The hidden impact of the war on Israelis

As the ceasefire comes into effect, Israelis are anxiously awaiting the return of the hostages and soldiers will breathe a sigh of relief at the prospect of resuming normal life. But that life has changed, profoundly, in ways that do not get mentioned in the daily headlines about death and destruction. From psychological wellbeing to family relationships, business, the Jewish identity of Israelis and their attitudes to Palestinians, Israeli society has undergone an intense realignment.

These stories that highlight the ways in which Israelis have been affected.

Liora Eilon, Kfar Aza resident

On October 7, my 46-year-old son Tal who was the kibbutz civilian defence commander, was killed in the early moments of the Hamas attack onas he stepped out of his house in Kfar Aza to fight the terrorists that invaded the kibbutz.

After the horror of that day, our whole kibbutz moved to a hotel in Kibbutz Shefaiim, and later to Kibbutz Ruhama, where we are today. My old home in Kfar Aza was recently completely demolished as it was damaged so badly that it couldn’t be repaired like the others. Having been back there many times since October 7, it was very hard to see my home completely destroyed, as it was a place that held so many happy memories for my family.

One of the most important things for me now is my quest to improve the knowledge that secular Jewish Israelis have of our own tradition. I worry that if we don’t return to our sacred texts and know them well, like our secular ancestors did, that the far-right and Orthodox will define our Judaism for us.

Like many kibbutzniks, I grew up very suspicious of traditional Judaism, but since October 7 it has become more important than ever for me to engage Jewish texts with my humanistic values, especially the principles of “love of the stranger” and the innate dignity of all human beings.

Some people think what I’m doing with Jewish texts is important, but they also tell me there are more important things to focus on at this time of war. While I’m well aware of our external enemies, I think we also need to struggle against our internal enemies as well, and secular Israelis won’t be able to win that struggle if we remain ignorant of our traditional texts.

A keyway to build peace is through education. In both Gaza and Israel, we need to change the education system to teach more humanistic values that place the possibility of peace at the heart of our children’s dreams.

I don’t want my son Tal’s death to be in vain. If we don’t build two states here based on liberal values, his death will just be one of thousands of lives that were lost in vain. We can’t let that happen. May his memory be a blessing.

Gila Levitan, owner and manager of Walkabout Israel

Before the war, I was a top-rated tour guide on Trip Advisor, regularly leading tours across the country. My salary was equivalent to a Tel Aviv high-tech income, with my most popular tours being to the Old City of Jerusalem, Masada, the Dead Sea, Akko, and Caesarea. About 60% of my clients were Christians who visited many sites of religious significance across the Galilee and Nazareth.

Since making Aliyah from Sydney in 2005, I have seen many things in this country, but this war has been something else. Shortly after October 7, the whole country shut down because of the missiles coming in from Gaza.

No one thought of income or the economy because we were all just trying to survive and process what had happened. I immediately moved into the house of a friend whose husband had been called up to help look after her three kids, all under five. I also volunteered on some fundraising campaigns to provide for soldiers’ needs.

In 2023, the government said that even though I’m an independent worker (meaning I didn’t have support from an employer), all tour guides would be compensated for lost work. In 2024, this arrangement ceased, leaving me with no income.

When tours gradually resumed, I discovered that no one wanted to see the places I used to guide, as all the Christians had stopped coming due to the impossible costs of travel insurance. The people who boost the tourism industry today are mainly Jews who come on solidarity tours. While I am deeply appreciative of their desire to hug Israel at this time, the focus of their trip on their short visits are kibbutzim and moshavim attacked in the October 7 massacre Sderot and the site of the Nova party.

While I have led a few tours to these places, they are incredibly depressing and not places I would want to work at on a regular basis. The purpose of many solidarity trips is to come to Israel to essentially pay a shiva visit down south to comfort those who have lost so much, but the loss has ripple effects across the country on restaurants, taxi drivers and gift shops. So just being in Israel is important right now.

