On Sept. 15, I stood on a hilltop at Banias Church in northern Israel, surrounded by 1,200 Israeli flags. Each represented someone murdered on Oct. 7, 2023. I thought about how easily a number can hide the people behind it. Every person had a family, a future, and a place in someone else’s life. Those places are still empty.
As a Jewish person and an Israel Defense Forces reservist, I looked across those flags and saw Christians remembering people from my country whom we had lost. The Star of David, which Jews have been targeted for wearing, stood openly on church grounds. People of another faith had made space for our loss in their own community. Those flags told me that our grief mattered to them, and that we did not have to carry it alone.
