WOW WOW and WOW and yes, I’m screaming this! I’ve had the semester of a lifetime, and I need every teen like me to know that they can do this too.

I’m a LA transplant who moved to a small mountain town (Park City, Utah) in 2021. I’m the girl who randomly decided to go abroad and spend my second semester of my sophomore year amid a war almost 7,000 miles away, and in Israel of all places. I never could have imagined the impact this tiny country could have on me, ESPECIALLY in the middle of a war. On January 23, I left everything I knew to go to a new school in a foreign country, without knowing a soul. It almost seems like a fever dream looking back. 

I literally lived, breathed, ate, and slept Israel for almost 5 straight months. My time there not only enhanced my religious beliefs and learning about my roots, but I grew so much as a person. Living without my family for such a long period not only made me much more responsible and self-reliant, but it made me view the world so differently. I now had new lenses to leverage in all sorts of ways with the hope to learn, grow and experience the world as it really is. Not a Netflix series, but rather true life! 

In Israel, I felt like I could be anybody I wanted. I had a chance to reinvent myself and it was so refreshing. I wasn’t beholden to what people knew of me of what they thought they knew of me. I got a chance to hit the reset button without any baggage. What was most unique for me, especially now living in Park City, Utah was that I was surrounded 24/7 by Jews. Living in Park City, I am not usually surrounded by many, but while I was abroad, I realized how vital it is to not only surround yourself with people like you, with similar histories, value and aspirations to be the light in this world, but also people that make you feel like you belonged. That is a feeling that never left me while in Israel. I literally felt like I truly belonged for the first time in my life. Despite the language barrier, despite the fact that I was over 7,000 miles away from my family, I found that I had a deep-rooted connection to not only the land of Israel, but the people I met along the way. 

The Tiyuls (trips) were a significant part about my time in Israel, we not only walked across the entire country by foot, but we travelled across the country and spent our time as a sponge. The most impactful tiyul we went on was undeniably our trip to Poland. Before going, I had an idea of what we would be doing but I never could have imagined how impactful it was for me. Seeing each concentration-death camp and the tracks my ancestors traipsed across was a chilling feeling I have never ever felt before. I was overwhelmed with emotions, but I left Poland motivated to share not only what I saw and experienced and the horrors of the holocaust, but I wanted to share what the 6 million Jews who were murdered, what they experienced and how their lives ended. 

Additionally, being in Israel during the Jewish holidays were experiences I have never had before. A couple examples would be Yom HaShoah, Yom HazikHaron, and Yom Haatzmaoot. All 3 of these days are brushed over in the US. I didn’t really grow up honoring or commemorating them as much as I did in Israel. On Yom HaShoah, the entire country froze. It was so quiet. Everything was closed, restaurants, stores, schools. Everyone just mourned. I remember we went into the Hod Hasharon town center and stood for 2 minutes, we, everyone around us just froze in time while the siren went off. It was so surreal. Cars would stop, people would be standing on the side of freeways to honor our ancestors. The siren almost sounded like the screams and cries of all the victims of the Holocaust. Literally it gave me chills. On Yom HazikHaron, it was especially sad this year after October 7th and all the fallen soldiers and people. Again, I never really honored this day as much as I did in Israel. Similar to Yom HaShoah, there was a deafening silence throughout the entire country. I remember this day being just so beyond emotional for everyone. Everybody was affected and knew someone who was in the IDF and had fallen. We had a ceremony with hundreds of Jews who gathered to honor each fallen member of our tribe. I remember there being a slideshow of people who were IDF soldiers and had died in the current war. It was just so emotional. These were young adults, just a few years older than me. They were doctors, nurses, businesspersons, lawyers, bakers, farmers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. It all felt so close and real. Not something we would watch on cable news. I have never seen a country so united. Really, it was unbelievable how unified everyone was. Coming from the US, everything is so separate. If you’re a democrat or republican or if you have a different religious take, or if you are a different race, everyone is just so separated. In Israel, people put their differences aside and joined together to mourn the war and to mourn the fallen soldiers. Israeli Arabs, Christians, Jews, Druz alike were all one, fighting together the same enemy, HAMAS.  It was so beautiful to not only watch, but to be a part of. Furthermore, Shabbats were my all-time favorite days of my semester. I have Shabbat dinner with my family every Friday; however I wasn’t always connected to it. Being in Israel, I loved it more than anything because it was time to join together after a long week and just be with one another. A Shabbat I will always remember was in Tzfat, a very famous artist and religious town in the North. When we were split up into groups and went to random host families. I was in a group of 6 and I remember us sitting at a dinner table with a family we have never met before and celebrated Shabbat. We prayed, ate and talked with the host family for hours. It was so nice to know that I could be anywhere in the world and know that if I ever need, I could have a home-cooked Shabbat dinner with a family that may not be mine, but I know I would be taken care of. I felt like I was proud to be a member of the tribe!