I became a tour guide because I love the whole country and want to tell our story. While the focus of many is on the south right now, it pains me that tourists don't have the time or are no longer going to the usual sites to experience and see all the beauty of Israel.

With no guiding work, I am now working for an American Jewish organisation that has created a position for me to do social media about Israel and help them with donor relations and educational content. This substitutes some of my income lost, but it is not the same as before.

My hope for the future is that one day, all the tourists will come back, and their desire will be to see this country in all its beauty and complexity as a land that is a tapestry of many faiths buried and alive beyond many layers of history.

Ariela Yakuti, evacuee

I made aliyah 17 years ago from the US. This is the place I met my husband and raised four children. Together, we live in Moshav Avdon, where my husband was born and raised. Close to Nahariya, it’s just four km from the border with Lebanon.

Before the war, I was a therapist teaching social skills to children to improve their ability to work in groups and form friendships. My daughter was meant to have her bat mitzvah on October 9. Our whole family was here from the States. My brother-in-law came to my house on the morning of October 7 to wake me up as I don’t use my phone on chagim. Within hours there was lots of army tanks on the border all around our moshav.

The next day, we were told to leave for our own safety. After a week in Netanya, my husband returned to Avdon to help protect the moshav, and I was moved to a hotel in Jerusalem with the kids.

My husband spent the rest of the war going back and forth between our old home and our temporary home. There were 600 soldiers stationed at Moshav Avdon. Our home was right next to an Iron Dome battery. Every time it fired, the whole house shook. It was frightening.

The government paid the relocation costs for anyone within four km of the Lebanon border. Because my home was beyond the limit by a few metres, the government didn’t pay us compensation. Thankfully, a Christian organisation called FIRM (Fellowship of Israel Related Ministries) paid for my family to stay in [the town of] Malon Yehuda for eight months in the capital. My kids enrolled in Jerusalem schools and really enjoyed their time there.

I worked as a teacher in the ad-hoc hotel school we set up. At the end of the school year on July 1, we all moved back to Avdon. It was very scary. I wouldn’t drive as I didn’t want to be in a car during a siren. There was incredibly loud noise and booms all around us most of the day.

My husband would never go into the shelter during the sirens as he was worried that Hezbollah would use the cover of rocket fire to cross the border and attack our community as Hamas did on October 7.

“This is our country, we should never be afraid here,” he said to me. “We live on the edge of the moshav, and I’m going to stand here to make sure no one is coming.”

Since the ceasefire with Hezbollah, it's been eerily quiet here.  The day before, shrapnel from one of their rockets landed on my car and smashed the sunroof. I was very lucky not to be in there at the time. That ceasefire doesn’t feel real. More like a pause before the next round. Like we are giving time for Hezbollah to rearm.

Many people in the north were against the Hezbollah ceasefire. Who knows what will happen when the 60-day pause is up. For now, my life has semi-gone back to normal. There are no more soldiers guarding our community at the gate which worried me. Everything has returned to as it was, but we are still not fully safe here.

I really want to believe my government knows what they are doing when they agreed to this ceasefire. But after October 7, there is a big feeling that you can’t trust anybody in power.

Shelly Hartstein, bride

I live in Ra’anana (central Israel), where I work in marketing and advertising. My husband Liad is a dental student. We had been together for eight years before the war, and moved in together a year and half ago.

We were in no rush to get married but knew it would happen one day. On October 8, Liad was called up to serve in Gaza. Aged 27, he served for three months with his unit until January 2024. The day after he was released from reserves, I planned to take a trip to Rome with him.  Little did I know that he had also purchased a ring the day he left the army. He proposed to me by the fountain in the majestic Piazza del Popolo. It was so romantic and special.

We set a date to be married on October 16, hoping that by then the war would be over and all the hostages would be home.

A week before our big day, he was again sent a draft notice to serve in Lebanon. We faced a big dilemma. On one hand, postponing a wedding leads people to ask all sorts of uncomfortable questions. On the other hand, there was no way Liad could get married without all his friends there from his unit, who are like family to him. I also knew that one can’t go straight from a war zone to a wedding party, and that one needs to have time to decompress between the two. 

