Every year, many JDS students, alumni and faculty members visit Israel. This summer, their trips coincided with escalating conflict in the Middle East and deepening internal divisions within Israel.
As the 2024-25 school year wrapped up, war broke out between Israel and Iran on June 13. Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, targeting Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities. According to the Associated Press, these attacks were retaliation for Iranian strikes on various Israeli cities in April 2024.
In early June, Onward, a popular program among JDS alumni, sent a group of rising college juniors to Israel for internships. A week and a half in, participants, including alumnus Eitan Malkus (‘23), were awakened by air raid sirens at their Tel Aviv apartment building early Friday morning, June 13.
“Everyone got up in the middle of the night, and we had to go to the bomb shelter,” Malkus said. “This was the first time that we went to the bomb shelter, so no one really knew what was happening, and we didn’t know how long we were going to have to stay there.”
As Iranian retaliatory strikes targeted major Israeli cities, Onward transported participants away from Tel Aviv to Eilat. Six days later, over a thousand foreign college students participating in Onward and Birthright programs were transported by cruise ship from Ashdod, Israel, to Cyprus.
While en route to Cyprus, America bombed three Iranian nuclear sites–Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan–on June 21. This led to an eventual ceasefire, according to the Department of Defense. Eventually, Several Onward students, including Malkus, restarted their internships.
A few weeks after the ceasefire was reached, Junior Lyla Silberg arrived in Israel for a five week program called Girls Israel Volunteer Experience (GIVE) sponsored by the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY).
While in Israel, Silberg visited sites related to the Oct. 7 attacks and met with Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son, Hersh, was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 and killed in Gaza after 11 months of captivity.
“It was very crazy because obviously we talked about it [Oct. 7] a lot in school, and we learned a lot about what’s happening [in] Israel, but it was very hard to connect with it because it’s so far across the world,” Silberg said. “But going there to the sites and seeing what really happened and seeing cars that were burned and families that were affected was really meaningful.”
Around the same time, Jewish History Department Chair Rachel Bergstein was also in Israel. Bergstein has travelled with her family to Israel almost every summer for five years, renting an apartment in Jerusalem. The Israel-Iran War delayed her trip but did not cancel it.
Bergstein noticed several differences since the attacks on Oct. 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza. She noted that in Israel, a lot of people are struggling with mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“There have been a few suicides among returning soldiers, and there have been a few prominent suicides in the last few months,” Bergstein said. “That has sort of been a wake-up call for the country.”
Additionally, she said that, with many soldiers and reservists in Gaza, stores and businesses were being managed by teenagers. Many foreign tourists, especially Americans, have avoided visiting because of everything going on. For example, a conference Bergstein was supposed to attend with High School Principal Lisa Vardi was cancelled.
Bergstein also said that the Israeli press and public was beginning to talk more about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as several countries, including France and the United Kingdom, have said they will recognize a Palestinian state if there is not a ceasefire in Gaza, according to the BBC.
Towards the end of his time in Israel, Malkus witnessed demonstrations for and against Netanyahu’s plans to occupy the Gaza Strip, per Axios. Despite the internal division, Malkus said Israelis manage to coalesce around their shared hope for the hostages to return and the wars to end.
“People come from such different backgrounds and have such different opinions, but the magic of Israel is that people will and can come together if the situation presents itself,” Malkus said.
