A New Year’s Letter from Israel
An update from JULIE ZUCKERMAN
January 1, 2024
It’s been another very rough month here. Some days it feels as though the sadness is all-enveloping, and no amount of avocado picking can help. Other days, I try to stave off the darkness by amplifying moments of joy and gratitude, which, for me, means working, reading, writing, biking, volunteering, and spending time with friends and family, not necessarily in that order. I hope you’re finding some moments of beauty and things to be joyful about these days.
Since I last wrote, no further hostages have been released or rescued, and nearly every morning, we wake to the news of more fallen soldiers. As of this writing, 173 soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive.
Since I last wrote, we’ve had more heartbreak: the terrible news that three hostages - Alon Shimriz, my daughter’s friend, Yotam Haim, and Samer Talalka - were accidently killed by our own troops. A few days ago the bitter news came that Judih Weinstein, an American-Israeli from Kibbutz Nir Oz, had been killed on October 7 and her body is being held in Gaza. This news came only days after the announcement that her husband, Gadi Haggai, died in captivity. And today Kibbutz Be’eri announced the death of Ilan Weiss, a member of the kibbutz’s emergency response team, who had been considered missing since October 7.
We await and pray for the release of ALL hostages still being held in Gaza, including the four we know personally: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Gali and Ziv Berman, and Andrey Kozlov. Please continue to post on social media, and take one minute of your day to call your representatives. #BringThemHomeNow
At the stroke of midnight last night, to usher in 2024, Hamas sent off another barrage of rockets towards central Israel, including Modiin. I was the only one still awake at home, working on this newsletter, but my husband, daughter and I all quickly got to our safe room. And the other fronts are heating up, with the Iranian-backed Houthis in the Red Sea and Hezbollah in the north. It’s still too much. None of us want to be in this place of mourning and grief and uncertainty, but here we are. Among my friends, we speak about balancing the need to “not look away” - to hear the horrible stories and read the reports of survivors - while also doing things to protect ourselves from sinking into a morass.
I do want to point out that many things in central Israel have resumed and though nothing is the same, life is marching forward. The rush hour trains are full of people going to work. People are going out to restaurants. Today I received an email from our local cultural center about a new season of plays and movies and ballets. Facebook also served me an ad for an upcoming Shlomi Artzi concert. My 9th grader has been back at school and at her full activities for a while. And last Friday, after picking avocados with my brother-in-law and nephew, we went to the beach, my first time back since October 6th.
I am heartened by the many volunteers like my brother-in-law, nephew, and childhood friends who are coming to Israel to help in the agricultural sector or to make sandwiches or Shabbat food for soldiers or to take part in the hundreds of other daily volunteer opportunities here. If you’re interested in coming to volunteer but don’t know where to start, feel free to write to me and I can help.
Lastly, one piece of good news/something for which I am grateful this week: yesterday my two oldest kids were officially released from their IDF reserve duty (for now, anyway) and began the first year of their studies at their respective universities. History and economics at Hebrew U for my son and industrial engineering at Ariel for my daughter. Going from one day in the army to the next day at school won’t be simple, and clearly this was not the beginning to their university careers that anyone anticipated or wanted, especially as thousands of their fellow students (including many of their friends) are still fighting (and others are in captivity). I pray that their classrooms will soon be back at full capacity.has yet to happen.”
Julie Zuckerman became a part of BHC family when she presented her novel, The Book of Jeremiah for Books of Jewish Interest in 2020. Julie spoke to us on Zoom from her home in Israel. Julie, who lives in Modin, offers a view opens a window on "the situation" and how she and her family are experiencing the Hamas Attack. Her letters from Israel offer an honest and compassionate voice that she has allowed us to print here.
Read the rest of Julie’s letters on her Substack page here.
Julie invites you to subscribe to her newsletter here.