WOMEN ALL AROUND THE WORLD: WE AREN’T THAT DIFFERENT AFTER ALL

Photo of: Samantha visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem

Back in December I travelled to Israel for Birthright and the trip was a life changer. For one thing, it was the first time I had ever gone out of the country ever and secondly, it was the first time I would ever experience being in close proximity of soldiers carrying assault rifles nonchalantly throughout the country for the protection of the people of Israel and themselves.

I come from growing up in a small New Jersey suburban town outside of Philadelphia where the town acts like its own little bubble. When it was time for me to move 3,000 miles away to live in Los Angeles six years ago, I had thought back then and up until my trip to Israel, that I had a culture shock here. Moving to a big city at 21 years old, where I knew probably five people (mostly my relatives and sister) it made me grow up fast. I was living in a bustling city where people expected you to act older than you were if you wanted to be taken seriously. Hearing the helicopters over my apartment at odd hours of the night, fearing for my safety when I heard someone got shot close to my school and walking the streets of LA alone as a young woman keeping a close eye out for yourself because you never know what could happen, made me keep my wits and street smarts up. I thought I had seen it all living in LA. The city helped shape me to become a stronger, more independent, hard working woman and it showed throughout my academics at school, my confidence in the workplace, and being more assertive with decision making. However, I was wrongly mistaken that LA was the only place to give me a culture shock to shape me into having a broader perspective on life.

When visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the holiest place on Earth, I had a very emotional, spiritual connection there. I am one who rarely cries and rarely expresses how I’m feeling deep within. But being at the wall, being right next to those who pray, those who put their deepest, darkest secrets onto a piece of paper wishing for their prayers, dreams and hopes to come true, had me at a loss for words. I had put my hopes, dreams and aspirations onto a piece of paper and just stared at them while being next to this wall that so many people travel thousand of miles to be next to. It made me feel so proud to be standing there, thriving off of the energy Jerusalem brings and feeling that strong connection that just cannot be put into words had me taken back.

Before leaving the wall to continue onto our Birthright journey, I visited the ladies room and as I washed my hands a female Israeli soldier was doing the same thing as I, except she had an AK-47 assault rifle attached to her hip. I had never seen one up close before and it was giving me anxiety and I was extremely nervous to be in such close proximity with a gun and a soldier who could potentially pull the trigger if I had done something that was misleading or be posing some sort of threat to her. Instead of me feeling this way, I chose to swallow my fear and faced it head on. The solider was a young, beautiful girl who kept her eyebrows in such great form and I just had to compliment her on that. She was so grateful for the compliment and was completely thrown off by it. Without any hesitation she immediately gave a compliment to me and told me I was really pretty. I was thrown off by her compliment and just started to cry. She had no idea what to do and comforted me by telling me it was okay. I didn’t want to tell her the real reason for me crying was the fact that this girl, who is younger than me, who has no choice in choosing to be in the army and has to fight for not only her life for four years but for the people of Israel, who is holding an assault rifle in the bathroom, just complimented me on how pretty I was like it was nothing.

I realized at that moment that her and I are not different at all. We like the same things; we do the same stuff and act the same way. The only difference between the two of us is that she is an Israeli soldier and I am an American student. I just told her that I was crying because it was the nicest thing someone had said to me, which wasn’t a lie. From that point on, my perspective on life quickly shifted and made me have more respect for women soldiers, and it made me feel extremely proud to be a woman who wants to use her voice to empower women all across the globe and teach them that we are not so different after all.