JUNE 20 • 2024 | 9
J
N

I 

recently returned from 10 
days in Israel as a partic-
ipant in the Yeshiva Beth 
Yehudah’s Partners Detroit 
Dembs Mission. Named for 
Ryan Dembs, a Detroit area 
businessman and 
philanthropist 
who passed away 
suddenly two 
years ago, and 
funded in part 
by his family, the 
Dembs Mission 
was composed 
of 41 exceptional women from 
across the Metro Detroit area 
who came together to volunteer, 
bear witness, connect with our 
Israeli brothers and sisters and 
experience our homeland in a 
post-Oct. 7 world. 
 The theme of the trip was 
Faith Over Fear, a credo we 
lived every day, for while we 
did experience much of the 
wonder that Israel has to offer, 
this was no simple holiday. 
How could it be? Israel has 
suffered a tremendous trauma, 
as has her people, and she 
is still in the height of crisis 
mode as she fights a physical 
and political war at home and 
a public relations war around 
the world. 
 Now, several weeks after 
the trip’s conclusion, I am still 
struggling to figure out how 
best to describe the experience 
— ironic coming from a writer 
and wordsmith. It’s definitely 
taking my brain some time to 
catch up, and I can’t possibly 
describe everything we saw 
and heard. 
 That all said, the word that 
best encapsulates my expe-
rience — and the one that 
seemed to come up most often 
for the participants through-
out the trip — is juxtaposition. 
 Israel itself is an uncanny 
blend of the old world with 
the new, the secular with the 
religious. Now, mix in the post 
Oct. 7 contrasts of beauty and 
destruction, humanity and 

depravity, pride and shame, 
all merged together, and you 
get one of the most wonderful 
yet difficult trips I have ever 
experienced. 
 It was astounding to see 
how the very best and the very 
worst could exist simultaneous-
ly, and we experienced all of it, 
a true emotional roller coaster 
that took me from the highest 
of highs to the lowest lows in 
less than two weeks’ time.
 One of the most profound 
examples of this contrast was 
the day we went down to the 
South of Israel. We began the 
day volunteering on a farm 
called Michaeli Organic Farm, 
located in Zikim near the 
Gaza border. This particular 
farm, like most of Israel’s agri-
cultural industry, has taken 
a tremendous hit since Oct. 
7 due to a lack of labor and 
resources. 
 We spent the morning 
picking lettuce and cabbage. 
It would have been easy to be 
swept into the beauty of this 
idyllic setting and the satisfac-
tion of physical labor in the 
warm sun. However, every few 
minutes, the ground would 
shake as the sound of rocket 
fire erupted nearby. Although 
we never felt we were in dan-
ger, the experience was cer-
tainly unsettling and sobering. 
 Later that afternoon, we 
went to Kibbutz Nir Oz, one 
of the kibbutzim that was 
raided by Hamas on Oct. 7. 
 The kibbutz has not been 
cleaned up, but rather left as 
something of a memorial. I 
won’t describe in depth what I 
saw here. All I can say is that it 
would break the hardest heart 
in two. Yet on this beautiful 
spring day, amidst the 
destruction and remnants of 
death and suffering, the birds 
were singing loudly while the 
flowers were flaunting their 
freshly unfurled beauty. It 
was almost as if nature was 

continued on page 10

Marni Raitt
Executive 
Director

