In Israel, even fear and grief can become courage, resilience and joy - opinion

OCTOBER 7, 2026 20:00The image of a plane plummeting toward certain doom, then soaring up thanks to gutsy Israelis and a courageous pilot, captures the whiplash emotions we all experienced this Sukkot. Or, as the comedienne Dana Perry Segal dryly put it, “in Israel, we just call this Wednesday.”Many of us olim – immigrants to Israel – particularly appreciate Sukkot in our restored old-new homeland. The rabbis called it Z’man Simchateinu – our joyous season. But, in the Diaspora, it often feels like Z’man Schikateinu – our burnout moment. After skipping work or school for the High Holy Days, Sukkot – with four more down days – can be burdensome.In Israel, with schools out, glorious weather, sukkahs popping up like mushrooms everywhere, it’s a delight. Last Wednesday, many Israelis were sitting in their sukkahs when they heard this breathtaking story about an attempted kamikaze suicide bombing with 174 passengers flying to Israel, including 27 children.One friend rushed out of her Sukkah to get Psalms to pray for everyone’s safety. By the time she returned, she heard the news that dazzled the world.Naturally, through tears of joy, prayers of thanksgiving, and happy high-fives, we Israelis wondered – again – “why do so many hate us,” “what kind of people would want to kill so many of us just flying home from vacation,” and “boy, that was too close a call.”An illustrative image of Jews celebrating with Torah scrolls on Simchat Torah. (credit: FLASH90)When courage rises in moments of terrorOur pride in the Israeli passengers who responded instantly – as well as the plucky pilot – commingled with despair that so many of our fellow citizens need that instinct to react, the grit to try, and the fighting skills required to subdue a knife-wielding co-pilot in seconds, then stabilize the plane.And as we entered a searing week of October 7 commemorations, we linked those fighting instincts that saved the plane to the same instincts that kicked in for so many heroes who saved the country three years ago when Hamas barbarians invaded – often at the cost of their lives.Fortunately, my wife and I had tickets that evening for the perfect event matching those mixed emotions: “Comedy for Koby.” This sold-out Jerusalem Theatre performance marked the 25th anniversary of the Koby Mandell Foundation.The Foundation was founded by Rabbi Seth and Sherri Mandell in 2001, after Palestinian terrorists brutally murdered their beloved 13-year-old son Koby and his friend Yosef Ishran.Seeing how emotionally isolated their other kids were, even at summer camps that lovingly embraced them, the Mandells launched this marvelous effort to help families suffering from these kinds of heartbreaking losses.Since 2001, they have hugged, cried with, processed with, and laughed with 28,742 recovering family members from 9,500 families – with 11,233 siblings, parents, widows and widowers participating in 140 healing retreats, and 13,742 campers being bolstered at Camp Koby & Yosef.Eliana Mandell Braner, Koby’s sister, now directing the foundation, noted that before October 7, they were helping 750 families; it’s now 2,500 families.Opening the evening, Sherri Mandell recalled how, after the horror, “the Jewish people became our Sukkah, the place where we could feel safe.”Afterward, this inspirational powerhouse told me that in 2001, many Israelis were in denial about the trauma caused by Palestinian terrorism. They – and the massive extended family they’ve raised since – were trailblazers in developing what Rabbi Seth Mandell calls “a community of resilience.”So there we were, 760 of us, mourning Koby and Yosef, empathizing with the saved-but-obviously-rattled passengers and crew, bracing for the grief waves already hitting us as we approached Simchat Torah and the third anniversary of October 7.Then, in the spirit of Israel, capturing the whiplash many of us experienced when dancing around the Torahs last Friday night hours after visiting gravesites, came five magical, uplifting words: “Are we ready to laugh?”And we did. The always funny comedian Avi Liberman joked about the Israelis celebrating the terror attempt: El Al stockholders – as they impose even higher prices.Perry Segal gave her world-weary but ultimately life-affirming take on Israel – followed by comedian Ben Ben Baruch, who did a bit on asking his rabbi “why they hate us.”Then the actor Michael Rapaport started by toasting Israelis’ matter-of-fact but “fierce” derring-do: the Israeli passengers sang “Am Yisrael Chai” as they landed; his fellow “Ashkenazi Jews of New York” would have been “cowering” in the back of the plane, bent over with indigestion.Rapaport mixed a series of funny one-liners with a heart-rending riff about the lonely stand he’s taken in Hollywood since October 7. While expressing tremendous admiration for his many new friends, especially in Israel, he’s been abandoned by the Hollywood world he’s worked in for over three decades.AT A short Q and A as the event ended, I asked Rapaport if anyone had pleasantly surprised him. His answer – which I know many of us professors, writers, artists, journalists and students, who have stood up for Israel would also give – was “no.”Nevertheless, he, like so many of us, affirmed that he has no regrets, “it was totally worth it”: recounting the tears he’s absorbed from so many strangers, the greetings, the thanks, the love.Afterward, speaking to these two heroes, Rapaport and Rabbi Mandell, I told them that when reporters asked John F. Kennedy, who saved his PT-109 sailors in the Pacific during World War II, how he came to be a hero, JFK shrugged. “It was involuntary,” he said. “They sank my boat.”We live in an ugly world, filled with jihadists and others who wish to sink our ships – and shatter our spirits.We keep beating them and bouncing back, thanks to legions of reluctant, matter-of-fact, loving, fierce, community-oriented, self-sacrificing, everyday – and surprisingly happy – heroes in Israel, in the Jewish world, and in all kinds of other places, including Mumbai, the hometown of Flydubai flight FZ1073’s tough-as-nails captain, Smit Machchhar. That’s our secret to success – and happiness.The writer is a Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University and a Senior Research Fellow at the JPPI, the Jewish People Policy Institute. He is the author of nine books on presidential history and nine books on modern Zionism, including To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream, as well as his latest e-book, The Essential Guide to the U.S.-Israel Partnership: the 250th Anniversary Edition.Follow us on Google