This is where our advocacy starts
'Israelis live four lives in one day. The least we can do is honour those lives by telling the truth – clearly, courageously and without delay'
In Melbourne, we like to say we live four seasons in one day. In Israel, they live four lives.
It’s a thought that has echoed within me since I landed back in Australia. A single week in Israel felt like an entire lifetime.
Recently I returned from Project A’s inaugural advocacy mission to Israel, my first visit since October 7. As I expected, this was unlike any of my prior trips to Israel. We were not there as tourists, we were there to bear witness. And we were on the ground when the latest ceasefire collapsed.
On just one day of the trip, I saw more than I thought possible.
I was woken by sirens at 4am, racing to the bomb shelter as missiles from the Houthis soared toward the Jewish state.
I was grateful – deeply – to be in a country that invests its resources in building bomb shelters, not terror tunnels. When the sirens sounded, I had somewhere to run.
By mid-morning, adrenaline still coursing, we sat down with an Australian diplomat, hoping for a conversation about justice and solidarity. We asked direct questions – about the hostages, rising antisemitism, about Australia’s shifting stance. Despite our best efforts, I felt an absence of urgency. In a country where support for Israel once transcended politics, we are now witnessing a quiet erosion. It left me shaken.
Hours later – whiplash – we were dancing in Tel Aviv’s shuk. Joy pulsed through the cobbled streets as we celebrated the birthday of a 75-year-old non-Jewish woman on our mission, who had come to Israel to become a better ally to her Jewish friends. We clinked glasses, laughed and danced to music.
Then that evening, in front of us stood Luis Har – a 70-year-old man who was dragged into Gaza and held captive for 129 harrowing days. With quiet dignity, he told us about the moment IDF soldiers rescued him and whispered, “Luis, we’re here to take you home.”
Four lives in one day, indeed. Israelis are built differently.
Their lives are stitched together with grief and grit, horror and hope. And somehow, through it all, they keep showing up. For each other. For the future.
This trip changed me. My heart is heavier. My purpose is sharper. My Zionism – grounded in the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland – feels more resolute than ever. The dream of peaceful reconciliation, of a two-state solution, may be strained, but is not broken – now carried by a hope that visionary leadership may help chart a new path forward.
I’ve long known why I fight for this community. My grandparents survived the Holocaust and rebuilt their lives in Australia, believing it to be a safe haven for Jews. They dreamed that their grandchildren could live Jewishly and freely, while contributing proudly to broader society. That dream shaped me. It’s what drives me, as a proud Jewish woman, as vice-president of Zionism Victoria.
But since October 7, that fear has crept in. I’ve watched antisemitism explode across Australia and I’ve watched the silence of our national leadership become deafening. I’ve been shouted at in the street, flinched when strangers looked too long at my Star of David necklace and questioned whether it’s safer to hide who I am.
But this pales in comparison to the hardship of people I love in Israel; forced to sleep in bomb shelters, send their children off to defend a war no one wanted and waiting in anguish for the return of the remaining 59 hostages. For the hostages, it is still October 7
And on our final morning in Israel, the heaviness of it all hung in the air – visceral and undeniable. We stood at the grounds of the Nova music festival, where 364 young people came to dance at a peace party and were gunned down and murdered with unimaginable depravity. I expected the stillness people describe at Auschwitz – but there was no silence. Just the thud of bombs, the crack of gunfire and the ever-present awareness that we had 15 seconds to reach a shelter. Grief and fear weren’t memories – they were present, real and inescapable.
And yet, what I found across Israel was not despair. It was resilience. It was clarity. It was moral courage.
I’ve also thought deeply about the Palestinian people. They deserve safety and dignity. I reject any narrative that strips Palestinians of their humanity. But I cannot accept the idea that peace can be built with terror. If there is to be a path forward, it must begin with the immediate return of the hostages. Only then can we start to talk about how this war ends – and what justice, reconciliation and coexistence might look like.
Now that I am home, I know the work has only just begun.
This is where our advocacy starts: not with slogans, but with stories. Not with defensiveness, but with honesty. Not with perfection, but with humanity.
Israelis live four lives in one day. The least we can do is honour those lives by telling the truth – clearly, courageously and without delay.
Lexi Kowal is a professional strategy consultant and vice -president of Zionism Victoria. She gratefully acknowledges the Marion & Kurt Lippmann Foundation for making her participation in this mission possible.
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