I traveled to Israel for the last two weeks of 2003 with seven other Jewish teenagers from the North Shore of Boston. The trip was the culmination of a year-long program in our community sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, called Youth to Israel, or Y2I. The program combines a year of education and community service with a fully subsidized summer trip to Eastern Europe or Israel.

In our community, 63 students went on the Eastern Europe trip, where we were joined by 36 Israeli teens. During the trip we forged new friendships with the Israeli participants, and our community again subsidized those of us who desired to visit Israel and reunite with friends on the December trip.

Tourist by day, local by night

We traveled all over the country, spending much of our time in a bus like tourists. Our experiences outside of our bus, however, were the ones that defined the trip. The members of our group stayed overnight with Israelis our age that we had befriended earlier in the summer on the trip to Eastern Europe. They came from a variety of backgrounds and followed different lifestyles. For example, there was a modern-orthodox English-speaking family and a non-religious Argentinean family, and many other ethnic and religious combinations.

I stayed with a modern-orthodox boy whose mother was from Canada and whose father was from England, so there was no language barrier for me. In my conversations with the Israeli boy and his friends, we covered the normal teenager topics of music, movies, school, video games, books, art, and other mundane things that proved teens are essentially the same across the globe.

One topic that we could not avoid was that of how Israelis dealt with life under the constant shadow of terrorism. The responses the Israelis gave to our questions were more pragmatic than emotional. They explained to us how to tell the difference between a bomb and just a loud noise (a bomb sounds like a very large piece of metal has been dropped, and it is followed by the howl of ambulance sirens).

As we were walking along Tel Aviv's waterfront as a group, the Israelis pointed out to us the numerous hotels that had been bombed in recent years. They told us countless stories they had heard from other people about suicide bombers. While our group was in Jerusalem, a suicide bomber blew up a bus in Tel Aviv, and though we didn't have any relatives in that area, we noticed ourselves following up the Israeli custom of calling all of our friends' cell-phones to make sure nobody we knew had been injured. For us Americans, the pressure of living without knowing whether one would see the sunrise the next day seemed overwhelming.

Israeli teens' reaction to danger

But we found that our Israeli friends took it all in stride. It appeared that they had come to terms with their reality, though this is not to say that they didn't live without fear. One of my Israeli friends said to a group of Americans that were expressing their desire to live in Israel, "All you have to worry about in America is school and who is going to be your friend. You say you want to live to Israel, I say I want to live in America." Though his statement was somewhat naïve, he made us aware of the Israeli perception of Americans and the startling differences between our two countries. In all honesty, I think he misunderstood our desire to stay in Israel.

There is a certain appeal to a people in distress, and I cannot deny an attraction to the danger, tension, and nervous excitement coupled with fierce national pride and unity that I believe is absent in my life and in the lives of other Americans on our trip. After all, there's nothing cool about having the road of life paved for you in advance.

Another interesting way the Israelis dealt with life in Israel concerned their attitude to all things morbid. While at a house party, I sat at a table with a bunch of Israelis as they exchanged jokes about militant Palestinians, the Holocaust, and serving in the army-topics I figured would be sensitive. We began to notice through subtleties in the phrasings of our Israeli tour guides, through advertisements, and through casual conversation with our Israeli friends that black humor pervades Israeli society. In fact, it must. It is a defense mechanism, so to speak, that protects the sanity of Israelis and helps them deal with stress. What better way to ease a tense moment than by telling a joke? It works the same way in Israel, even if the tense moment often follows the death of a friend or family member.

A taste of Israeli dark humor

I visited Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, with my group and a comment by one of our Israeli tour guides gave us some insight into the nature of Israeli black humor concerning the Holocaust. She attributed the simple design of Yad Vashem to Israelis' attitudes about the Holocaust. They don't see it as something that has happened and ended, as something in the past that belongs only in textbooks. Taking into consideration that many Israelis are either descendents of Holocaust survivors or survivors themselves, the aftermath of the Holocaust is a very real thing.

The tour guide expressed frustration with the Holocaust memorials in Berlin, Germany and Washington, D.C, and with emotional films such as Schindler's List . She claimed that the memorials and films fed the facts and emotions to viewers on a plate. Israelis don't feel that they need to be told how to feel about something that nearly defines their existence as a modern nation. They believe that they need only a stern reminder of the events that nearly destroyed the Jewish people. Israelis study the Holocaust in every grade at school; they are in no danger of forgetting what has happened.

One may be quick to assume that living in fear has transformed the Israelis into weary, paranoid, coldhearted, and emotionless people. Nothing of this sort has taken place, and in my opinion the Israelis are truly some of the warmest, friendliest, and most welcoming people I have ever encountered in my sixteen years on this planet. I have great pride as a Jew in their strength and resilience, and I look ahead with hope to days when no Israeli must live in fear.