Israel Hug

As a Jewish person with many family and friends in Israel, including my sister, it's been absolutely terrifying to read about what's going on there. I drew this last night to post later today, but I'm posting it now because I just got off the phone with her and she heard the ambulances of a terror attack nearby before it was on the news.

Every man, woman, and child is a potential target to be mercilessly attacked for the crime of simply being Jewish and living in Israel. Every day I've been seeing more and more statuses on Facebook of friends who have had "close calls", where either they or their family had just missed being in a spot of an attack. A particularly horrific video that is currently circulating is one where a terrorist drives into a crowd of people at a bus stop, exits the car, and proceeds to butcher a man with a knife. In one of the first attacks, my high school music teacher's cousin and his wife were murdered in a car in front of four of their six children. They were my age. In another attack, a woman and her 2-year-old toddler were stabbed in the same attack that killed her husband and another man. The number of daily attacks is escalating, and the body count is growing.

Words cannot properly express how shaken I am to the core over this wave of terror, so I put my feelings into art. Here is a hug for the entire Jewish community worldwide. We are united, we are strong. When the world is filled with much darkness, we must remember to bring light; to be extra kind, caring, and loving. We must learn to put all our differences aside and to support each other. To everyone in Israel, be aware and be safe. And to my sister, I love you.