Avi is one of my favorite 10 year-olds in Israel. He’s my best friend’s son and is going through one of the hardest times anybody could imagine.
For the past year, Avi has been battling stage 4 metastasized brain cancer.
It sounds horrible. And it is.
It sounds like any parent’s worst nightmare. And it is.
But in the past year, Avi and his parents have taught everyone around them how to find moments of joy within the hardships, and find strength from unity within the threats of despair. A lesson we can all learn from, as we enter this new year.
Until recently, Avi was receiving treatment at a hospital in Israel, but is now being treated in the U.S.
Avi’s mother told me that in America, her son’s treatment is incredible. The hospital is sterile. You can order whatever food you’d like from a big menu. You even have your own private room. Everything in the American hospital is catered to comfort and privacy. They feel blessed.
But despite being grateful for the amazing treatment in America, Avi told a hospital social worker that he misses Israel.
Avi explained how back in Israel, on the pediatric oncology unit in Haifa, hospital life is extremely different. He told the social worker how he loved sharing a hospital room with three people – he’s lonely in the hospital room all alone, in America. And how in Israel, there are no dividers between patients at the treatment points, so they all make jokes and go through the hardest times, together.
Avi’s mom explained how at the hospital in Israel, there’s a communal space—where the young patients hang out doing art projects, and where their selfless, sleepless parents talk.
The American social worker was shocked. “What about germs?” she asked. “What about keeping a sterile field? What about privacy?”
Avi told her that more than privacy, he needs community. How he misses his new friend, an Arab-Israeli girl who has leukemia. He laughed as he explained that this friend speaks neither Hebrew nor English, but they communicate by playing together and drawing pictures.
He spoke about another friend with cancer named Sarah, who is the child of Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia. He misses the traditional Ethiopian bread called injera, which her parents used to make and bring to the hospital for him, at least once a week.
A third friend of Avi’s is also the child of immigrants to Israel. Each day, his Russian-born parents bring my friend coffee from the coffee shop downstairs, and they get her order right every time.
The social worker, sitting in an upscale New York hospital, listened to their stories and understood the value of having the pediatric oncology unit set up the way it is in Israel—it has enabled the cancer patients to create a much needed, diverse yet supportive community.
Each of these parents, who at some point felt utterly alone and didn’t know anyone else whose child had cancer, is no longer alone. All of them are going through it together.
Unfortunately, pediatric cancer brought them together, as a family.
And very similarly, it is tragedy which has brought the nation of Israel together these past three months.
Before the attacks of October 7, the people of Israel were as divided as ever. With division growing by the day on issues of politics and religion, for the first time in modern history, there was a serious threat of civil war in the Holy Land. Each community lived in a silo and demonized the ‘other.’ We didn’t feel like brothers and sisters; we felt like enemies.
But from the first moment on October 7—when both ultra-orthodox and secular people were kidnapped, both right- and left-wing people were killed, both Jews and Muslims were murdered, both Bedouin and Druze were taken hostage—the people of Israel were reminded that while we might have been consumed by focusing our differences, we were blinded and fooled.
The truth is, we have so much in common.
We are all fighting for our survival. We are all sending our loved ones to battle to defend our country. We’re all in it together.
I saw the same instant togetherness in 2001 after 9/11.
I was living in New York City at the time and was used to the different neighborhoods and communities living separately from one another. Sometimes even fighting with one another.
But immediately after the attacks of 9/11, everyone focused on what we had common. We were all New Yorkers, fighting for our survival and getting past tragedy. And even broader, we were all Americans, unified in grief.
As we near the end of a trying year—here in Israel, and across the globe—and look ahead with hope to a better year ahead, I pray that we can all learn from each of these stories of tragedy.
Yes, we see that that when we come together, tragedy can turn to joy, hurt can turn to healing, and dark can turn to light.
But truly, why do we need tragedy to bring us together? Why do we wait for tragedy, before we put our differences on the side?
Tragedy doesn’t need to be the common thread which brings us together. If we can unify before tragedy strikes, we will show our children a world with a lot less fighting and significantly more hope.
I believe that if there’s one goal we should all have in this new year, it’s to overcome our divisions and differences, and aim to respect one another and find common bonds before tragedy brings us together.
The western world – who cherishes freedom, values diversity, and yearns for peace – has proven that we can unite in face of disaster.
Let’s make 2024 the year we unite in prayers and actions, so we can usher in new days of peace.
Yael Eckstein is President and CEO of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (The Fellowship), one of the world’s largest religious charitable organizations. The Jerusalem Post’s 2023 Humanitarian Award recipient and 3-time honoree on the publication’s 50 Most Influential Jews list, Yael is a Chicago-area native based in Israel with her husband and their four children.