A post 20 years in the making
Azrieli Center, Tel Aviv
All Israelis are drafted into the military at the age of 18, and it was no different for me as I joined the Spokesman’s Unit of the Israeli Defense Forces in late 2000, just as the Second Intifada had erupted onto the streets of Ramallah, Tel Aviv and elsewhere. The internet had become available in most homes a few years beforehand, and as such, the age of information in Israel had not yet truly begun. As a child I was unaware of the complexity of the conflict, and being confronted with its reality and breadth during the first months of my military service hit me like a ton of bricks.
So I blogged about it, and laid bare how vulnerable and afraid I was.
Ethan Casey’s 2002 book Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story took my voice and placed it in the context of the many voices around me, from both sides of the conflict. Seeing my own words alongside those of other Israelis and Palestinians made me realize I was part of a much larger community of people who hope for peace and are willing to talk about it without fear of repercussion or ostracization. I was no longer a lone voice yelling out into the void - something that seems obvious to us today in an age of social media, but changed my perspective 20 years ago. In some ways, Casey’s book was like a curated Pinterest board, quilting together a patchwork of international voices into one sober story of reality. This empowered me to continue sharing personal stories and, eventually, my adventures in an evolving digital design space.
I left Israel for Hamburg, Germany in 2005 and continued blogging off-and-on until 2015, when I moved to Berlin and joined McKinsey Design. Over the years I’ve come to miss longer-form content; publishing online was my first step into a wider world over 20 years ago (and over 2800 kilometers away). Now that I’m reaching my 40’s and am blessed with the gift of hindsight, I can merge the candor of my blog’s earlier years with a depth of experience in design and a perspective on my past that can only come with distance.
Alexanderplatz, Berlin
Today, I live riverside in Berlin and spend my time exploring design strategy, among other things. I’m working on my first novel, which will most likely have its chapters previewed here and will hopefully see the light of day by the end of this decade (hah!).
As many of us begin to bob our heads above the surface of the water, trying to envision a post-pandemic world, I also wonder about my future and the role I play in the world around me. To a very large extent, I still hold on to the enthusiasm I felt over 20 years ago, reaching out to the world with small pieces of my reality and hoping that the world will reach back out to me. Perhaps the first step to reconnecting is, indeed, connecting.
PS: My old blog is still around, albeit in the form of an SQL dump. It’ll eventually find its way back here.