The Year That Changed Me

On the anniversary of when everything shattered

Me in Israel at Hostages Family Headquarters in March, making yellow ribbon pins.

A year ago today, I changed.

No longer would I be the person I’d been for 52 years, trusting that the world had woken up, that humans were improving, coming awake, seeing the beautiful connections and similarities between us all.

I sat on the couch, my hand bandaged from a recent surgery, scrolling social media and watching videos of terrorists gunning down young people at a music festival, invading homes of families, driving away with bloodied women in their grasp.

My friend Nicole, a doctor, came over to unwrap my hand and wash away the dried blood.

“Something’s happening in Israel,” I said, “and it looks bad.”

How little we knew.

For a day after thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel’s southern border, massacred 1,200, and kidnapped 250 hostages into Gaza, the world mourned with us, shaking their heads at the horror.

It was Simchat Torah, the final day of the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot, when we were supposed to be dancing in synagogue, reading the words of the ancients, connecting as a loving community.

And then everything got ugly. The world pointed its fingers, saying Israel deserved what it got, blaming the innocent victims. We were reeling from the shock, and world leaders, American college students, mainstream media accused Israel of reaping what it sowed.

For the last year, they’ve cared little about innocent Jews, innocent Israelis, and a lot about innocent everyone-else.

They don’t hate Jews, they say, only Israel. And by association, all of its ordinary everyday people. Because of its monstrous government, they say. It’s occupation, they say. It's power, they say. Its whiteness, they say.

Lies, all lies, and the whole world chanting along, believing anyone but us. I won’t even quote the statistics about how non-white Israelis are, how peace-seeking, how every single country on this planet has questionable, if not blatantly horrible egomaniacs in charge.

A year ago today, I woke up to a nightmare that hasn’t ended. That might never end. That might have always been underlying my reality only I didn’t see it.

The person I was on October 6, 2023 believed in harmony and the possibility of peace and the connections between all living things. The person I became on October 7, 2023 has erased people from my life who echo the terror slogans, who advocate for an end to the only Jewish state in the world, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only safe place for me and my people.

In the past year, I’ve let go of friends, crossed literary publications off my list of potential outlets for my creative work. I’ve started wearing my Jewish star necklaces all the time, proudly and prominently.

In the year after my father died, every essay I wrote ended up being about him. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was how I processed that loss. In the last year, every essay I write ends up being about Israel or antisemitism or both and for the same reason. I am processing the loss of my innocence, or perhaps naïveté.

Once my father left this earth, I could not go back to a time when he was still here. He’s been gone nearly five years, and many days I wish I could call him, tell him something I saw or experienced, ask for his advice.

Similarly, every essay I started to write in the past year ended up being about Israel or antisemitism. Writing is how I process my feelings and experiences, how I figure out what I believe.

When I went to Israel in March, to volunteer and to witness the devastation and to meet with writers, I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. The plane landed and I exhaled. I could say how I was feeling without censoring my words, and people nodded, they got it, they understood, they felt the same way. They weren’t afraid to say loudly, “I am a Jew.”

How lonely I’d been in the wider world. How much I needed connection with my people, with the truth of things.

I almost didn’t write this, for fear of being canceled. But I won’t stop being who I am. This is a newsletter about writing and publishing, and who I am is intimately wrapped up in my author brand. You can’t separate them. And I don’t want to.

I don’t want to pretend to blend.

Today, there are still 100 hostages withering away in the tunnels of Gaza. There are young women who were raped and bloodied and whose welfare we have no idea about. Who might still be at the hands of nefarious men who don’t see them as human, who use their bodies cruelly and crudely. There are two red-headed children in the bowels of a place who might or might not be alive, who might be forever marred, who might not even know they are Jews or that a world is waiting for them to come home.

And yes I know about the high death tolls, and the terrible conditions of Palestinians, and I mourn that, too. Nowhere is a perfect place, and I have no answers. I’m not sure anyone does. But I know that continually pointing fingers, attacking and shouting do no good for anyone.

A writer-friend who is also a sociologist said once that if women were running the world, we wouldn’t see this constant cycle of conflict. I hope she’s right. Maybe there is a chance to end the historical constant of control and conquest.

In recent months, I’ve studied the notion that the one constant in human history is tyranny. Not freedom, not democracy, not access for all.

Before October 7th, I’d thought we were getting better. I believe, still, that there is enough freedom for all to have it.

It’s just, they need to want it.

And maybe I’ve been fooling myself that it’s a natural human impulse to want to think for yourself and run free and have choices.

Life is not easy, but it is beautiful, and I won’t stop writing stories about true love and redemption and second chances. What is life if we don’t have these choices?

I hope one day we can break free of this tyranny of the mind, and live in harmony with a variety of people, with no underlying desire to eradicate anyone who lives or believes differently. I pray for this. And as a rebel by nature, that’s not an easy thing to say.

Thank you for reading Lynne Golodner’s Rebel Author Newsletter. I’ll be back a week from today with another issue, focused on writing and publishing. If you like what you read here, please share it, comment or become a paid subscriber to support a working writer. If there are topics you’d like discussed here, send a message to me!