It is difficult to understand how three years can feel both so long and so short. Three years since October 7th entered our lives and our Jewish calendar, since families lost the people they loved, communities were shattered, and Israelis and Jews around the world began carrying a weight that has changed us in ways we are still trying to understand.
This year, I marked October 7th thousands of miles away from Israel, here in Greater MetroWest NJ.
As a shlicha, I talk a lot about connection and building bridges between communities. This past week reminded me that connection is not an abstract idea. Sometimes it is sitting in a room and listening to someone else’s story. Sometimes it is singing together. Sometimes it is allowing someone else’s grief to become, even for a moment, part of your own.
Throughout the week we had the privilege of bringing Buds of Comfort — Nitzanei Nechama to our community, three Israeli musicians whose work grew out of the pain and upheaval of October 7th. They have been using music as part of an ongoing journey toward healing with communities so deeply affected that day and every day since. They visited our four day schools, met with teenagers, and performed in Franklin Lakes, Westfield, and Morris County. Altogether, more than a thousand people met them and heard their stories.
What stayed with me was watching people listen. I heard songs written out of shock, grief, and uncertainty slowly move toward resilience and hope. I watched people here in New Jersey connect deeply with Israelis whose lives had been changed thousands of miles away, while also recognizing something of the pain Jews everywhere have carried since that day.
None of this could have happened without an incredible network of partnerships: our JCCs, synagogues, clergy, schools, Federation colleagues, lay leaders, and volunteers who gave their time, opened their spaces and, in some cases, literally opened their homes.
I felt this especially strongly watching our six Rishonim. They are 18 years old and came here for a gap year to bring Israel into our schools, synagogues, JCCs, and community. They came with energy and excitement, but also as part of a generation that grew up far too quickly. Some lost classmates or people they knew. Their friends, siblings, and peers are serving in the IDF, and people their age have been killed since October 7th.
Watching them during this week was incredibly moving. They came here to bring Israel to Greater MetroWest, but they were also discovering what this community carries with them. They saw hundreds of people gathering to remember, rabbis, cantors, educators, and volunteers making space for their story, and a Jewish community standing with them while carrying its own grief and vulnerability. In those moments, the bridge went both ways.
Earlier in the week, when I gave the annual Shirley S. Green Israel briefing at JCC MetroWest, I spoke about the decades of partnership between our Federation and communities in Israel. Those relationships existed long before October 7th, so when catastrophe struck, we were not strangers trying to figure out how to help one another. We were already partners, and partners show up.
That idea has stayed with me throughout my first year here as a shlicha. This week displayed to me and my family just how deeply Jewish communities thousands of miles away care about Israel and about Israelis, and how deeply October 7th has affected Jewish life far beyond Israel itself.
This week I saw Israelis sharing painful stories and being embraced by people they had never met before. I saw our Rishonim realize that their experiences matter deeply to Jews across the ocean. I saw a Hindu clergywoman and interfaith leader stand in the middle of an October 7th commemoration and pledge her solidarity and empathy with the Jewish people. I saw communities choose to remember together.
Three years after October 7th, the wounds are still very much with us, in Israel, and across the Jewish world. There is grief, fear, and uncertainty, but this week reminded me that rebuilding can begin in relationships, in listening, in showing up for one another, and sometimes simply in singing someone else’s song until it becomes a little bit yours too.
As an Israeli and as a shlicha, I leave this week with gratitude and with hope. Hope that the bridges we are building will continue to carry us forward, and that even after the darkest days, Israelis and Jews around the world can continue to comfort one another, rebuild together and sing again.
Am Yisrael Chai
