October 7 2026

 October 7, 2023 changed my life forever.

Never did I think I would wake up on Simchat Torah to learn that 1,200 people had been slaughtered.

Never did I think I would spend months watching fellow Jewish people held hostage by a terrorist group while pleading for the world to demand their release.

Never did I think babies like Ariel and Kfir Bibas would be murdered.

Never did I think I would learn which friends stood with the Jewish people, which friends stayed silent, and which wished harm upon us. (True Statement, I had a "friend" who said I deserved to be firebombed for advocating for the hostages.)

I never saw myself as an advocate. Yet every day, I woke up hoping and praying the hostages would come home. Every week, I showed up at Run for Their Lives in Newton because I needed to. I needed my community.

On the outside, life looked normal. On the inside, I was heartbroken.

I kept showing up anyway.

In October 2025, I traveled to Israel to bear witness. I stood in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. I visited Nova. I walked through a kibbutz bordering Gaza where lives were shattered and families were murdered. I lit a candle at Hersh Goldberg-Polin's bomb shelter.

I will never be the same.

As this anniversary approaches, I find myself reflecting on another journey. Just days before October 7, I was preparing to begin my presidency of Hadassah Boston. The world I was stepping into was vastly different from the one I expected to lead in.

I will complete my presidency on December 31, 2026. These years have been some of the most challenging I have ever experienced as a Jew. They have tested my strength, my faith, and my resolve.

But I stood up.

I spoke out.

I showed up.

And while I am proud of that, this anniversary will not pass quietly for me.

Three years later, my heart is still broken