My Friend Tal

A quick personal story about how one person changed my life.

Meet Tal. She is a sixteen-year-old citizen of Israel, and over the course of the past two summers, she has become my sister.

For the past two summers, we participated in a program called Hands of Peace. (Side note: It's an incredible experience and applications are here!) Hands of Peace consists of face-to-face dialogues with a group of forty American, Palestinian, and Israeli citizens. My family was also volunteering as a host family, so we got to host a girl from Israel. 

Being an only child, I was nervous to live with someone else for three weeks. But Tal and I quickly bonded our first day over episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" and gossip sessions at night. I taught her what deep dish pizza was, she taught me how to say "cake" in Hebrew. We would have sleepovers and bicker over what song we would set as our alarm clock (she selected "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and I, as the anti-morning person, chose "Chacarron Macarron"). We were quickly sisters. 

Saying goodbye

The next summer, I expected things to be the same. But we were right in the heart of the  2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, and tensions were as high as ever. Participants were receiving calls from families saying sirens were going off in their towns. The carefree nights we had the night before were replaced with naps and hushed phone calls behind closed doors.

Tal left a lasting impression on my family. My parents are now very involved with supporting Hands of Peace, and my mom works on the board of directors. The room we set up for her is still just as she left it. My dogs perk up when we mention her name. And my entire world view has been changed by Tal. 

I am lucky to live in a community that is generally supportive of my participation with a program such as Hands of Peace, something my Israeli and Palestinian counterparts don't often experience. For those that I've talked to about Hands of Peace, almost everyone has been intrigued by the program and the stories and experiences I hold. I feel that there is generally a lot of respect surrounding Hands of Peace and its mission, but at the same time I've found a variety of responses regarding whether or not Hands of Peace is actually making a difference.

I've heard people on every end of the spectrum. "Hands of Peace can't solve anything, you're only teenagers." "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict? But you're American." "It sounds fun and all, but don't you all just go back to how you were before the program?" "Yeah, I don't know if I'd do Hands of Peace, it just seems like a waste of time. You can't actually change anything." "The conflict is just too complex."

But what I learned from Tal is that each and every one of us has a voice. We may not face complete support in our communities at home. Some of us may go back to how we were beforehand. We may be Americans, or teenagers, or only one person. But that doesn't mean that we don't have the ability to make a change.