Chidush Reflections

The inaugural USY Chidush winter break program in Israel, generously supported by the Jewish Federations of North America and Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael, was a great success!

The program aimed to expose USY teens to everything new in Israel in this historic year. Most of the participants had been to Israel in the past, but not since the devastating events of October 7th and subsequent war. They were highly motivated to see how Israel has changed over this past year and do their bit to help Israel in this challenging time. Below are reflections from some of the teens.

Gabriel Melson, 11th Grade, Tucson, AZ

This trip allowed me to remedy some of the helplessness I have felt these past 400+ days of war and allowed me to see Israel beyond tourism. We spent time in touristy neighborhoods and did some touristy activities, but the trip at its core was premised on giving back. We worked in different settings, but most importantly, we worked for real non-profit organizations daily (except Shabbat). The day we landed, we worked in a factory, stickering bags, filling them with non-perishable grains, and sealing them. The entire group was thoroughly exhausted (we had spent nearly a day traveling), but we felt reinvigorated once we got to this first volunteering part of our trip. We would go on during our time in Israel to organize shipping containers in the south to make the distribution of bedding easier, spend time working in agriculture, and visit sick children from underprivileged nations (organized by Save a Child’s Heart) only a few days later. I had a job to do each day, and my group and I almost always approached these jobs with enthusiasm and drive. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t cover our day in the Gaza envelope in greater detail. The entire day felt like a pendulum. If you were to graph the displacement of a pendulum over time, you would end up with a sine wave. This is the best analogy I have to describe my day in the South: a sine wave. I felt the heights of meaning, happiness, and profound kindness, but in between all of these, there were dips into a negative range–meaningful but hard to face. The day began with our group cheerfully organizing and packing a shipping container. Few of us held heavy-heartedness yet. After packing the container, I asked an Israeli volunteer around my age if there was still an active danger from the Gazan rockets. I won’t forget how his face fell as he answered. There was still an active danger, and living in the South was still challenging. I saw that what was a matter of curiosity for me was someone else’s life, and I had no words except for אני מצטער (I’m sorry). This was my first plunge downward. 

Next, we went to a beautiful outdoor mall in Sderot, and I enthusiastically ordered for my friend and me in Hebrew. We ate outside in the warm, bright sun and could see aspects of the war from smoke on the horizon and a jet dropping an explosive. It didn’t stop us from having a good lunch, though. At the mall, we saw some soldiers in a jeep and gave them a thumbs-up. They pulled over, said we could take a photo, and wished us a Chag Hanukkah Sameach. We thanked the soldiers for everything. I was in a fully joyful headspace once more. 

After lunch, we went to a Gaza overlook and saw the Golani Brigade’s flag (the brigade that has taken some of the heaviest losses this war). The flag was billowing in the breeze, with northern Gaza emanating smoke as a backdrop behind it. It was meaningful to me in a way I can’t describe and am not sure I fully understand. Then we went to the Sderot police station, which had been taken by terrorists on October 7th and held as a terror fort for 48 hours. The police station had been transformed into a memorial and it was emotionally hard to walk through.

After the Sderot memorial, we drove to the Nova site. Seeing Nova was something that all the signs in Israel saying (מה אם זה היה אבא שלך (או בן “What if it was your father or son [taken hostage]?” could not have prepared me for. There was an artillery battery close by firing occasional shots into northern Gaza. The artillery was like the solemn soundoff of guns firing at a military funeral. It shook my soul. It pained our whole group to read about the individual Nova concertgoers, with their passions and aspirations, who were murdered. To see them beyond just a number was a monumental shift and one that for me could only have taken place in Israel. We ended our time at Nova by lighting Yahrzeit candles and singing Hatikvah. I started to understand the resilience required to live in this land and the power of doing so. I will be working this trip out mentally for some time and I’m glad I got to experience it.

Gabrielle Levine, 12th Grade, Brooklyn, NY

Chidush was something that healed me in ways that I didn’t know needed to be healed. Amidst the past fifteen months of war, despite watching it from a distance, the Jewish community and myself have been constantly tested and exhausted from the stress of the situation. But going to Israel over Hanukkah on this volunteer mission reinstated my faith, passion, and love for Israel to a level that I did not know was possible. Between laughing until I got stitches in my sides with new friends and old, spending our days volunteering with incredible organizations helping Israel and the rest of the world, or davening at the Kotel for the first time, there is no better way I could have thought of to experience Israel for the first time. The impact of USY’s Chidush is evident when it comes to how it resonated with every person on the trip. Whether it was their first time or their fifteenth time in Israel, the trip seemed to give them something that they never had gotten from the land before. Without USY, and without Chidush, I don’t know if I ever could have had such a meaningful experience in Israel. Being able to give back to the land from which we all came from despite never being there until now was something that made me feel proud and full of purpose. The group made even the most mundane tasks the most interesting activity in the world, as we collected thousands of grapefruits in the fields or packed boxes of food for Holocaust survivors. When playing with the sweetest children at Save a Child’s Heart, an organization providing free and life saving heart surgery for children from Africa and the Palestinian Territories, I understood just how special this trip was. I got to help others while helping myself, and helping each other. The morale and bond we built on the trip was unlike any other I had ever experienced, especially having only known each other for less than eight days total over the course of the trip. Reflecting on Chidush after almost two weeks have passed, I am eternally grateful for the amazing friends the trip gave me, for the incredible memories of volunteering (and playing wheelchair basketball), and for the connection it gave me to my Jewish identity, one with such clarity that I am still in awe of how in touch I feel with Judaism, Israel, and my roots.