‘It was like God was crying.’ David Edwards ’20, Yeshivat Orayta, Jerusalem

Tali Liebenthal for the Boiling Point: What program are you on and where is it located?

David Edwards: Yeshivat Orayta is right in the Old City. From our dorms we can see right into Har Habayit [the Temple Mount], directly onto it. So I’ve been seeing everything. On our balcony, just out of the dorms, you can see everything — you can see fully all the way out to Sheikh Jarrah, the neighborhood that’s been problematic. 

I vividly remember two nights ago just sitting there in the dark, at night. We sat there for just a few hours on the balcony just watching everything happen, and I saw the Yom Yerushalayim dancing. From what it looked like for me, Palestinians fired a firework into the tree, and [then there was] fire glowing on the tree. I imagine the only time there was a fire like that recently was when the temple was destroyed. 

And it was really tragic, you know — Palestinians got dispersed from the Temple Mount, tons of stun grenades and loud explosions, sounds from the stun grenades, and fireworks. You could see the piles of rocks also, on top of the stuff and around. It was really tragic, and then just after that just the whole… feeling of watching, on Yom Yerushalayim, hearing all these sounds. Also one thing you don’t realize is that you see the flashing lights, and then three seconds later there’s an explosion.  It’s like, you’ll see four flashes on Har Habayit, and then it’s just they echo.

It’s really just crazy seeing all around Jerusalem, the Old City, all that’s happening on Yom Yerushalayim. The only way I could describe it was like God was crying. It was just so, so, tragic, and you just think why is all of this happening. So that was what happened last night.

BP: How has your life changed in the recent days that this has been going on?

DE: Besides for thinking that Yom Yerushalayim was going to be different, or stuff like that, I realized a few things. One, that I’m a pretty liberal person honestly, and maybe I feel a kind of American American liberalism or postmodernism. Like thinking “Oh, everyone has their own context, you can’t judge anyone, nobody is really right” — that whole thing, everyone has their own perspective. Now, this whole thing kind of crumbles when you feel like people are trying to kill you honestly. 

It was really hard for me. 

Initially during the morning, my whole yeshiva were davening at the Tayelet, this view that overlooks all of Jerusalem.  During Shemoneh Esrei, when Palestinians were throwing rocks on the Temple Mount in the morning, we could see booms and smoke grenades, and we just saw explosions that went off every second — like smoke grenades going off. And while that was happening, I looked at the news, and I saw like, “Oh, Israelis are invading and entering Al-Aqsa,” And I was so upset. I was like I can’t believe we’re doing this on Yom Yerushalayim, and you know it just kind of throws off your perspective.

[Then in the evening,] I was walking with my friends trying to get into the Old City around 6 p.m. — right when Hamas said they would attack. 

We heard these sirens going off, and we were like, there’s no way this is actually the sirens, because I knew that this never really happens to Jerusalem, and I saw these Israelis were making popcorn. And like, I just kind of looked to the side and these people were making popcorn and candy as the sirens were going off. So I was trying to ask them, and I went over to the guy and I was trying to ask him what was going on, and he was trying to sell me candy. It doesn’t impact them, you know? It’s so normal to them. 

Me and my friends were all terrified, and these Israelis were pushed up against the wall right next to Jaffa gate. We just heard these four loud explosions, and it was really scary. While we were walking in, these soldiers told us to rush into the Old City. While we were walking in there was this girl, a 15-year-old girl, and her father was holding her and walking towards us, and she was crying, and she said in Hebrew, “This is why I’m scared to live here.” It was pretty surreal.

So I think that my perspective just changed, encountering violence first hand. I haven’t been struck or anything like that, but having it feel like people actually want to kill you and actually attempting it is a pretty surreal feeling. It really opens you up and enlightens you about life in a different way. 

Also, I never realized how biased and skewed the media is. I always thought, “Oh, there’s good and bad on both sides,” but it kind of seems like, “Israel has the Iron Dome, they’re shooting little rockets at Israel, Israel is pummeling Gaza, killing civilians, it’s not a fair fight.” 

