
When I boarded the plane from Israel to the United States a few weeks ago, I came with a certain level of emotional armor. It’s been over twenty months since October 7th — and in that time, we’ve all seen the headlines, the protests, the mobs tearing down posters of kidnapped Jews. I expected tension. Side-eyes. Maybe even open hostility. Especially as someone who walks around visibly Jewish and proudly so.
But so far, what I’ve experienced has been… different.
At a roadside rest stop on the way out of New York, I looked around the line and caught myself wondering: how many of these people hate me and I just don’t know it? Yes, there were a few glares. But no slurs. No incidents. Just people waiting for their coffee.
And then, a few days later, I met Mark — the owner of a small berry farm in Vermont. A farmer by day, a police officer by night, and a rescuer of abused and neglected animals in between. A good man. And, unexpectedly, a deep lover of Israel.
We got to talking. Mark told me that before October 7th, he was neutral. But after watching a documentary about the atrocities of that day, something inside him shifted. It led him to dig into his family’s history — and what he discovered floored him: his father’s side were Jews who escaped Nazi Germany and survived in France.
He’s now on a mission. Learning about Israel. Learning about Judaism. Reconnecting with a part of himself he never fully understood until now.
Of course, these moments don’t erase the reality of antisemitism. Far from it.
In the last twenty months, we’ve seen Jewish students barricaded inside university libraries while anti-Israel mobs screamed outside. Synagogues defaced in Los Angeles and Montreal. Jewish-owned businesses vandalized in New York. A professor at Stanford separated Jewish students into a corner and accused them of “genocide.” An elderly Jewish man was killed in broad daylight in California for holding an Israeli flag. Israeli artists have been deplatformed. Orthodox Jews assaulted in Brooklyn. Pro-Hamas rallies on the steps of city halls and the lawns of Ivy League schools.
And just down the road from Mark’s quiet little farm in Vermont, I saw a large Palestinian flag waving from a barn — a bold symbol of either ignorance or hostility. A reminder that the hate is never far away, even in the most peaceful of places.
We all know the stories — too many stories — of Jews harassed, spat on, beaten, silenced, dehumanized. The hate is real. It’s loud. And it’s growing.
But it’s not the whole story.
Because there are also people like Mark. People waking up. People asking questions. People realizing, maybe for the first time, that the Jewish story — the Israeli story — is their story too. That our survival isn’t a political talking point. It’s a miracle.
This trip hasn’t unfolded the way I expected.
So far, instead of hostility, I’ve encountered moments of unexpected connection. Instead of fear, glimpses of hope.
And even now — maybe especially now — those moments matter.
We should welcome them. Cherish them. But we must not be ignorant.
Because the danger still exists — and pretending it doesn’t only makes it worse.
Even in a dark world, light still breaks through.
Sometimes in a berry field.
Sometimes in a conversation.
Sometimes in a stranger’s silence.
But it breaks through.