My Experience on Oct 7

On Oct 6 in Israel, I went to a sex & love party.?

It was a beautiful night.?

A free space with so much kindness.?

I swam naked & had one beautiful connection after another.?

It was surprisingly wholesome & nurturing.?

I left 5am-ish with a bisexual guy I was (sorta) dating there.?

Feeling the goodness of humanity.?

I got home around 6 am.?

Lying in my bed naked, reflecting, grateful.?

I couldn’t sleep, I was buzzing with joy.?

Half an hour later, a siren goes off.?

My roommate Hadar knocks on my door, yells “Paloma get up, let’s go!”

I throw on a dress, run with her down the street to an underground parking lot we use as shelter.?

An Israeli woman is inside sobbing.?

It was my first time running into a shelter.?

The second & third time it was with my mom.?

Hearing loud bangs outside while we covered our heads.?

People in the stairwell crying.?

10 mins later, we go back to our place.?

We sit on her bed & watch the news.?

She’s translating from Hebrew. She’s shocked.?

But speaking calmly.?

“There’s going to be a war. It’s never happened like this before. They took 250 people.”?

Minutes later, she was packing up.?

She was in the army & had to leave.?

It all happened so fast. She said “You should go to your mom. You should be together right now.”?

I grabbed a few of my things, went to my mom’s place, scared.?

Two days later, me & mom went to the airport. Without a ticket & ready to go anywhere.?

4 hours of waiting in line & nothing.

My sis got us tickets to Greece. We leave. Thank God.?

(Many couldn’t.)?

A woman in line in front of us in the airport holds her phone.

I remember her voice. She’s shocked. She says “Oh god!” She’s about to cry.?

My heart drops. I’m scared. My friend Yovel told me they might shoot rockets at the airport soon & I’m?

Holding my breath, trying to act strong with my mom.?

“They got into the Kibbutz. They k*lled 1200 people.”?

We leave to Thessaloniki.?

In Greece, I’m a zombie. I feel lost.

I had spent 9 months in Israel, in the deepest peace & joy I’ve ever known.?

I met incredibly deep, beautiful soulful humans. I have never been more proud to be Jewish.?

(Do NOT assume that you know what someone’s political beliefs are based on their religion.?

On average, Jewish/ Israeli people are so pro-humanity & they want peace more than you know.)

I felt what “family” was for the first time on a soul level. It healed me in many ways. I cried of joy a few times a week.?

I belonged & I understood why in Canada, for most of my life, I felt disconnected.?

I left most of my stuff behind.?

The next months were so scary & strange.

All the people that were very vocal in other social movements?were very quiet when it came to the Jewish people.?

When Jewish people were murdered, s@xually assaulted, harmed in the highest numbers since the Holocaust, silence and “What abouts.” Some kind messages from friends.?

To make sure I was okay. But publicly, quiet. It was devastating. It felt so isolating and it has for the last year.?

I always had things to say but almost never posted. It is gut-wrenching to see people you considered?

Friends gaslight & deny your real suffering. It’s not worth it for my nervous system.?

But today I had to say something. Silence is painful & speaking about it is painful too.?

Here's what I so badly want to share with you, my community, my friends:

It is not a zero sum game. Everyone’s suffering is real. And my suffering is not invalidated by another’s.?

People were saying horrible shit in the comments & I didn’t have a desire to fight.?

(I am too tired to do back & forth tug of wars in the comments & won’t. If you’re going to say something unempathic,?please don’t bother, just delete me.)?

I cannot speak for everyone right now. I only represent myself.

There's a lot that I don't still understand either.

But what I can say for sure is that?Jewish people are exhausted from surviving in a hostile climate & have been for centuries.?

Words were thrown around like “col*nizer” “g*nocide” “apartheid” from millennials who watched a couple TikToks.?

The misunderstandings & stereotypes are circulating faster than we can correct them.?

“All Jews are wh*te, rich, powerful, with money.”???

I don’t have time to debunk all the bullshit (nor should it be my job, too much emotional labour). But please, learn. I have Iraqi Jewish cousins I sat with on Passover that you’d never look at & call “white.” Israeli Jews come from a wide range of backgrounds—the majority (approx 52%) are Mizrahi or Sephardi Jews, from Middle Eastern and North African countries.

