Actions speak louder than words is the theme of this post, both in our personal lives as well as in war and politics, as sadly what Israel has had to learn from decades of "negotiating" with terrorists only to then be fooled is that one cannot trust a partner who does not operate in good faith, as our enemy does not empathize with our situation the way many of us did with the plight of the Palestinians.

It can be hard to breathe - when the trucks upon trucks upon trucks of AID - ARE SENT - INTO GAZA - ALL THE TIME - and are LOOTED ON CAMERA - BY HAMAS TERRORISTS - the ones who RAPED us, MURDERED us and continue to TORTURE us. The ones who are LYING to you. USING you. LAUGHING at you. And yet - they've won.

"You can feel the death here," said my roommate of a few days, as we passed each other at the Nova Festival site, after each exploring it on our own for about fifteen minutes. A casual remark said without any emotion, on a beautiful sunny day at around 5pm - the time of day where you have to be careful which side you take a picture from, as one way will face the shining sun as it gets ready to set, and the other will give your shot exquisite lighting.

To imagine mastering a practice with such grace, that you could be stolen by a terrorist group and manage to not just sustain your own light but spread it - teach it - bringing light into the darkest tunnels of horror - that is nothing short of holy work.

Our hearts break and bleed blood orange, yet our screams are heard and scrolled past.

Out of 250 faces of strangers all over Tel Aviv, Itay's was the one that leaped off the page and straight into my heart.

"So much for 'Never Again,'" said Lena Kosinovsky in a text to me last Saturday, as we shared the thoughts so many of us did about how...

It must take a minute to digest that he is home – that after 16 months of horror and agony – that her father came back to her family alive.

I imagined IRAN listening to this, and my blood went cold. My heart stopped beating.

These girls were the eyes of Israel. They were tasked with watching the border with Gaza - that's it - and they saw this attack was coming.

It is difficult for me to contemplate what could be going through these women's minds as I write this at 7:23am in Charlotte, North...

What must it be like to be laid to rest after all you've been through? The 98 days alive in Gaza - and the 326 days not?

It's puzzling. Even the few people who come to Israel now take the moving walkway to the right of the rows of hostage pictures, instead...

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," wrote Tennessee Williams for his classic play "A Streetcar Named Desire," for the...

Photo: Times of Israel "Adam's brother Yoni has the most interesting story on the Kibbutz," I was told last week at lunch, in the dining...

I fell in love with Israel because I fell in love with its people.

I think we did at least. It depends on which channel you turn on here in Israel. On one, it said "Nasrallah chu-sal." Ma ze chu-sal?...

"Thank goodness I am here," has been my predominant thought since returning to Israel last Monday. This is despite losing my Israeli...

I made it back to Israel, despite the constant warnings on my phone of escalations with Hezbollah, and now a declaration of a Third...

The cursor has been blinking below these six names and faces. I haven't known where to begin because there are so many emotions swirling,...