Like many American Jews, I was brought up to see Israel as infallible. Living among Palestinians taught me vital truths about the reality of the occupation. The writer among residents of Umm al-Khair, in the southern West Bank, December 2024. (Khadija Toufik) Growing up in the American Orthodox Jewish world, spending a post-high school year studying Torah in Israel was simply what one did. I chose to attend a “mechina” – an Israeli military preparatory program — unaware that what I (…)