Two weeks ago, I was in Itai Steinberger’s living room in Karmei Yosef, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.   I was there with fifteen students from KU Hillel on a Partnership 2000 Student Leadership Mission that Hillel ran in conjunction with the Jewish Federation.  In addition to student leadership development, the trip was designed for these students to learn about Israeli life and develop relationships with Israeli’s in Ramla and the Gezer region, Kansas City’s partner areas in Israel.

Itai’s parents graciously welcomed us into their home and, in true Israeli fashion, had their table covered with cookies, cakes, and other snacks as well as soda, tea, and coffee.  They proudly walked us throughout the house showing us pictures of Itai and his friends.  They took us into their art studio where they displayed sculptures and other artwork of Itai’s.  And, just like any good Jewish parent, they bragged about Itai’s accomplishments and showed off awards he had won.  

In many ways, the evening felt very familiar. With the warm hospitality and proud Jewish parents bragging about their son’s accomplishments, we could have been in any one of our KU student’s living rooms.  And, yet, for the Americans in the room, there was little familiar for us.

Itai Steinberger was killed less than two years ago at the age of twenty-one in Lebanon while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.  During Israel’s war with Lebanon in 2006, Itai was assisting a medic get supplies to wounded soldiers when he was hit by a rocket.  That night at the Steinberger’s home, real life in Israel became very real.

Itai’s father showed us a documentary that Itai had made while he was going through basic training in the army.  Watching the nineteen year olds in the video running, laughing, sweating, and bonding with one another, many in our group eerily exchanged glances with one another.  The Israeli teens in the video looked just like the young men in the KU Hillel group. 

My connection to Israel began when I read Exodus by Leon Uris as a teenager.  I was moved by the stories of these Jews my age fighting in Israel’s war of Independence.  If this place was so important that these “peers” were willing to give their life for it, I had to go see it for myself.  That led to my first trip to Israel in 1989.

Now, eighteen years later, I was on my sixth trip to Israel.  Seeing the reactions on our students faces throughout the evening at the Steinberger house took me back to the feeling I had reading Exodus.  And yet, this was so much more real.

For the students, meeting Itai’s parents was transformative.  All of them had a strong connection to Israel prior to the evening, but being in the home of one of their “peers” who gave his life for Israel expanded their notion of what it means to be a Zionist. 

However, this encounter was about much more than Israel.  It was about people.  One of the students asked the Steinberger’s how they continue with “normal life” after doing the unimaginable act of burying their child.  They explained that you have to “mix laughter with the tears.”  A student who lost her thirteen year old brother last May embraced Itai’s mother as the two spoke about tears, laughter, remembering, and moving on.  Grief is the same in any language.

Beyond having anything to do with Israel, American college students, or Partnership 2000, at its core the evening at the Steinberger house was about parents and children.  The pride, the love, the memories, and the pain were all on display that evening in a very genuine way.  In their living room overflowing with KU students, the Steinbergers talked about how much they missed the house being full of Itai and his friends.

In that moment, we realized that the evening that was planned to help us learn about life in Israel was as much for Itai’s parents as it was for us.