I saw the kippah you chose to wear — combining the Israeli and Palestinian flags — and I have not been able to look away from what it represents, particularly in this moment.

We will likely not agree on why you chose to wear it. You may feel strongly that it represents something important — something you believe is right. I respect your right to hold that view. However, I do not share it.

Because intention does not exist in a vacuum. And at this time, context matters more than ever.

I am an olah hadasha. I came here from North America, in part, to build a life where I would not have to confront certain realities I had experienced there — where symbols like these were often used in ways that felt directed against me, or against people like me.

So when I saw your kippah here, in Israel, I was not only surprised — I was deeply unsettled. It felt as though something I had hoped to leave behind had followed me here.

And that is only my reaction.

I cannot begin to imagine what it might evoke for a hostage who has returned, for a soldier who has fought, for a parent who has lost a child, or for a child still trying to make sense of the world around them. What does that symbol represent for them, here and now?

We are living in a time when wounds remain open — raw, immediate, and deeply personal. There are families grieving profound losses. There are individuals still waiting for loved ones. There are many who are trying, day by day, to rebuild a sense of safety after it was violently shattered.

In such a reality, symbols carry a weight far beyond what we may wish them to hold.

For many, the Palestinian flag today is not perceived as an abstract political idea or a distant aspiration. It is, in this moment, inseparable from trauma that has not yet had the space to settle. When placed on a kippah — a symbol so deeply connected to Jewish identity — it creates a collision that is, for some of us, deeply painful.

What concerns me even more is what has followed.

Others have begun to echo your action. To replicate it. To stand behind it.

And I am left asking — what is the intended outcome?

If the goal is to inspire hope, why does it resonate, for so many, as pain?

If the goal is to build bridges, why does it feel as though it widens an already fragile divide?

And if the goal is to express a moral stance, does that not also require an awareness of the emotional reality of one’s own people?

Because at present, it feels less like a gesture of peace and more like a disregard for those who continue to carry the weight of grief.

There is something deeply rooted in us as a people — Ahavat Yisrael. It does not require uniformity of thought. However, it does call upon us to remain attuned to one another, particularly in moments such as these. It asks for sensitivity. For awareness. For care.

So I ask you plainly: before wearing something so charged — and before allowing or encouraging its spread — did you consider how it might be experienced by those still living in the aftermath of loss?

Peace is a hope many of us carry. But hope, if it is to hold meaning, cannot come at the cost of deepening the pain of those closest to us.

You are entitled to your vision.

But I believe we are also accountable for how we choose to express it — especially when that expression touches the most sensitive aspects of our collective experience.

I am not asking you to abandon your hope for the future.

Only to approach it with a deeper sensitivity to the present — and to the people who are still trying to find their footing within it.

Someone who came here seeking refuge — and who still believes that how we show up for one another matters deeply

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)