An Open Letter to Jews in the Diaspora:
You mean well.
We know that. You repost the headlines. You donate, you rally, you cry with us. You have Tehillim sessions, and you send us messages.
But please understand something fundamental: When you say, we know what you are going through – no, you don’t truly understand.
We don’t say that to insult you. We don’t say it to push you away. We say it because it’s true. And until that truth is acknowledged, something essential remains broken.
You don’t understand what it means to be jolted awake at 2:17 AM, heart pounding, dragging sleepy children out of their beds and into the stairwell, or the mamad, or worse—realizing you don’t have a safe room at all.
And then, after the boom, after the “all clear,” after the questions and tears and trembling, you try to put everyone back to sleep. Only to do it again at 4:03. And again at 5:12.
Then, you walk around dragging all day due to a terrible night’s sleep.
While you do understand, because of Covid, what it means to have your kids at home for days or weeks on end, because schools are closed, parks are unsafe, this time there is a fundamental difference. Every potential outing is outing is shadowed by the question: will we make it to safety in time?
You don’t understand trying to work remotely while calming frightened children or trying to preserve some semblance of normalcy in a world that feels anything but normal.
You don’t understand what it means to parent alone for weeks or months, not because of divorce or deployment to another country—but because your spouse is ten kilometers from Gaza, in a dusty tent, eating from cans and praying he makes it home.
You don’t understand the strength it takes for a mother to get through the bedtime routine when the children keep asking, “Will Abba be home for Shabbat?” and she has no answer.
You don’t understand the eerie stillness of a city with half its businesses closed, sirens interrupting meetings, shopkeepers drafted into reserve duty, and neighbours slipping out at 3:00 AM to bury their sons.
You don’t understand the guilt of missing a funeral because there’s no one to stay with the kids, or because you just can’t take one more moment of raw grief.
You don’t understand what it means to hear a name read on the radio—and hold your breath, because you know that family. And that one. And that one.
You don’t understand what it means to live in a world where every birthday party, every wedding, every simcha is held under the shadow of “Who’s missing?”
Or where every conversation begins with “What’s the latest?” and ends with “May it be quiet tonight.”
Your Jewish heart is truly with us. We feel it! We thank you!
But until you’ve watched your child ask why the sky is crying, or stood in the hallway waiting for a boom, or hugged a stranger at a shiva for a soldier who had just gotten married, you don’t really understand.
This is not your fault. It’s the difference between watching a fire and being in the house.
So, keep standing with us. Keep loving us. Keep fighting for us. But know that there is a chasm of experience between us.
So please do not say that you understand.
Because, and I say this with love, you don’t.
