuss the current state of Israel. At the time, Hamas, a terrorist group in Gaza, had just killed three teenage Israeli boys: Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah. We were expecting there to be tension, and we were educated and prepared on what to do in difficult situations. However, I could not have prepared myself for the chaos that would ensue the day we left. While we were flying to Israel, the rockets started firing, and the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict was declared.
We went about our trip as normally as we could, trying to remember our purpose for being there; playing the role of tourists. Bomb shelters became the new normal, so much so that we started to count how many we had been in. We always knew there was a possibility of danger, but we never truly realized how much so until one event occurred.
Near the end of our trip, we travelled to Eilat, which is the southernmost city of Israel. We knew that by venturing into the south, we were putting ourselves more at risk. However, we pushed on, and listened to our chaperone when he said it would be safe. We had checked into our hotel, and spent the day at the beach. It wasn’t until later that night, when the warning sirens rang in the distance, that everything would change.
Before, when the sirens would go off, we would all run to the nearest bomb shelter, and wait until an ‘all clear’ was given. We had gotten used to this, as sometimes we would be in and out of the shelter at least three times a night. Most of the time, the Iron Dome, which is Israel’ air defense system, was able to take care of the incoming rocket before it could crash and hurt anybody. But this time was different. I was suddenly shaken awake by my roommate, and her screaming that we had to go. We ran to the shelter, hoping that everyone else from our group would be there too. We had not been in the shelter for five seconds when we heard it.
There was no longer just the anticipation of hearing a “boom” in the distance. This time, we felt it. The ground beneath us shook, and we could hear the cries echoing from all around us. And that was when we realized, our hotel had been hit. I gripped my roommates leg, hoping that she understood what I was trying to communicate, because all words were lost to me. That if she had not woken me up, I would not have made it to the bomb shelter in time. She held my hand, letting me know that she would never have left me behind, and that we should just be thankful everyone was together. In that moment, we all sat in silence, praying that we would make it home safely.
After returning home to San Diego, I was thankful for living in a city where I would not have to constantly be listening for sirens in the distance. But everyday that I was home, I felt myself longing to go back, but this time, to try and make a difference, so that future teenagers would not find themselves in the same situation as me. I wanted to find a way for Jewish and Muslim people to coexist, and live together in the country that means so much to me. So I decided that when the next opportunity arose to travel to Israel, I would take it. And that is where I found JITLI.
The Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs International Teen Leadership Institute (JITLI) is a scholarship based program that works to form connections between four groups of teenagers: ten Jewish from San Diego, ten Israeli Jewish, ten Israeli Arab, and ten Palestinian. Forty kids all together, learning about one another’s differences, and developing an understanding to reach one final goal: promote coexistence between different cultures and religions, and hopefully find peace.
For this trip, which was very different from the one I had previously gone on, I only had one wish. To make connections, get to understand the other side of this conflict, and find peace within us all. This wish was crystallized under the Israeli sun, tangibly, via the first handshakes that greeted us as we landed in the Ben-Gurion airport. We all came together, connected by four simple words. “Achim, Simcha, JITLI, Imperia,” which translates into brothers, joy, JITLI, nations. This is what would be shouted as my forty new friends grouped up, shoulder to shoulder, as we put our arms around each other and jumped as one, ignoring the cultural barriers between us, and appreciating one another for who we truly are.
JITLI brought out smiles, laughs, and tears as we all searched for a way to be peaceful. Although we all had our differences, we formed a bond of undeniable trust. I saw my friends tears as he talked about someone killed by a rocket, and felt the fear of my Arab friend when she ran and hugged me after a Jewish man spit in her face. I heard the words “you’re beautiful,” as my roommate helped me put on a hijab so I could enter a mosque with her, and felt her hand in mine as I accompanied her to the Western Wall, promising her that I would protect her. These are all things that opened my eyes to the fact that despite our cultural differences, we could find real human connections. There was one moment, where we all lay together, heads resting on one another, and nobody spoke. During this moment, I realized that so much could be expressed through silence. I felt compassion, love, and deep friendship with these people whom I had only met a couple weeks before. I felt proud to be a part of this group.
These connections are what separated my two trips for me. The first time I travelled to Israel, I had been unaware about how the conflict was affecting the people who lived there, and I only cared about how it was an inconvenience for me. However, with JITLI, I got to listen to the stories of people my age that had grown up there, where this life had become their normal, and it made me want to help make a change. Before these experiences, I felt that I could not make a difference. I wanted to see a change in the world, and to work towards some form of peace, but I was unsure how. All of these experiences and events made me open my eyes to the world around me, and realize my own personal destiny; that if people really want change, we all can work towards it together.