So he went to Lebanon, and I then called each and every one of the suppliers we had booked. We knew this was always a possibility. I guess that’s what happens when one plans a wedding during a war.

We set a new date for November 28. As luck would have it, a ceasefire with Lebanon came into effect on November 27. It felt serendipitous, like a sign that there needs to be a taste of peace at the moment we are married.

Under the chuppah in Caesarea, we both said an emotional prayer calling for the return of the hostages. We each spoke about how the past year made us learn new things about the other, and most importantly, to never take the presence of the other in our lives for granted.

I kept pinching myself every time I thought about how crazy it was that we cancelled a wedding during a war, only to hold one a day after a ceasefire. Hopefully, our actions for each other and the country will one day lead to us and future children living here in peace.

Rabbi Yael Vurgan, rabbi to “Gaza envelope” communities

Over the past six years I've served communities along the Gaza border as the rabbi of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. The populations of the 10 kibbutzim I work with are mainly secular. For many residents, their connection with our religion is complicated. The kibbutz communities have created their own versions of some Jewish festivals to reflect their belief in humanity and the values of justice, freedom, and creativity.

These include the collective kibbutz seders with an alternative Haggadah, the celebrations of Shavuot to commemorate the fruits of their land and hard work, or the Rosh Hashanah ceremonies which focus on the theme of renewal, rather than prayer services.

One community I have worked quite closely with is that of Kfar Azza. They lost 64 people on October 7. Not a single person in the kibbutz was untouched by this trauma. After October 7 they moved as a group to Kibbutz Shefayim and are now moving again to Kibbutz Ruchama in Shaar HaNegev.

About a month ago, I received a call from a bereaved father from Kfar Azza, who was one of the first to move into the new neighbourhood in Ruchama. He asked if we could arrange mezuzot for 220 families.

A mezuzah costs around 200NIS a piece for the parchment, so we raised money and purchased one for every family. Next month, there will be a joint ceremony for all the families where the new mezuzot will be placed on their doors. Like a Sefer Torah, a mezuzah is a symbol of connection to Jewish tradition. And like the Torah, many residents have mixed feelings towards this religious item.

On the one hand, our tradition teaches us that this holy parchment is meant to provide protection to all who dwell in the doors behind which it is affixed. That clearly didn’t happen on October 7 when this community was abandoned by those meant to protect them. 

So what can I say at the ceremony to affix new mezuzot? I don’t know. It’s a dilemma. How can I teach about the holiness of the mezuzah as a symbol of protection at this time?

For some people, October 7 brought them closer to tradition. The mezuzah is an anchor that connects them to an ancient tradition that is a deep part of their Jewish and Zionist identity.  

Maybe affixing a mezuzah to their doors anew is an expression of a wish that this new home will be protected like their old one wasn’t? Or perhaps it is a symbolic act that says the Jewish religious tradition, which has often troubled us, can also be a source of comfort and hope at this time. 

Beyond serving this community, I also spend much time outside the Knesset at the tent where protesters are demanding a hostage deal. There are about 20 people there every day. They live in a large tent and are there 24/7, in the heat, cold, rain, together and alone. Many are on a hunger strike, yet most Israelis ignore them.

Sometimes haredim walk past our tent. Like Chabad offers strangers the opportunity to partake in the mitzvah of tefillin, I sometimes approach haredim and ask them to partake in the mitzvah of pidyon shivuiim (redemption of captives), which is one of the most important commandments in our tradition.

They often respond with a look of bewilderment, explaining they had already prayed that morning for the hostages. I tell them that sometimes prayer is not enough and that actions are also required.

If there were 1000 people in this tent every day instead of 20, the government would pay more attention to us. This hostage tent needs to be filled with people from all political persuasions.

Like the mezuzah on the door of the October 7 survivor, we must all take action to promote what is in the common good for the protection and sustenance of Israelis, for the Palestinians, for the hostages and for peace.