A Canadian Abroad, An Israeli in Disguise
A personal reflection on my time in Athens as a 22 year-old Canadian-Israeli preparing to join the IDF after October 7th. This piece reflects my perspective, biases, and emotions.
What does it mean to hide who you are? To feel that safety requires you to conceal a core part of your identity, even when your belief in your cause is unwavering?
The attacks on October 7th and the ensuing war have altered how being Jewish and Israeli is seen by others — a change that feels especially tangible when traveling abroad.
In Israel, we have rockets and missiles. That ever-present background anxiety under the looming threat of world war or annihilation. We jump slightly at the slamming of a door, or the clap of thunder above. We keep a casual but cautious eye out in public for threats from within. But even when we go to new and known places to meet new and familiar faces, we’re met with warmth and love–and perhaps more importantly–understanding.
I’m used to that paranoia. The existential threat is normal, now. Familiar. My hind brain can’t really conceptualize the threat of rockets. It can, however, detect the subtle change in the atmosphere after the Greek waitress heard me on the phone speaking Hebrew.
I don’t need anyone to explain what that ‘oh, okay’ means after I tell them I’m from Israel. God forbid I let slip that I’m joining the IDF.
I feel alienated. Vilified, even. Perhaps this is just what I signed up for.
Part of me misses just being a Canadian. Going anywhere, you’re greeted with warmth and the usual “we love Canadians!” The Jewish-Israeli part was always a mere background detail. I wasn’t guilty of war crimes by association in the eyes of my generation.
Last week, two of my roommates and I visited Athens, hoping for a relaxing trip filled with good food and, for me, plenty of photography. While we achieved much of that, our time there was shaped by three experiences that put our identities as soon-to-be IDF soldiers in the spotlight.
Aren’t you scared to die?
We didn’t necessarily know it at the time, but our very first night in Athens would give us a glimpse into themes that would carry us through the rest of the trip. We decided to bring our Gyros dinner back to the hostel to eat in the common area, and found ourselves sitting with four other travelers.
The conversation was your standard hostel fare at first. Discussing where everyone’s from, what we’re doing in Athens and what interesting things we’ve seen so far. Our new acquaintances inevitably got curious about how three guys, each from places very far from one another, managed to become friends and even roommates. We told them the truth: We immigrated to Israel and are part of a program for lone soldiers drafting to the IDF.
The line of questioning was fairly tame, at least at first. Hesitantly asking, “oh, what’s it like there?” Or, “aren’t you afraid of dying?”
Our answers reflected the reality that every Israeli knows intimately — a life where conflict is routine, and resilience is second nature. We visit the bomb shelter when the sirens go off. We don’t like the war, and our friends who are actively fighting it do not take pleasure in it.
By some cosmic coincidence, these four travelers seemed to perfectly encapsulate the progressive, neutral and conservative perspectives on the conflict in the middle east. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most vocal of the bunch was the progressive woman from the UK. She wanted to know how we could hold the perspectives we do when the images and videos coming out of Gaza are, in her words, “pretty damning”.
A challenging line of questioning to respond to between bites of gyros and sips of beer. Our responses can be summarized as the following: War is horrible, particularly in urban combat blurs the lines between civilians and combatants. No one but a few outliers relish in the violence.
No one wanted a fight, so the dinner concluded amicably. My friends and I ended up going out for drinks with the two guys afterward. One of whom didn’t seem to hold strong views one way or the other, and was refreshingly curious about the differences between our cultures. The other was a Trump supporter and, given the apparent rules of intersectionality, was also a big supporter of Israel in its current conflict.
While the questions we faced at the hostel were personal and probing, they were far from unique. On the streets of Athens, the walls themselves seemed to scream the same questions — just in a different form.
Screaming walls
I came across two Pro-Palestinian protests during my week in Athens. The first, I was with my friends and we stayed just long enough to grab some photos. The second, however, I was alone and chose to stick around. There was a large crowd who was marching through the streets, and there were another large group of protestors posted up across a government building, chanting in Greek.
“Hey man, do you know what’s going on here?” I asked a fellow photographer. “Can you tell me what they’re saying?”
“They’re protesting about Palestine–to end the war,” he replied.
We exchanged a few more words, then I thanked him and continued taking photos.
