“Hostile aircraft intrusion in Herzliya." The red alert from Israel popped up on my phone. Herzliya. I had to do a double-take to fully comprehend what I had just read. Herzliya. I read that right. Herzliya. My family lives there. The first thing I did was text a group chat of my friends from school, simply looking for people to talk to. None of them are Jewish, but I did not expect what happened next.

"I just got a red alert for where my family is in Israel," I typed out as I continued to shake after reading the news. From Shane: “I feel like Israel has nothing to defend itself from because they keep just blowing up everyone. If you're gonna have such a strong opinion, at least be knowledgeable about it. Like yes, I am pro-PalestinEAn, but I'm not out here attacking Jewish people or people who talk about the October 7th attacks because no matter what, what happened on October 7th was traumatic and horrible. To be pro-PalestinEAn is to ask for the freedom of ALL civilians, Israelis included.”

First off, he couldn't even spell Palestinian correctly. Second, he had no right to come at me like that. Saying that Israel has nothing to defend itself from is completely incorrect and just flat-out wrong. Reading this message broke my heart. Someone I'm close to turning like that and making me feel hated, invalidated, and fearful. How could someone say that Israel has nothing to defend itself from? How could you tell me I'm uneducated? How could you straight up say this in a group chat? Considering this is a topic I'm EXTREMELY passionate about, normally, I would have come back at him with the facts (which, contrary to what he says, I am quite knowledgeable about), but since this was a group chat, I left it alone and didn't respond.

People don't know what they're talking about. Just this morning, I was in the car on the way to school when my neighbor said to me, “Oh my gosh, is that person lost?” She had just pointed at a "Bring Him Home" poster. The world is uneducated, and that's the truth.

I recently read something that said, “Dear world, you've been coming at us for thousands of years. That’s nothing new for us. But you don't get it, you never have... No matter what you do to us, we’ll find the laughter and the joy in life. No matter what you do, we’ll survive, and we’ll thrive! Sorry, not sorry...” This is so true. Was I upset by the text I received? Extremely. Is it going to affect how open I am about being Jewish? Absolutely not.

I wish I could send this article to Shane to try and help him understand what this feels like, but I can't. Shane, if you somehow find this article and read it, I hope you educate yourself and become aware of the realities that Jews all around the world are facing. Those few sentences you sent me hit home and were a direct hit on me and the community I spend most of my time in. I can't even put into words what that made me feel because it's truly a surreal feeling. It’s not easy brushing it off and pretending like it doesn't hurt because the reality is, it does. It hurts A LOT. More than you will ever understand, but I am proud to be Jewish, and that isn't going to change. Ever.

* The name in this article has been changed for privacy reasons.