Because I was born and raised in the Johannesburg Jewish community, my parents always spoke to me about a future outside the “bubble”. Growing up almost exclusively among Jews shaped my understanding of what it means to be South African. In some poetic but tragic way, what happened after the massacres of October 7 taught me that outreach and introspection are precisely what anyone needs to survive in this corner of the world.

It was my Matric year when the events of that attack unfolded – not long before my Matric Dance. Having been to King David Linksfield in Johannesburg, an unashamedly Zionist school, we had a lot of education concerning Israel. After a decade of schooling that had trained us to engage and debate effectively about Israel, one of the final messages we received in Matric came from the principal herself: knowing when to walk away. It felt like a strange note on which to end. For years at King David we had been encouraged to defend Israel, using the strongest tool we had – honesty.

Eight months after that speech, the October 7 attacks took place. The atmosphere that day was defined by frantic scrolling through social-media platforms, scavenging for any scrap of information – or, more tragically, any imagery – that could be found. In the days that followed, the international reaction manifested as a great furore across Western societies: mass demonstrations that, in effect, expressed support for the terror attacks. Those reactions fundamentally overturned much of what I had understood about the integrity and survival of a community so tightly bound to an outside state.

I came to realise that no state and no diaspora can survive on raw strength alone. The best arguments for the legitimacy of your people’s existence mean little in an atmosphere where an opponent is armed with an audience capable of drowning you out. That realisation did not arrive all at once. It crystallised on the first day of university, when – against my will – I found myself in a conversation about the attacks with other students. People had taken interest in my first name and enquired about my background; I knew where the answer would lead, so I simply said I was Jewish.

The two students across from me were unfazed by my Jewishness and raised no objection to it. But once the inevitable discussion began, the first clear division appeared. One girl understood that October 7 was a massacre that did not require, or deserve, equal moral credence. It was the brutal, deliberate killing of ordinary civilians and soldiers that offered no strategic benefit beyond drawing attention to itself in the hope of eventual diplomatic isolation and the erasure of Israel’s right to exist. She said that rape, and murder of babies could never be a legitimate means of “retaliation”, even within a self-perceived reality of absolute persecution. The other student disagreed. Though poorly articulated, he insisted the response was simply a product of what he defined as Israel’s actions.

I kept quiet – partly from shock, partly from the clear understanding that speaking would contribute nothing measurable to anyone present or to the conflict itself.

Looking back, I came to understand that persistent arguing at the individual level with an audience already converted to a single view is a fruitless endeavour. Meaningful change in those opinions occurs only through sustained, effective exposure to the counterarguments. And that is not something that many of us can summon. This is not an argument against defending what you believe. It is simply the recognition that lasting change requires a consensus about what causes people to turn against you in the first place.

That exposure, I later realised, is measured less by the sharpness of one’s arguments and more by the willingness to engage the people immediately around you – not for the sake of advancing a political agenda, but in order to connect with others and build bridges. I believe this is what has made the South African Jewish community so resilient: our outreach. And though it may sound almost childish to say, positive outreach serves a greater purpose than even the most effective debate about a place far away. Bridges, connections, are among the few things that truly matter for anyone. Insulation, however convenient it may feel to us today, does not end favourably.