ISRAEL: A NEW GENERATION HAS LOST IT INNOCENCE. IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF.

"Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins." - Psalm 74, A Maskil of Asaph

Last week I visited the rooftop of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem with my sister and nephew and looked out on the Old City of Jerusalem, its long history of civilization and barbarity heaped upon itself.

We saw Mount Zion, where Jesus ate his last supper and where King David is said to have been buried, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque of the Muslim people, the Via Dolorosa, where Jesus walked before his murder. We toured archaeological digs beneath this city which have unearthed vast ruins of the second temple of my people, the Jews, which was destroyed by Romans not long after they killed Jesus.

My grandfather, named Israel, died at the King David hotel. A Holocaust refugee who came to America from Germany in 1939 with nothing, his last wish was to see his sister in the Middle East; they had been separated after the rise of Nazis. A religious man, he also wanted to see Mount Zion, where the Psalms of the bible tell us God himself once resided. My father took his father there, and after seeing his sister and this holy place, my grandfather Israel went to sleep in the King David Hotel and never woke up.

My father, Joseph, was a child of the Holocaust. His family was separated for three years and reunited in America penniless and broken. My grandmother Anna lost her mental health in the trauma. Israel and Joseph sold eggs and newspapers in the street to makes ends meet. Joseph went on to become a cardiologist. He died in March at the age of 92, after diagnosing his own heart attack in the ambulance.

I wanted to honor him by visiting the place where he last saw his own father alive.

I always see something new when I visit Israel. Two developments struck me this time.

First, the country is so young. My plane, right before the holiday of Sukkot (a celebration of the gathering of the harvest), was packed with young religious families dressed in black and toting lively bands of children and strollers. The streets of Tel Aviv - a bustling beach town that reminds me of Miami - were packed with beautiful young men and women in their 20s and 30s, sporting hip tattoos, riding around on "Lime" scooters and driving a vibrant tech economy.

The age of the average Israeli is 30.4 years, much younger than many other countries. In the U.S. it is 38.5 years, China 38.4, U.K. 40.6, Germany 47.8, Japan 48.6. ??

The second thing that struck me was that the country was at war with itself over a prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, who in my opinion has been in power too long. Organizations become complacent when one person won't relinquish control. Bibi's proposed reforms to Israel’s Supreme Court would diminish its powers, a source of considerable angst for Israelis when I was there. A prospective peace deal with Saudi Arabia offered hope for a brighter future, yet political protest had become a new daily ritual. In normal times such ferment might be a sign of a healthy democracy at work, but the country’s guard was clearly down.

I returned to the U.S. last week, a few days before the attacks we are all now witnessing daily. I am sickened by the cold-blooded slaughter of innocents by an army of evil Hamas murderers, for whom it seems, by their own choosing, there can never be peace. We have seen the stories of their barbarism, those poor kids at a music festival that was too close to Gaza, elderly men and women gunned down on buses, children murdered before their horrified mothers. It sickens me even more to think that what we haven’t seen is far worse.

I grieve for the young people of Israel. A new generation has lost its innocence.

We all have our stories of dispossession. I understand and respect them. My own history tells me this above all else. We will defend ourselves. I grieve, also, for those who do not understand or accept this and have yet to bear the consequences.