holyland

born october 28, 1998, 14:37
ח׳ בְּחֶשְׁוָן תשנ״ט
(8th of cheshvan, 5759)

25 years ago today.

25/10/2023

because people don’t see it ~ don’t understand me.
don’t understand why i’m fighting for “the others”.
why i’m not fighting for “my people”.

so my therapist asked me to reflect on

...............

to have pride in your family

but not your nation?

to not have
a homeland?

but feel like it's not rightfully "mine"?

what does it mean to miss my home ,

so i guess

how to sit with what happened to my people on october 7th, how to sit with the fact that all my friends and family back home, who encapsulated the first 12 years of my life, were experiencing so much fear and grief, had lost so many people in a single day.

how to sit with the genocide in gaza that followed, nor the killings in the west bank. how to sit with the knowledge and fact that that this did not begin on october 7th, that for palestinians, it’s been like this for 75 years.

to be israeli ?

so to answer that question in the only way i know how,

i'll ask more questions.

whoever you are reading this, i want you to know that none of this is easy for me. it's never been easy. it's weighed heavy on me my whole life, especially since i've come into myself as an adult with a, now developed, prefrontal cortex.

and it's always been personal for me. not just political.

elly stern ~ אלי שטרן

to only feel at home in your family history

to feel at home in your values,

... but feel it all slipping further away the older you grow ?

for a child to be told they’re leaving their home for the sake of a cause?

for a child to be told they’re leaving their home for 'better opportunity'?

for immigration to lead a family into the hardest

for the scars to still remain,

but to know and hope, that somewhere down the line, things will be better this way. it’ll be worth it one day.

for a child to be aware of fascism from day 1?

to be a 3rd generation holocaust survivor, the granddaughter of auschwitz survivors on one side,

and to be the granddaughter of an outspoken, radical, anti-zionist marxist on the other?

what does it mean feeling so close to being eaten alive by fascism & genocide, literally 2 generations back,

to be a genocide & exile survivor,

...and then have my home use my pain, my family history, my generational trauma, to justify another people’s genocide & exile? to disrespect our pain, to re-traumatize us, by bombing children and killing innocents

to be aware of the abuse that my home "state" inflicts on my neighbours from day 1?

is if we're signed off to the military at age 18?

having bomb drills at school,

is if we live in a land where we grow up dodging suicide bombings, narrowly escaping death?

... and that all of this is literally the only way jews can be safe in this world? this is the only way?? there’s no other way??? the rest of the world hates us,

(( fuck. that. absolutely. fucking. not. ))

but feel betrayed by it?

and , what does it mean to feel grief for a people that aren't my "own"?

and to feel alienated from the people that are?

to be totally and completely heartbroken by my home, to not be able to visit or even think of visiting, without it weighing deep on my heart,

... and see people who have never felt that way, have fun there constantly? for governments to fund that fun? for people who are unaware, genuinely just don't have the knowledge, to be pushed by systems to indulge in that fun, and be blinded from looking deeper?

to know and fear (but begin to accept) that the way things are going, speaking up might - very realistically - prevent me from ever being allowed to step foot in my home ever again?

that there’s a very real possibility that if i ever go back to the place i was born, my public statements may be pulled up and be used to harass and question me?

and to hear this from people i’m in community with, people i’ve loved and been loved by?

but wish it was different?

to sit with the fear of loved ones being attacked, loved ones being killed and...

some may think i’m brainwashed. brainwashed by

i have such fond memories of my childhood, my first 12 years in the holy land.

the pain & sadness i have in my heart for a home lost long ago,

i was incredibly privileged to be guided, raised, and loved by

philo, ronit philosof ~ פילו, רונית פילוסוף

(may her memory be a blessing, זִכְרוֹנָהּ לִבְרָכָה)

heavy.

therapy session, 12/10/2023. 4 days after october 7, 2023.

tears pouring

i didn't know

the jist was that i didn’t know how to be who i am,

i didn’t know how to sit with how my family felt so alone and so different and so dismissed in their community in israel,
and now even though we left ,

i didn’t know how to sit with how when people ask me where i’m from, i don’t know how to answer.

i still feel the same.

how in the 1930's and onwards, nobody understood my grandfather when he spoke up about this.
how in the 1960's and onwards, nobody understood my mother when she did.
how now, in 2023, nobody understands me.

i don’t know how to say it and do
my entire self -
my upbringing, my values, my culture, my community - justice.
how do you talk about where you're from
when you feel so unsure?

①

②

③

④

⑤

⑥

⑦

⑨

①⓪

... but somehow be living a life of great privilege from day 1?

... and to be aware of the unawareness?

from

every

seam.

nor what to do with my grief and horror.

i didn’t know how to sit with the fear that many won't understand

why and how i could cry for my jewish friends & family,
and palestinians simultaneously.

isolated

i didn’t know how to sit with how in my community, i feel so

alienated

alone

in our name?

is if we live in an isolated land with only people of the same background as us?

to be told that

having bomb shelters in your household,

waking up to the sounds of military planes “practicing” in the sky during holidays?

going on lockdown whenever a backpack is left around,

nobody wants us and everybody wants to exile us and kill us????

(as is already happening to those speaking up on the ground)

and to have some of those people, who have never had to feel my heartbreak, judge me for feeling it?

to be

to ending the occupation.

to fighting for full equality for all people between the river and the sea.

my family,

they're human beings. like me, like you, like everyone we know.

and i ask whoever is reading this - if this has made you understand and empathise with me, that you take that empathy and understanding and begin the path of empathising with and understanding palestinians.