I am so tired of the ways North American rhetoric of “whiteness” is being imposed on/ falsely projected onto this region.?

“Whiteness" being associated with privilege, power, and being the colonizer, etc When these assumptions are imposed onto the Middle East, it’s not only inaccurate, it oversimplifies the region’s complex history. This? American paradigm doesn’t fit here. Although those who jump on the bandwagon without understanding history think it’s obvious & simple. It’s not.?

Even after taking a full Israel-Palestine class in grad school, it’s still not easy to understand.?

I remember saying to my Jordanian friend last month, “if we were to swap social media feeds for a week, we’d have totally different experiences.”?

Do not expect an unbiased newsfeed.?

Globally, Jews make up just 0.2% of the population—about 15 million people. As a minority, you'll naturally hear less of our stories and perspectives. Is it possible that your social media may feed you one voice more loudly? You may not hear as many Jewish perspectives.?

Sidenote: I highly recommend everyone follow Elica Le Bon on Instagram, a brilliant Iranian woman, advocate, lawyer, who articulates & understands this all better than I ever could.

She is pro-humanity. Powerful.?

Later, my mom & I went to Portugal.

Graffiti’d outside our Airbnb, it said in Portuguese “Send the Jews back to Germany.”?

In Toronto, I see antisemitic graffiti everywhere. I don’t feel safe here.

I don’t feel at home here.?I saw a bunch of police rush towards a protest yesterday & I wondered if I was safe. I almost walked back home.

My dad left Romania as a 20 year old. He never returned because of the traumatizing anti-semitism.?

He was called horrible names as a kid for being Jewish.

My grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, never recovered & screamed with nightmares at night.?

What is most devastating is the dehumanization.?

This is not a team sport where you pick sides, throw on a jersey & root for one team.?

This is humanity.

A lot is at stake right now. More than you know.?

We are all one, even if we don’t act like it.?

I see people falling prey to…

-Division

-Dehumanization?

-Us vs. Them Thinking?

-Polarization?

-Propaganda?

-Denial & Gaslighting?

There is so much suffering right now. The more sensitive you are, the more you’ll feel the heaviness & pain.

I pray for Israelis, for Palestinians, for Egyptians, for Lebanese, for everyone else in harm’s way.?

We are all grieving.?

The heartbreak comes in many forms.?

I’ve been hurt by my peers’ incapacity to hold two or more truths at once.?

This is a basic skill of empathic human relating.?

Two different perspectives can both hold truth simultaneously.?

I KNOW. Mind-blowing. But true.?

Myself & most of my Jewish friends have felt so denied, gaslit.?

We’ve lost many friends. It feels shitty.?

We’ve been trying to say “we’re hurting” while others explain why we don’t have a right to….

"Compared to….."?

"Whataboutism" is a tactic used to deny one’s truth by comparing it to another’s.

Even in pain myself, I hold space for the pain of others.?

When we express pain as Jews over violence or antisemitism, and someone responds by saying "what about X?”, making it a numbers game—it creates a dangerous comparison that invalidates centuries of legitimate pain.?

This type of response is an empathic failure.

Because it dismisses the pain of one group by comparing it to another’s, rather than acknowledging both sides' legitimate suffering with compassion.

This kind of thinking is problematic for several reasons:

It suggests that one group's suffering negates or overshadows the suffering of the other. A false dichotomy.?

As though only one side's pain can be acknowledged. This is bullshit.?

In reality, both Jewish and Palestinian suffering is so painfully real (and some would say more similar than different, we are cousins), and both deserve empathy and recognition.?

It is not a zero-sum situation where YOU the audience must judge & choose which sides gets to be in pain.

Responding to anyone’s pain with "what about...?" dismisses their feelings rather than acknowledging them.

You cannot keep invalidating others & see yourself as pro-humanity. I have spoken with Palestinian people, Lebanese, Egyptian, Jordanian and I ask questions; I humble myself, I listen, I keep my heart & mind open. I am not scared to acknowledge their real pain. It’s not either/ or. It’s both/ and.?

