March-April 2025

Dear Friends,

Although it’s been a long time (much too long!) since I’ve written here, absence of words does not necessarily mean an absence of actions.

In fact, it’s because of so many actions that I haven’t written.

But that ends right here, right now.

Aside from conferences and seminars, one of the most consequential things I did in recent months was volunteer at the Gaza Envelope, helping to rebuild several of the kibbutzim destroyed on October 7th. Since the war in Israel and Gaza was still very active this past August, it was not unexpected that most of the volunteers had cancelled. When I was volunteering on the Israel side of the Gaza border, there were only three other people, in addition to me.

One (Kolya) was a venture capitalist from Chicago, who had just made aliyah (moved to Israel) and he was now studying Torah at a Jerusalem yeshiva. One (Jacob) was a 3rd year medical from Perth, Australia, who had taken this year off to study Torah at a Jerusalem yeshiva, because—as he explained—once he’s a doctor, he’ll never have a year off from medicine again. By the way, these young men were both studying at a yeshiva named after (and funded) by David Shapell z”l, a survivor whom I not only knew but whom I had interviewed for my book. The third volunteer (Mir) was an interior designer from New York —and here’s an interesting fact: I was more than double the age of all of them!

Professional Israeli contractors taught us how to repair damaged walls, how to caulk, edge and paint them. In the process, we saw firsthand the devastation left behind after October 7th—bullet holes, broken glass, towels still hung on shower hooks, underwear still remaining on the floor. We worked in several kibbutzim, but it was when we were brought to Kfar Azza which, together with Be’eri and Nir Oz, were the hardest hit of all the kibbutzim—it is there that that death felt palpable.

Before we could repair any walls, first we had to clear out all the rooms. We were working in the entrance area, where the Thai workers had lived.

I was put in charge of packing up and boxing the contents of the one area, where anything salvageable had been moved. All the other rooms were emptied entirely of their contents.

Army reservists came to help us clear the area—moving beds, dismantling shelves and emptying the contents of every room. By the time every room was empty, these discards now constituted a mountain of people’s lives.

The people were dead, only their possessions remained.

As difficult as the work was, with long hours, back-breaking work, the emotional strength we needed to muster was much harder.

I feel this has experience changed me in a fundamental way.

Only in the days and years to come, will it be clearer to me exactly how.