But I watched the tree go on fire, and the Jews were dancing for Yom Yerushalayim, and then these Palestinians were shooting fireworks at Har Habayit, and there were stun grenades going off and everything, and while they were shooting the fireworks at this tree, it starts burning. And people are like, “Oh, the Jews are celebrating Al-Aqsa burning.” I was just thinking, this is crazy. It happened while they were dancing, and I saw the way it skewed, and I was just thinking this is phenomenal, I couldn’t understand it. I can’t understand the way the media is skewing things, and you know, just every single second there’s notifications about more rockets, more rockets, more rockets, and yeah.

BP: Have you missed any classes or activities because of all of this?

DE: Last night there were a lot of teachers that couldn’t make it. I don’t know if it was for security reasons, but there were not a lot of people there, and people weren’t allowed to go out. I don’t know if you know but last night at like 9 p.m., there were tons of rockets getting shot at Tel Aviv and central Israel, so they told us, everyone stay indoors, nobody go outside, and I think the biggest way we were affected was that the teachers had to stay home and watch their kids because they couldn’t go to school.

There haven’t been many direct things saying we can’t go to classes because of what’s going on right now. I feel particularly safe right now in this area because there would never be any rockets shot. Hamas would never shoot a rocket towards the Old City for fear that they would hit anything important to Muslims, to Arabs. 

One thing that they’re doing is reenforcing the locks on our gates, because it was broken and they were concerned. Just like in the old city yesterday there were soldiers on every street. 

One side note about Yom Yerushalayim and the parade, it was really hard. When people are in mourning in Judaism and a chag happens, you have to delay your mourning.  That’s what it felt like on Yom Yerushalayim. I felt sad because of everything happening, but I had to sing Hallel because my people returned to Jerusalem. It was just a really conflicting feeling at the Yom Yerushalayim parade. 

I don’t know if you know that the political organization Lehava is, it’s a very far right wing Israeli political party, and there were kids and people passing out stickers tha said, “Harav Meir Kahane HaTzadik” [“Meir Kahane the Righteous One’]. I don’t know if you know who Meir Kahane was, but he was a pretty racist figure in Israeli history, and he called Arabs dogs, said we should kick them all out, and they were passing out these stickers to people, and they had tons of them. Little kids were wearing them, waving Lehava flags. My friend didn’t want the sticker, and the kids just stuck it onto his backpack. 

So I would say there is legitimate hate on both sides right now, and all the violence escalates it on both sides. I was supposed to be happy on Yom Yerushalayim, not hateful

BP: What have you been doing when you hear sirens and explosions? Have you been going in a room or shelter, or what’s that whole situation like?

DE: We have a shelter at the bottom of the building, but the advisors just say whenever there’s a siren, go into the hallways in our dorms. And just stay away from windows. We only had the sirens once, and I was outside so I just had to be pressed up against the wall, which is the safest thing to do I guess, and last night I just heard explosions the whole night going around. There was in the Arab shuk like right next to me, there was a fire that went on next to Har Habayit, there were fireworks going and being shot. We were just watching and pretty much just everyone was just being in their dorms or on the balcony, when they heard stuff and they watched Har HaBayit, just explosion after explosion. A lot of them were stun grenades or smoke grenades or whatever.

Also one thing we saw were trucks of soldiers come to the Kotel, get out, go to Har Habayit, and just execute a mission. You can just watch this all happen and you can’t comprehend what happened. There were like thousands and thousands of people praying, so all it takes is 10 or 20  people to cause a ruckus, and everything falls apart. 

BP: How do you feel being in Israel this time versus another time?

DE: It’s interesting because I didn’t really experience this aspect of Israel before, most of this year, because of COVID, and we weren’t allowed to leave the Old City anyways. But basically I kind of forgot that it was a part of being here. I went back to L.A. for Pesach, and there were stabbings right near where I was living, and violence. It honestly felt safer in the Old City, which is a weird feeling.

A few weeks ago one of my roommates came in really late, like 1 a.m., into my room, and I was all freaked out. I asked what was going on and asked if he was ok, and he said he was walking back from the mall, and “I saw a couple of Arabs take this guy with a kippah and beat him up, and I had to call the police and didn’t know what to do.” So that was the first moment when I was like, oh, this is part of living here.

So basically I don’t really know if this is a crazy year to come. I know crazy stuff was also happening a few years ago, but it was weird the whole way everything was. There was Covid, and now it’s boiling over. But I think this year was interesting to go. I think it’s a powerful year to come, and you get to see a lot of interesting stuff as far as the way society dealt with Covid and violence.