As I wove through the crowd taking photos, I asked myself, how would they react if they knew I spoke Hebrew, or that I’m drafting to the IDF. Would they see me as a person, or as an enemy?
Sometimes I have to remind myself that Israel does have support (or at the very least, indifference). After some brief research, the numbers in Greece aren’t bad: 11.5% are pro-Palestinian, 18.4% are pro-Israel but the majority are neutral on the issue. However, if you do what we did, and mainly walk around in the young, tourist-centric areas of Athens, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Palestine supporters are in the majority. Walk ten minutes from your hostel to your dinner reservation, and you’ll see almost as many Free Palestine posters as you will anarchist graffiti.
Of course if you break it down by age group, the numbers will likely look a bit different. The proof is in the open on university campuses and across social media.
I find myself wondering, why do these people care so much about a conflict that is so far removed from their lives? I’m too occupied with my own life and its problems to protest on behalf of a group of people hundreds or thousands of kilometers away with whom I have little connection. That said, I wouldn’t complain if they were getting out there to advocate for my side.
Part of me wishes I had engaged in conversation with the protestors, though I wasn’t confident it would have gone well given the tension in the air and my recent experiences.
Strangely, it was easier to find common ground in an unexpected place.
Breaking bread with a friend
At the tail end of our trip, my friends and I ended up befriending someone in our hostel with a very interesting and relevant story. Let’s call her Alex. Alex is a Christian Lebanese-British woman with a story almost as complex as the conflict itself. Her uncle fought for the IDF, her family lives in southern Lebanon, and she’s about to work for UNRWA.
This was my first time talking with someone who is both directly related to the conflict and on the ‘other side’ of it.
Going into the conversation, I knew that there would be some nuance given that the Lebanese are generally against Hezbollah. They understand what it is to be subject to the will of a terrorist group who doesn’t share their ideals. Still, I was surprised by her openness and understanding of our perspectives. She explained that she had visited the aforementioned uncle in northern Israel prior to October 7th, which she says gave her a more nuanced understanding and helped temper her perspective.
We talked extensively on our walk to dinner. I gave her my background, and explained to her how I came to the decision to move to Israel and join the IDF. I felt refreshed by the lack of anything but curiosity coming from her in her line of questioning. Dinner went well, and the four of us headed to a nearby pool hall.
On the walk, she asked me, “what do you think the solution to all of this is?”
Not a loaded question at all.
My views as a Jewish man in my early twenties after living in Canada for most of my life should, perhaps, be taken with a grain of salt. I’ve only grown accustomed to the threat presented by war and terrorism in the last nine months. That being said, I doubt I’ll find much pushback when I say that education is going to be a critical element of a constructive effort towards fixing the problems we’re facing today. It is among the key factors that lifted the developed world out of poverty and violence, and into an age where peace can be a given. I had the privilege of a quality education and plentiful after-school programs, where I was taught many of the values that made me into the person I am today.
In Gaza, however, children aren’t so fortunate. They are taught many things that I consider to be in direct conflict to Western values. One need only look at the events of a single fateful day last year to understand the consequences of this education.
We agreed on that aspect, but our conversation reached somewhat of a stalemate on the issue of what to do with the Gazan civilians right now. Neither of us claimed to know the answer.
The priority of the IDF in Gaza right now is to bring the hostages home, eradicate Hamas’ military ability and to make sure it stays that way. It makes perfect sense to me that that the Israeli government’s duty of care falls first on its own citizens. Everything else is secondary, including building trust towards us among the population of Gaza, rehabilitation and reeducation.
Israel is my home. Almost every person I care about lives here, as will my future children. To me, there is no room for compromising on their safety.
We entered the pool hall, suspending our conversation for the night.
As of writing this, I haven’t reached out to Alex to pick up where we left off. I think I will, though. We could all benefit from exposing ourselves to differing perspectives from our own, especially given the echo chambers of opinions in which we reside both online and in our inner circles.
I am about to begin at least two years of service in the IDF, uncertain of what next week — or the years ahead — will bring. In a world that often challenges my identity, I face a critical choice: to travel as ‘just a Canadian,’ hidden and unchallenged, or as an Israeli, embracing the discomfort, growth, and learning that come with every new place I find myself.
