From Loss to Learning and Living for Now: Shalem Freshman and a Nation’s Resilience
After the first Greek philosophy class of his freshman year at Shalem, Itay Arnon, 25, stayed behind to speak with lecturer Dr. Yiftach Ofek. “I told him that I was fascinated by our discussion, but I’d just finished a long period in the army, where the goal was always practical thinking and getting right to the point,” recalls Itay, who served as commander in the elite, special-forces unit Shaldag before training new recruits for an additional three years. On October 7th he and his unit fought to retake Kibbutz Kfar Aza; his close friend and co-commander Shilo Cohen z”l was killed in the battle to defend Kibbutz Be’eri. “Especially after fighting a war in which so many of our friends fell, studying philosophy felt abstract. I wasn’t sure what to do with that cognitive dissonance.”
Fortunately, Dr. Ofek’s answer allayed his concerns—and granted his decision to study at Shalem a new sense of urgency. “He told me that many of the ancient Greek philosophers—Socrates, Xenophon, even Plato—had themselves fought in war, and that their experience confronting death in battle had caused them to think deeply about a life well lived,” says Itay. “That really struck a chord. Since October 7th, I’d found myself thinking constantly about human nature. I wanted to know, why do we behave the way we do? Why do some people perform under pressure, and others not? I’d seen the best of humanity and the worst in the war, and I came to Shalem to try and understand it all.”
Itay and his co-commander Shilo Cohen z”l (right), who died fighting to protect the residents of Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th.
Itay’s motivations will sound familiar to the members of Shalem’s thirteenth academic class, many of whom fought on multiple fronts over the past two years. Most all of them, too, were touched in some way by its tragic losses. For these students—who began their first semester just one day after the Gaza ceasefire went into effect—the choice to pursue a Shalem education at this moment in their own and their nation’s history reflects the ways the war has reshaped a generation’s priorities.
For 27-year-old Yoav Admati from Kibbutz Be’eri, for example, the pre-war plan was to study political science, philosophy, and economics at the Hebrew University, itself a departure from the STEM path set for him by his accelerated science track in high school. But on October 7th, he found himself and his family hiding in their home’s safe room from invading Hamas terrorists. After their rescue on October 8th, his family’s four-month displacement in Ein Gedi, and his own extended reserve duty in both Gaza and Lebanon, Yoav decided to rethink.
Yoav Admati ’29
“Although I was raised in a deeply secular environment, I’d always been interested in learning Jewish texts and Jewish thought,” Yoav says, explaining that he began his journey at the pre-military leadership academy Mechinat Hanegev, and continued after the army at the Mabua program at Ein Prat. “After the war, I felt like life was too short not to study what I really love,” says Yoav. “Also, I wanted to study in a place that valued the experience of learning as much as the outcome. And last, these past two years have taught me the importance of how we relate to what happens—of how we tell our story. I think that Shalem, more than any place else, will equip me to write a new and better chapter in Israel’s narrative.”
Lahav Miran can relate to Yoav’s desire to deepen her own Jewish and Israeli identity. The 24-year-old from the northern town of Pardes Hanna-Karkur also chose to spend a year in a pre-military leadership academy to “expand the horizons that defined my secular, kibbutznik high school, which focused more on Israeli society than on studying Jewish texts.” After her service in the IDF’s Education Corps—she was responsible for teaching units comprising tatzpitaniyot, or female observers, along Israel’s borders with Syria—Lahav sought to expand her horizons still further, this time by living in Australia and working on a farm outside Sydney. She was getting ready for a cross-country road trip when she learned of the Hamas attack on October 7th.
“I called my uncle as soon as I heard,” says Lahav, whose uncle Omri Miran and his family were living in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where more than 250 Hamas terrorists killed fifteen kibbutz members and took eight of them hostage—including Omri, who spent two full years in captivity. “We were able to speak for a moment before the kibbutz lost electricity. At four am the next day, my mother called to say that he’d been kidnapped. Our whole world had changed so quickly, yet it took me many months to process what had happened. It’s not something our minds are wired to understand.”
