My mornings used to go the same way every single day. I would get out of bed, walk to my bathroom, brush my teeth, and look in the mirror.

On October 6th, 2023, the reflection that stared back at me filled my head with ordinary thoughts. My hair looked poofy, my acne looked bad, the insecurities that come with being a teenage girl, real, but fleeting, forgotten within minutes.

October 7th began the same way, the same mirror, the same thoughts, the same teenage girl. But without me knowing, that morning was the last time I would look in the mirror and see myself that way.

Later that morning, sitting in my mom’s car, I learned what had happened. The massacre, the murders, the hostages. The place where I had celebrated my Bat Mitzvah just months before was now a graveyard, a warzone, a home under attack. I remember scrolling through Instagram, expecting humanity, expecting compassion, instead I saw kids my age burning Israeli flags, chanting for the death of Jews, posting “six million wasn’t enough” and “Hitler was right.”

On October 8th, I looked in the mirror again. But this time, my insecurities were not about skin or hair, they were about survival. I stared at my curly brown hair, my nose, and the four dollar Evry Jewels star of David necklace slowly rusting on my neck, and wondered if they would betray me, if they would mark me as a Jew, if they would make me unsafe at school.

And I was right to be afraid. In orchestra, my stand partner whispered Jewish slurs, told me Jews controlled all the money in the world, then looked down at my IDF shirt and sneered, “Why are you supporting people on the wrong side of history.” On my cross country team, a girl posted a video of herself saying Jews should burn in ovens, and when she was reported, her anger fell on me. She told the team they had to choose, her, or the Jew.

But the most devastating moment came when the state of Israel released the names of the hostages. I scrolled through the list frantically, terrified I would recognize someone. And then I did. Omer Neutra. A boy from Plainview. I can still picture him, grinning as he beat me at pool basketball. But now he wasn’t a memory of summer games, he was a hostage in a tunnel under Gaza. For me, October 7th wasn’t far away, it wasn’t abstract, it wasn’t a headline. It was personal.

And while my world was cracking open, the people around me treated it like a trend. A cause to repost, a hashtag to throw around. For them, it was a political stance. For me, it was my people. For me, it was Omer.

As the months passed, the moments that shook me did not just come from social media or classmates. One day, in preparation for the Regents exam, a teacher at my school handed out a study guide that described Israel as a terrorist state run by Jewish terrorists trying to control the world. It was not a stranger on the internet, it was not a peer, it was a teacher. A girl in my JSU got the paper and sent it to our group chat, and we sat there staring at it, not knowing what to do, terrified that this was real. We had to bring it to our school board, because what else could we do.

And then came this year. In my AP Research class, I gave my elevator pitch. My topic is about invoking empathy in Holocaust education, about memory, compassion, and the responsibility to keep history alive. I expected normal critique, comments about my methodology, suggestions for sources, ideas to strengthen my question. That is what every other student received. But mine? “Six million wasn’t enough.” “Antisemitism is fake.” “This is Jewish propaganda.” I wasn’t told to fix my research design, I was told my very existence was a lie, that my project, rooted in Holocaust memory, was nothing more than manipulation.

So when people ask me what October 7th means, I don’t just think of that morning. I think of the year since. I think of how it feels to sit in classrooms where authority figures and classmates alike reduce my identity to a conspiracy theory. I think of how it feels to hear that my people’s suffering is propaganda.

And I think of the mirror. I think of the girl who used to worry if her hair looked right or if her acne was clearing up, and how she has been replaced by the girl who worries whether her curls, her nose, or her rusting star of David will make her unsafe.

But I also think of resilience. Because the necklace is still there. Because the curls still frame my face. Because my nose, my hair, my reflection, the things I once thought would betray me, now remind me of everything I refuse to hide.

And I think of the double standard. I think of the country I live in, the United States of America, and how when it was attacked on 9/11 by a terrorist organization, this country spent eleven years hunting down Osama bin Laden. No one batted an eye. No one questioned America’s right to defend itself. But when Israel is attacked by a terrorist organization that lives right next door, that swears death to Israel and death to America, suddenly the world screams genocide. Suddenly Israel is the villain. Suddenly Jewish lives are up for debate.

Being Jewish used to be just one part of me. Now it is the lens through which the world sees me, before they know anything else. October 7th carved my identity into something permanent.

When I look in the mirror now, I see fear, but I also see pride. Fear that my identity makes me unsafe. Pride that it makes me unbreakable. Pride that I am still standing here today, wearing my rusting necklace, my curls, my Jewish face, my Jewish soul, and saying to a world that tries to erase us, we are still here, and we will never leave.