⑧

①①

why i feel so dedicated to the liberation of the palestinian people.

the media,

"the other".

the truth is - despite my family raising me with similar values to those i hold today -
when i came into myself and started coming to terms with the deep pain i have felt since i left my childhood behind at age 12, i knew i had to look deeper. i had to see for myself.

i had to read, i had to watch, i had to listen, i had to learn, i had to understand.

this was all a method of understanding my own pain, understanding my family, understanding my childhood.

it wasn't my intention to radicalize myself.

and the more i learned about palestinians,

to loving the land (however, not to having no freedom to explore it).

i’ve learned so much from them, from listening to their narratives, from talking to them at protests and events, from connecting with them online, from forming real beautiful relationships with them that i'm grateful for...

...and not just from engaging with their pain. engaging with their joy. listening to their music, experiencing their art, observing their fearless love for their land and their people.

...and it breaks me that my neighbours, sharers of the same land, for 75 years and to this day, cannot have that same feeling of safety and freedom as i did.

an amazing woman who loved children with her whole entire heart, who saw them as children first and foremost, and had an incredible amount of unconditional love, care, and patience for

i want every child to have the ability to have a loving, safe, free childhood, and that is exactly why i care so much about this.

our pain is not the same, i know that.

and i'm going to try my best for the rest of my life, that i promise.

①②

in my name?

my truth

we share a home.

doykeit, meaning "hereness”, is the jewish anti-zionist idea that wherever we are is our home, and we have a right & obligation to work for safety & freedom wherever we live.

the occupation roads in the west bank, designed to disrupt the fabric of palestinian life.

balcony across from my school & home of my childhood memories,
the open democratic school of jaffa ~ הפתוח הדמוקרטי ביפו

the mediterranean sea

My grandfather (lower right), Hellmut Epstein, in the Holy Land in the 1980’s, standing in support of Land Day, יוֹם הָאֲדָמָה, يوم الأرض - A day commemorating Palestinian landowners who were killed while protecting their land. He was a Jewish man who lived through two world wars, and came to Palestine in 1933 from Germany where he had encountered antisemitism, but still he was able to recognize that the traumas he had suffered cannot be used to justify the oppression of others.

plumeria flower ~

my favourite, the white & yellow (and it smells like jasmine)
jasmine always reminded me of my great grandmother oma. i think of her when i drink jasmine tea.

Haya Zaatry sings:

״فتنة وياسمين״

translating to "plumeria & jasmine" in her song Plumeria, about her late grandmother.

יַסְמִין

ima, אמא

aba, אבא

אלי על הָאֲדָמָה

אלי בַּיָּם

פילו

now wear it around my neck.

in hebrew there's a saying "נפל האסימון" ~ translating to "the phone token fell", and it means

...............

one day, i was watching nemahsis's music video for 'stick of gum', filmed in her hometown of jericho in palestine. the video ended with 2 pictures of shoes on wires, in sync with the peak intensity of the end of the song. words can't express what i felt experiencing this for the first time - the synchronous nostalgic emotionally impactful whirlwind had me so dumbstruck i literally starting crying. to see these shoes on wires in this video, shot in palestine, paired with nemahsis's powerful words and sounds... the feelings of home and longing poured out of me.

31/3/2025 note:

↖

elly at sea

elly on land

see:
images

above

↖

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Ⓑ

Ⓒ

Ⓓ

Ⓔ

Ⓕ

Ⓖ

Ⓗ

Ⓘ

Ⓙ

Ⓚ

Ⓛ

Ⓜ

Ⓝ

exraeli.

⬊

Ⓛ & Ⓜ

start -

you are welcome to start here, from ①, and follow the path along the numbers. but remember: time, grief, and healing isn't linear, and neither is this project.

⬈

⬉

⬋

⬈

⬉

⬋

⓪

to finally understand something,

after a long time of not.

and ...

...

to have

my love for my people, my culture, my home, questioned?

accused of siding with murder, with terrorism?

to be called a self hating jew?

my humanity questioned?

accused of wanting my people to be killed?

w
h
a
t

d
o
e
s

i
t

m
e
a
n

the only way my people will be safe,

safety is ---

so ,

what does it mean

...

it’s truly beautiful. it brings me to tears.

are things i use to connect with my palestinian cousins.

but it’s close enough that i know i’m going to try my very best to help their liberation in any way i am able, so hopefully, one day, future generations won’t have to hurt from the longing anymore, only from the past

this

is

what

it

means

for

me

to

be

what does it mean to me ,

w
h
a
t

d
o
e
s

i
t

m
e
a
n

what does it mean

what

does

it

mean

what

does

it

mean

what

does

it

mean

to be told

(( A SOCIETY LIVING IN PARANOIA, BECOMING THE VICTIMS OF THEIR OWN VIOLENCE ))

what

does

it

mean

to understand why someone thinks the way they do, why someone acts the way they do,

w
h
a
t

d
o
e
s

i
t

m
e
a
n

and with all of this...

to become a more political person.

to be outspoken.

the more i realised that i relate.

(( IT HURTS TO FEEL THE NEED TO SAY THESE WORDS ))

((שֶׁקֶר))

to feel your home is your childhood, your upbringing

or to have had a home ,

years they’d ever have to go through,

inflicts on my neighbours from day 1?

the meadows, the flowers, the sun, the sea, the sky. i was so surrounded by community, by love, by safety

writing all of this, i’m still unsure everyone will understand

to the pain of leaving (however, not to being forced to leave),
to missing the land (however, not to having no way to return),

each child, no matter how turbulent.

is ,

((שֶׁקֶר))

an old phone token (אסימון). i found one on the street in yafo when i was a child, and i

חַמְצִיץ

m
e
a
n

i
t

d
o
e
s

w
h
a
t