Ari

My first Israeli friend (Not his name - Exodus spoilers)

Before October 7, 2023, I had never known an Israeli. I am not Jewish, and I have no family in Israel. My connection to Israel was through my Jewish American friends and through the lessons of my father, a Biblical scholar who taught courses on Israel for many years at a small college and took students there. I never could go on one of those trips, but I remember how he came home with sand from the Dead Sea. It was the closest I’d ever been to the Holy Land.

October 7 hit me hard. As a survivor of sexual assault, I was both appalled by the crimes against women and the rest of the world’s denial or obliviousness. I cried in bed for nights on end, unable to sleep, as I imagined the pain of the hostages and their families. I also heard from my Jewish friends in this country as their kids faced bullying due to antisemitism for the first time in school, and as they were afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs in academia, law, or other professions. I had the freedom to speak out, a benefit of being a freelancer. And thanks to Splice Today, I was able to write about what I heard and saw.

I was surprised when my first article on the topic was shared around the world. Suddenly, I had friends in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and places I had never heard of!

I remember vividly the first I heard from my first Israeli friend. He shared the most concise explanation of the conflict I had ever heard. His daughter was in a combat unit and everyone he knew was directly affected by the massacre of October 7, yet he was the least fearful person I had heard from. While my American Jewish friends were understandably afraid and felt alone, he spoke of the strong community of the Israelis. He told me how people were helping each other: building schools in hotels where the displaced were staying, giving food to women whose husbands had been called up to serve so they could have a night off from cooking for three kids, and volunteering in numbers so great that people had to be turned away. The sense of community he described was so far from the loneliness I’d felt since that horrible day in October, living in a neighborhood where “Death to Israel” hangs on posters in the subway and “Hamas” is carved into the sidewalk.

The night after our first correspondence, after a month of crying alone, I suddenly felt something different. Where I had felt weak and helpless, I felt a kind of iron building in my spine. A strength seemed to have been transferred over the miles from Israel to me, and I needed it. I woke up that morning feeling like I had touched the flame of Israel for the first time.

Since then, my friend has become my guide to Israeli politics, the war, and the differences between Israeli and American culture. He was born here, so he understands quite a bit. I have met many other friends in the Holy Land since, and when I finally go I hope to have a lot of lunches and coffee dates and walks and even Shabbat dinners lined up with friends I’ve never met. But my first Israel friend was my introduction to a world that had before that been only fiction.

Thanks to my father, I grew up reading not only history but historical fiction about Israel. I read The Source by Leon Uris, but my favorite was Exodus, with the dashing Ari Ben Cannan. Who does not fall in love with Ari Ben Cannan, the ultimate hero, unavailable though he is until the very last pages?

Fiction is fiction, but today’s world has heroes too. They may not plan clandestine missions (though I wouldn’t put it past him) but they fight in other ways that are more powerful today.

I trust we will meet when I finally make my way to Jerusalem. It may be soon, it may be later, but I will get there.

He did give me one bad piece of advice though. He told me not to try the tahina milkshake at the local Israeli restaurant. I did try it. It was delicious.