How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Israel

Israel doesn’t need my worry; it needs my solidarity, my support, and my love. It needs me to celebrate its successes, and to believe in its capacity for resilience and renewal.

photo: Jewish National Fund USA

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October 7th changed everything.

In a matter of hours, the unthinkable happened: The veneer of invincibility surrounding Israel (a scrappy nation of startups and unmatched defense systems like the Iron Dome) cracked wide open.

And for those of us who have long worried about Israel — its future, its politics, its moral standing in the world — the events of that day demanded a painful recalibration. It was a moment of horror, clarity, and perhaps, paradoxically, relief.

Let me explain.

I have worried about Israel for as long as I can remember. It’s an inherited condition, really. My parents worried about Israel, their parents worried about Israel, and so on, all the way back to the desert where, presumably, the Israelites worried about Israel before it even existed.

The shape of the worry has shifted over the years — existential threats, demographic challenges, moral dilemmas, global reputational issues — but the underlying anxiety remained constant. What will become of this tiny nation, this improbable experiment in sovereignty, perched precariously on the edge of every precipice imaginable?

But October 7th did something strange to my worry. It made it ... unmanageable. The sheer horror of the attacks, the devastating loss of life, the brutality visited upon civilians — it overwhelmed every framework I had for fretting over Israel. Suddenly, worrying seemed insufficient, even absurd. What good is worrying when the unthinkable has already happened?

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The Weight of History

Of course, worrying about Israel has always been about more than the present moment. It’s about carrying the weight of history, a weight so dense it sometimes feels like it’s made of stone tablets — or perhaps the rubble of all the temples we’ve ever lost.

To care about Israel is to inherit a bundle of contradictions: ancient history and modern innovation, profound moral ideals and messy realpolitik, victimhood and power. It’s like being handed a suitcase that contains both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the latest surveillance drone, then being told: “Here, this is yours to protect.”

And just when you think you’ve figured out how to carry it, someone adds a menorah, a copy of the “Startup Nation” book, and a fresh pile of geopolitical analysis. The whole thing teeters under the weight of its paradoxes, but somehow, it never quite topples.

Yet history also provides perspective, even if it’s not the most comforting kind. The story of the Jewish People is one of resilience in the face of catastrophe, of rebuilding from ashes, of stubbornly insisting on survival when logic would suggest otherwise. It’s the story of a people who have not only endured exile, persecution, and genocide but who have somehow turned those experiences into fodder for reinvention.

In the weeks following October 7th, as Israel grappled with its trauma and began to respond, I realized that my worry might be misplaced. Not because the dangers had lessened — they hadn’t — but because worry presumes fragility, and fragility isn’t a word that applies here. This is a nation built by people who survived the Holocaust, who stared into the abyss of annihilation and decided: “No, thank you. We’ll pass.”

They emerged from concentration camps and displaced persons camps, from bombed-out shtetls and burning cities, to build a state in the face of impossible odds. They dug irrigation systems into the desert and built a vibrant democracy where arguments are practically a national pastime.

If there’s one thing Jews are good at, it’s figuring out how to adapt, resist, and endure. It’s not just a skill; it’s an art form, honed over thousands of years. Whether it’s finding new ways to grow food in barren soil or turning centuries-old prayers into pop songs, there’s an unrelenting creativity to Jewish survival. And it’s not limited to Israel — this spirit exists wherever Jewish life persists, a collective refusal to give in to despair.

So yes, the challenges facing Israel today are immense — existential, even — but they are not unprecedented. Every page of Jewish history is a testament to the improbable, to the triumph of life over destruction, of hope over hopelessness. To worry excessively, I realized, is to underestimate this legacy of resilience. It is to forget that, while the Jewish People have often walked through fire, they have also built something remarkable from the ashes every single time.

Israel, for all its flaws, contradictions, and complexities, is an extension of that legacy. It is not perfect — nothing born of human hands ever is — but it is profoundly alive, defiant, and endlessly capable of reinvention. So perhaps my worry isn’t what Israel needs. Perhaps what it needs is my faith — not only in the religious or spiritual sense, but also in the simple belief that a people who have overcome so much can and will do it again.

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Embracing the Chaos

One of the more surprising lessons of October 7th has been the necessity of humor — not as a way to minimize the tragedy, but as a way to survive it. When the unimaginable happens, humor becomes a lifeline. It doesn’t erase pain, but it offers a flicker of perspective, a stubborn reminder that even in the darkest moments, there’s still room for humanity.

There’s an old Jewish saying: “If God lived on earth, people would break His windows.” It’s the kind of gallows humor that only a people who’ve spent millennia grappling with existential threats could come up with. It acknowledges an essential truth: Life in this world is messy, imperfect, and often infuriating. The joke works because it doesn’t shy away from life’s absurdities; it embraces them, shrugs, and keeps going.

Israel embodies this messiness in the most extreme way. It’s a place where rockets interrupt tech conferences, where the call to “shelter in place” might find you crouched in the corner of a chic Tel Aviv café, and where air-raid sirens serve as the world’s most grim alarm clocks.

It’s a country of paradoxes: a land where ancient history collides with cutting-edge technology, where Biblical prophecy meets blockchain, and where people who longed for a life of normalcy somehow ended up in one of the least normal places on earth.

This, of course, is part of Israel’s peculiar magic. Even in the midst of mourning, Israelis can’t resist arguing — about politics, society, the best hummus spot, whether Gal Gadot represents the country well enough, or if that new train route is really necessary.

It’s a country where grief and humor often share the same space, not because people don’t take tragedy seriously, but because they know that taking themselves too seriously is a surefire way to go mad.

There’s something profoundly hopeful about this chaotic, irreverent spirit. It’s not a denial of pain but a defiance of despair. It’s the ability to laugh at life’s absurdities even as you face them head-on. It’s the soldier cracking jokes in the trenches, the restaurant casually serving food under the threat of sirens, the comedian turning collective trauma into a shared, cathartic punchline.

This irreverence is also a form of resilience. In a country where people are painfully aware that tomorrow is never guaranteed, humor becomes a way of asserting control over a world that often feels uncontrollable. It’s a reminder that, while tragedy may demand your tears, it doesn’t get to steal your smile.

On October 7th, the world saw Israel shattered. But in the months that followed, the world also saw something else: the unyielding determination of a people who rebuild even as they grieve, who fight even as they mourn, and who laugh even when it seems impossible. This is not the laughter of denial; it’s the laughter of survival. And if that isn’t the ultimate act of hope, I don’t know what is.

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Beyond Worry

So, how did I learn to stop worrying about Israel? By accepting that worry is a luxury, and a selfish one at that. Israel doesn’t need my worry; it needs my solidarity, my support, and my love. It needs me to celebrate its successes, to critique its failures, and to believe in its capacity for resilience and renewal.

Most importantly, I learned to stop worrying by letting go of the illusion that I control anything. Israel will continue to face challenges that defy easy solutions, because that’s what it means to exist in the real world. But it will also continue to surprise, inspire, and endure. It always has.

In the end, worrying is like putting on a raincoat during a hurricane: It makes you feel slightly better, but it doesn’t change the outcome. Instead, I’ve traded my worry for something far more productive: trust. Trust that Israel will find its way, even in the darkest of times. Trust that the Jewish People, with our humor, chutzpah, and endless capacity for reinvention, will rise to the occasion once again.

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