Speaking about food. The food in Israel is AMAZING. I am such a foodie and loved all new spices and scents each meal would have. I am missing the huge fruits and vegetables now that I am back home.  The freshness, the colors, the richness of flavor surpassed any other country I have visited to date.

Moving on, the times I will forever miss were just exploring Israel with my best friends. I love love love travelling and encountering new experiences. I just loved all of our tiyulim. Whether it was hiking up Masada, floating in the dead sea, or walking through the Machne Yehudah Shuk. Seriously, every trip I went on grew my love for Israel and my passion for travel.

I never could have imagined how much the teachers had an impact on me. My Israeli Studies teachers were unlike anybody I have ever met before. You can tell by just speaking to them once, that they truly have a passion and care about what they’re doing. They taught me so much about Israel and history. They are filled with so much knowledge and just a genuine love for Israel and teaching. I have never had a teacher so hands on and active in supporting students. It will be a major shift when I get back to my school at home. 

I also never ever could have imagined that I would meet my long-lost sisters in Israel. I went in not knowing a single soul and came out with a 2nd family. Really it wasn’t just my inner circle of friends that I am referring to, our entire group became a family. We all went through so much together. We laughed like a family, ate like a family, slept like family, fought like a family, and cried like a family. I truly found my people.

Now that I am home, a couple of questions I have been asked repeatedly are, “Did you feel safe during the war?”  and I will sometimes get, “How did your parents let you go to Israel?” My answer every time is, “I have never felt safer.”  It is 100% true. Yes, there’s certainly a war while I was in Israel, but I genuinely have never felt more protected, comfortable and safe. It’s amazing as it’s so hard for someone back in the US or elsewhere to fathom this. A big difference between Israel and the US is that everyone after high school is required to enlist in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). It’s a citizen army made up of everyone from teachers, college students, bankers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters… everyone is there for one reason and one reason only, not because they love war, they don’t; rather because they dedicated to protecting their loved ones which means there is the genuine love Israeli’s have for their country and people, whether they are Jews, Christian, Arabs, Druze or any other citizen. They all truly want to serve and protect their home, because if they don’t do it, who will? This is something I have never seen before in the US. Most Americans have become used to the luxury of other people doing things for them, such as the military or police forces. Why should we have to protect or home when we already have people protecting us is the common thinking in the US? Being in Israel that whole ideology shifted for me. People are proactive, they fight for what they need, they earn it, and they don’t give up. There isn’t a luxury to be passive in a neighborhood surrounded by enemies who actively call out the extinction of an entire country. Knowing how strong the IDF is, I felt safe. I also felt protected as I was around people of my own tribe 24/7. I never felt like I had to be ashamed like many Jews on college campuses feel today or actively try hide the fact that I was Jewish. I never needed to tuck my Jewish jewelry into my clothes.  This feeling of safety and being protected just made me even prouder to be who I am, how I was born and what responsibility this carries as there are only 15M of us. I honestly felt safer in Israel during a war, than the US in normal times. Now during my time there, we did have one siren and one scare, and YES in the moment it was very scary. An adrenaline rush I have never experienced before. However, we were totally okay. We went to the bomb-shelter and waited 10 minutes, and life moved on! Israel truly as a country is so strong and moves on. Literally, rockets can be flying one hour and the next you continue your life. It just taught me, that if you fall, you must just get right back up. If you have been blessed with a life, then live it to its fullest and never allow anything, or anyone to hold you back or try and keep you down

Overall, Israel was literally the best thing that ever could have happened to me. I found myself, found my people, and found my love for the amazing country we call Israel. I really want every Jewish teen to know about this program, Alexander Muss because it gave me a type of independence and confidence that I could have never gained elsewhere. I will forever be grateful for my parents for telling me about this program, supporting me to go, especially during a trying time, and for allowing me the opportunity to understand and appreciate Israel. 

Thank you to everyone who followed along my journey and life abroad, it was seriously the best time of my life. 

Xoxo,

Izzy