Day 12 - October 18, 2023 - My Name is Sarah and I'm Jewish.

My name is Sarah and I am Jewish.

I did not come to Israel for Zionist reasons.

I never have had any intention of harm or hurt for any human. In fact, I am a huge supporter of basic human rights for any and all human beings.

I came to Israel for the first time in 2009 and was completely ignorant as to what I would see and experience.

I fell in love with Israel for everything it was, wasn't, and dreamed it could be.

I fell in love with being a part of the Jewish people.

I fell in love with a part of myself that I didn't know I was missing before.

12 days ago, my country was viciously, physically, boots on the ground attacked by Hamas.

For 12 days the psychological war fare has been just as crippling as the amounts of lives lost.

The stories.

The videos.

The first hand accounts.

The bodies buried.

The missing people.

Yet here we are and once again Israel is being painted as the agressor. The liar. The only thing standing between Palestinian and Israeli peace.

Stop for a minute and think about me. Think about what you know of me. Think about experiences we've had together in the past. Do the lies sound like something I would intentionally or otherwise be a part of? Is what is being said aligned with what you know of me, my religion, and what I stand for?

My post today feels different. Desperate even. We are at a turning point in history. I am begging you, person to person. Human being to human being to see and try to understand what is going on here even if real information may feel hard to come by.

Perhaps you don't even know what to believe anymore. (Which I can understand.)

Please believe me when I say that the stories I have posted this week are painful and horrific and unbelieveably true.

Hamas is a terrorist organization who's only goal in the annihilation of Israel. Not helping their own people. Not showing love through Islam. Terrorists who would kill you as quickly as they would kill me.

On October 7, in Kibbutz Be'eri, 100 people were slaughtered out of the 1,000 registered residents. That's 10% of their population! My home town of Bakersfield, California has 400,000 residents (according to google) which is an equilvilent of 40,000 human lives brutaly taken. Not soldiers. Not politicians. Men, women, grandparents, children, babies, handicapped, and otherwise were taken, abused, or just murdered (sometimes in front of their families).

Why is it so scary now? Because of the trauma from 90 years ago when the world stayed silent while 6,000,000 Jewish souls were murdered... it feels more fresh and raw than ever before. 12 days ago, 1,400 Jewish lives (civilians) were ripped from our arms like the ghettos of Europe. We heard stories from our grandparents our whole lives about the Holocaust and how many families and loved ones were lost. The atrocities and the terror. We built ourselves back brick by brick, soul by soul.

Now, just 12 days after feeling the love of the world embrace us... it feels like the tables are turning against us.

Why?

Maybe because we have a real army now and are ready and able to defend ourselves?

Maybe because Hamas paints itself as the oppressed and us as the agressors?

or Maybe because we're Jewish and who doesn't like to watch Jews die?

Their PR machiene is better than ours, that I will admit for sure.

But here I am, laying it on the line and asking for your support. I don't need your money or anything material.

I need you to put light into this world. NOW. Like right now. Immediately.

There is too much darkness, hatred and distrust. We must unite. You do not have to unite under the umbrella of the Israeli flag (that's for the nation of Israel living here and abroad).

Instead, let's unite under the umbrella of love and hope... without which we are truly all doomed.

Take time DAILY to do something good for another person. Perhaps someone you wouldn't help normally. Pay it forward. Take time. Pause. Reflect. Breathe. Make empathetic and compassionate decisions while interacting with the world.

The lies will grow and it will make us feel like turning our eyes away, but now is the time for action.

Send love into the universe and we shall all get it back tenfold.

It's not a war of them versus us. It war for the souls of humankind. Will we let the lies, propoganda, and terror prevail? Or will love prevail? I prefer the latter.

One Love.