Being a Jewish student in a world that keeps burning

It was the missile alerts over Tel Aviv that brought it all flooding back.

The shakiness. The tension. The feeling that something is breaking — again.

In recent weeks, as ballistic missiles flew between Iran and Israel, it began to feel like we were living through another October 7. Not the same event. But the same fear. The same sickening anxiety that things are spinning out of control. That Jews, once again, are being told to brace.

The coverage has been relentless — images of oil depots in flames, headlines about nuclear threats and Mossad strikes, a ceasefire reached only after a dozen terrifying days. And layered over all of that is the unsettling sense that the world still doesn’t really understand what this means... for us.

For Jewish students. For young people. For anyone trying to make sense of this moment from within it.

This piece isn’t about government or policy. This is about how it feels to be a Jewish university student right now — watching history unfold in real time, while carrying the weight of personal, generational and communal trauma on your back.

Because while these headlines might feel new for some, for many of us, the sense of existential threat has been simmering since October 7.

That day, something shifted. Something in my being.