For the next two years, as her father—Omri’s brother—fought in the reserves, Lahav’s extended family made raising awareness of the hostages the center of their activity. It was while she was at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, in fact, that her grandfather Dani, Omri’s father, set her on the path that would ultimately lead her to Shalem.
“He came up to me and said, ‘if Omri’s kidnapping holds all of us hostage, too, then that means that they will have won,’” she says. “And he refused to let them win. He insisted that I go travel and see the world.” That experience—Lahav spent several months trekking through Southeast Asia and New Zealand—ultimately left her with more questions than answers, which she thought she would find at Shalem.
Lahav Miran ’29 with her grandfather Dani and her uncle Omri on the day Omri was released from two years’ captivity by Hamas in Gaza.
“When I returned to Israel, I spoke with my grandfather about how much the learning at Shalem interested me, and also about my concerns—after all, liberal arts isn’t a conventional degree in Israel,” says Lahav with a smile. Echoing Yoav, her grandfather said that life is too short not to follow our hearts. “And now that Omri is finally home, I feel like I can begin to close the gaps in my knowledge the last few years have revealed.”
Itay, who shares Lahav’s interest in seeing the world—“but instead of a tiyul gadol (“big trip”)” he explains, “I chose to study the core curriculum at Shalem”—also identifies with her sense that, for the first time in two years, it’s possible to focus fully on one’s studies. “So long as there were still living hostages in Gaza, a part of me couldn’t move forward; I felt like the army still needed me. Now that they’re home, I can cultivate other aspects of myself. My goal is to learn to contribute in a different way.”
The desire to contribute still more to Israeli society is what motivated 23-year-old Tal Ziering nearly three years ago to co-found Tikvateinu (“Our Hope”), a grassroots movement of young Israelis from across the religious and ideological spectrum who want to bring the “mechinot ideal of learning, pluralism, and social engagement into the ‘real,’ post-army world.” The group’s first meeting, at Kibbutz Dorot in the Gaza envelope, took place just a few months before October 7th, when Tal woke up in her home in Ranana to the sound of sirens.
“It was just me and my oldest brother Aryeh at home that morning; everyone else was out celebrating Simchat Torah. So as he rushed out the door to join his unit, I was able to call out a quick goodbye. I’m grateful for that,” says Tal, who herself left soon after for the Kiryah, the IDF’s headquarters, where she served in Intelligence. Aryeh, a 27-year-old reservist officer in the elite canine unit Oketz, was killed later that day in close combat in Sderot. “He went street to street to take out the terrorists. Everyone said that although it was terrifying, Aryeh encouraged them to keep going, to go farther, not to stop. He was a soft, gentle soul with an incredibly strong and steadying presence.”
Tal Ziering ’29 (bottom row, second from left) and her family. Her brother Aryeh z”l is to her right.
In the wake of her brother’s death—and the death of her close friend and Tikvateinu co-founder, Yonatan Deutsch, in a terrorist attack last year—Tal has balanced the need to move forward with the desire to hold onto and honor her past. Happily, studying offered a way both to find herself and follow in her brother’s footsteps. “Aryeh was planning to be a counselor at Mechinat Ein Prat after he finished keva [extended service],” Tal says. “He believed in combining study and action. So I worked there after my own army service, and it showed me that I needed to study somewhere where I could not only earn a degree, but also develop a basis for what kind of person I want to be. That place was Shalem.” She adds that she already feels that the other students in her class are “the perfect learning community.”
Yoav adds that the student body as representative of the “diversity of Israeli society”—the wide range of worldviews, backgrounds, and perspectives that it’s easy to miss when one remains in his comfort zone. Yoav came to Shalem, he concludes precisely to see that bigger picture, and “to be part of the bigger things happening in Israel today.”
Itay agrees. To the Greek philosophers, he points out, the pursuit of wisdom wasn’t just an intellectual exercise, but a way to win over the forces of evil. “For so many of us at Shalem,” he says, “our learning here is a kind of victory, and a way to keep fighting for what’s right.”
