As we remember October 7, I keep thinking about my ILSI trip this summer. It taught me how important it is to be open to hearing different perspectives, but also to know our own story and feel confident sharing it. One difficult conversation in Haifa, followed later by our visits to Sderot and the Nova festival site, brought that lesson home for me.

Imagine you’re enjoying the start of your three-week Israel trip and can’t wait to see a new city. Haifa, the city of diversity and hard work. From the open docks to the Bahá’í Gardens, there was so much to explore. Somewhere in between, my group had a walking tour. We split into two groups, and my group went with an Arab guide.

“Hi, my name is Sharif. I live here in Haifa and identify as Palestinian.”

That introduction caught my attention. He continued to explain the merchant docks and trade in Israel. Later, as we walked down the block, he spoke about coexistence and how, in his opinion, it didn’t work and never would.

“A two-state solution will never be an option.”

This was where we all paused and looked at each other with the same look, but walked along. However, two boys in our group didn’t just walk along.

“How do you feel about Hamas’ actions on October 7?”

“I don’t consider anything as terror, just an act of justice.”

This was where we ALL stopped, including our staff.

We had come to learn about Haifa and hear another perspective. But hearing the actions of October 7 described as justice was something else. It left us trying to figure out how to respond. How could we stay open to a conversation while standing up for something that mattered so much to us?

After the tour, we had a Q&A. Every question was directed toward him. They were respectful, insightful, and even gave me a new point of view on my own opinions. However, I didn’t feel that Sharif reciprocated. It felt like he had no regard for our opinions.

Specifically, he talked about how the education system was “unfair,” explaining that Arabs attend Israeli schools not because they want to, but because they feel the education will prepare them to succeed in Israeli society. To me, it sounded like he was describing the benefits of that education without wanting to directly call it better. Our group did some research and found that he himself had studied at Tel Aviv University, which made this part of the conversation especially interesting to us.

This experience gave us new perspectives on how to approach people in situations like this. It also created a deeper connection between our group of 75 Jewish teens. We were used to navigating difficult opinions about Israel in the United States, and now we were facing them together in Israel.

Later in the trip, we visited Sderot and the Nova festival site. There, we could hear and see for ourselves the real consequences of the terror of October 7. We heard directly from people whose lives had been changed, and we also saw how our people came together in response.

Those visits gave me more to think about when I looked back on our conversation in Haifa. The violence Sharif had described as justice had real consequences for real people. Their stories helped me understand more deeply why his response had affected us so much, and why those stories need to be heard.

For me, being open means being willing to listen, ask questions, and think about what someone else is saying. It also means bringing my own knowledge and experiences into the conversation. I can try to understand another person’s perspective and still speak confidently about what I have learned and challenge the justification of terror.

As Jewish teens, we won’t always have every answer. But we have a responsibility to keep learning our history, listening to the people who lived it, and passing their stories on. The more we know, the better prepared we are to have difficult conversations without losing our voice. Remembering October 7 is part of that responsibility. These stories shape our shared memory and the history of our people. Through ILSI, we had the opportunity to hear some of them firsthand. Now we can bring them back to our chapters, families, and friends.