When you share personal pain, it's not about comparing losses. It’s about feeling with. About recognizing the humanity in that pain. All our grief is valid.?

Whataboutism shuts down meaningful conversation. It prevents the opportunity for healing, understanding, solidarity. IT ROBS us of potential unity. It creates division. It implies there’s some competition in suffering. Do NOT make us compete. We are busy trying to physically & spiritually survive this disturbing moment in history.?

This rhetoric dehumanizes both sides by reducing complex histories to statistics, rather than engaging on the emotional level.?

Both Jewish and Palestinian communities are in pain (and other parties), and the only loving thing to do is to honor the legitimacy of each group's experiences without diminishing the other’s.

It is so dangerous to dehumanize anyone.?

History shows us again & again.

I see people acting out of the pain of their unmet needs.?

Let us grow in our consciousness. Understand our motivations better.?

Let us not discharge our pain onto each other & use it to create division.?

I know it can feel better to externalize, project, blame. But ultimately, the heroes will choose to feel their feelings.

Find ways to love & show compassion. A beautiful woman in our community offered me a free healing session?

When I got back from Israel. The rhetoric about not believing women who had been subject to sexual violence?was re-traumatizing & triggering to me. I used it to heal. That session was meaningful to me.?

A way to show love without picking sides.?

When I see people perpetuating hatred (in any demographic) I see people trying to get their needs met.?

Trying to discharge their pain. Trying to diffuse their trauma energy in destructive ways.?

I've come to understand: Hatred is strangely not personal.

I think people don't know where to put their pain.

JVN posted this morning warning us against “Blaming specific groups of people and attempting to get the majority of society to view them as threats rather than as humans…”?

Instead of coming to fast conclusions based on social media posts, please suspend your conclusions.?

Get curious. Talk to people directly affected & hear their stories. Not to judge but to feel WITH us.??

Humble yourself. It’s not a simple black & white issue. There is oppression & victimization on “both” sides.?

?Last night on a walk, I talked with God & prayed. Couldn't stop crying.?

My dance group went for Thai food. I was at dinner; I had to leave early because my heart was hurting.?

I couldn’t fake smile or small talk.?

Last night, a beautiful Egyptian woman and I hugged in the streets.?

I had seen her a few times before & we stopped. Both shared that our hearts hurt.?

We talked about our pain & both prayed for peace.?

I wasn't so much of a praying person before.

But on the second night of sirens, I did. I couldn't sleep, lying on the floor of a beautiful religious Jewish family who took me & my mom in because their building actually had a b*mb shelter.

I visualized all of humanity holding hands.

I prayed for all of us, the ones hurting and the hurt (same thing?).

That was all I could do. See a better vision & hold it.

The message that I really want help spreading is that "We cannot let our pain lead us to us vs them thinking. Compassion & curiosity & empathy are key tools of peace right now. We must be unwilling to dehumanizing each other."?

Anyone who is willing, please share the message that we can't dehumanize each other, not Jews, not Palestinians, not black people, not LGBTQ people, now or ever, we won't be divided & turned against each other, even when we have strong differences in perspective. We will retain our humanity. That would be most meaningful.?

The grief has been insurmountable in the last year. 101 hostages remain to this day in unfathomable suffering in captivity in Gaza (if they are alive).

I pray for them every night before bed. I send them love, protection, strength. I am finding sleep very hard. Harder than usual. It feels so isolating.?Scary.

We must hold a vision of peace. Even when it seems unimaginable. How will we all collectively heal? I have no f*cking clue. My heart is broken too.

The tragedies are complex & endless. For those in North America who aren’t directly involved, please avoid jumping to conclusions. Please stop assuming it’s simple & everyone who doesn’t agree with your simplistic conclusions must be an idiot. It’s not black & white.

Humble yourself. Act in love, empathy, curiosity. Listen to people’s firsthand stories.

Do not villainize. Seek to understand, even that which boggles your brain.?

Many of us are not okay. If you are not okay right now, I see you.?

To those whose hearts are broken today, I am with you.?

May we all find peace & unity. Do not let them separate us.?

Us vs. Them is not the truth.?

Love is the truest thing.?

Prayers for peace to every human.

Let’s be crazy enough to imagine peace.?