London, 7th of October 2023. Waking up, feeling dreadful. Checking my phone. The family group chat is asking about my parents and me. They are asking if I woke up yet, they're asking my Dad for updates. My friend in the UK texted me to ask if I'm ok. My friend in the US texted me to ask if I'm ok. 40 people dead, they say. 40 Israelis and a few tourists, dead. I call my parents. "Mom, what's going on?". Mom says, there has been shootings, and they are waiting for the army to come. Her voice is shaking. I never heard her voice shake before. "Dad, what's going on? Are you ok?" Dad says, don't worry, we are ok, soon the army will come. He is lying, to some extent, he never lies. He wants me to be mentally ok, so he says he's ok when he doesn't feel ok, when he isn't truly safe, but he knows I'm fragile, that's why he's not telling me everything. I respect it so I say "ok, please update me." I look at my boyfriend Zach in bed and say "something really bad had happened in Israel near my parents Kibbutz in the south. I don't really know the details, but I'm going to meet Ella." I know he wouldn't understand, he couldn't understand, there are no words to even attempt to explain. I call Ella. She moved from Kibbutz Gevim to London just last week. She's my only Israeli friend in town. "Ella? We should meet up now" We didn't say why, we didn't know why. We just needed to be together on that day. Central London. We are drinking. The barman looks away when he asks us how our day has been and I ask if he's seen the news. I check my phone obsessively. 121 dead. 140 dead. The number keeps going up, before I have a chance to process. The army didn't come yet. I thought the terrorists were gone by now. I don't know anything. But I'm kinda drunk. I call my family again and again, I check the group chat all of the time. Already people are saying online that this is an act of resistance. Resistance to what? Who even are those strangers? What do they know about my country? Why is the whole world talking about my tiny little Kibbutzim area, my place of peace and calm? Yet, saying things in such a strange tone, with so much misleading sub text? Why are my friends posting things justifying or downplaying the brutality against my own family? Omer is kidnapped, her partner's cousin, my cousin Amit says. Omer Neutra is held hostage. A relative of mine is a hostage. He must come home soon, right? We'll bring him home? Many were taken hostage, we don't know how many yet. I make jewelry, I don't understand. I'm calling Tizian, and Tom, my friends in the US and Germany, as my boyfriend had to go to work, and my other boyfriend doesn't really seem to acknowledge I'm in need of his support on that day and I can't find words to explain. I spend the time until Zach comes home on the phone with my few friends, those who will stay with me from this day onwards. I call my mom, she's still shaking. She says, "the army will come in the next hours." I don't understand why they have not come yet.

8th of October, London. My parents are in Tel Aviv. My brother is so thankful that they are alive and I'm starting to realize that this was in doubt, but still confused. It took about two weeks to understand they could have died that day. More online hate. More and more it's everywhere. Hundreds have died. Over a thousand have died. The rapes, I can't process, my body feels sick, my own rape PTSD is on edge, my severe OCD is starting to obsessively doubt everything. How? Why?

9th of October. Why am I in London. I was looking at flight tickets just a few days ago. So many of my music fans and customers suddenly say my family deserves to die, or sure as hell, my army had no right to respond to this attack. I don't understand why people I trusted want me and my family dead. I don't understand why people I trusted are posting on this event who have not even texted me to check if I'm alive or okay. They are racist. They see me as a lesser person. They are dehuminaizing me. Everyone hates me and my loved ones. Should I hate myself too?

10th Oct onwards. Learning. learning learning and more learning. I know so much more than I have now. Why wasn't I taught about the Farhud, about the massacres against Igbo Jews, and the mechanics of antisemitism worldwide, so I'll have tools to manage my response to it? Now I understand. Online fighting. No one learns. No one cares. Protests, hundreds of thousands of people around the world and in the London streets calling for an intifada. The western queer community overall is not a safe for me anymore.

Vermont. 6th of October 2024. I make jewelry and my small dream business took off, I lost most of my friends. I traveled around the world and still do, yet I became a zionist in love with my homeland and connected with Judaism and my Israeli identity. My parents are grieving, so many deaths of loved ones, friends and their families. The hostages are not all home yet. Omer is not home yet. The hostage girls are still being used as sex slaves as far as we can tell. The war now is with Lebanon's Hezbollah more than Hamas. I was supposed to fly home but I couldn't, the airport closed down. My Dad asked me to stay longer in the states, until the end of the month. I'm happy and in love, I'm heartbroken and devastated. I'm grateful I'm alive, I'm angry that my innocence was stolen from me. I'm not making music yet, although music is my greatest passion and main education, that's what I was doing in London then, but I will get back to it. It's been too hard to make art as emotional as this. I'm not writing much since then. Dad and I speaking about how hard it is to create powerful beauty in times of survival. Jewelry calms me down. There's a river in me, a river of tears I decided to stop crying for the sake of my survival. I survived, after wanting to die for so many months. Antidepressants, I had to, I didn't want to but I had to, and they helped. Ulcerative colitis diagnosis, my body started breaking down due to post traumatic stress. I'm okay now. My mom survived, even if much of her broke on that day. My Dad survived, even though I have never seen a shade of blue as sad as his when he thinks about his students, staff and their families who died a year ago. My brother is strong and we are there for each other. My boyfriends love me. My boyfriends and my family are my everything. I have lost myself entirely. But I have created a better person since then. A bit of light is more powerful than darkness. A Jewish flame is impossible to put away. The diaspora is my family, Israel is my family. We are crying. But we will never stop dancing.

Am Israel chai.
Bring them home, now.

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