2024: The Craziest Year of my Life
Re'im
2024 was quite a year. I travelled worldwide, saw great art, and met and made many great friends. However, looking back at the photos from 2024, out of all the amazing places I’ve been, I have to start in the worst place imaginable. It’s a place that is a dramatic contrast to all the positive and negative experiences in 2024 but somehow shaped all of them.
As a third-generation Holocaust survivor from both sides of my family, the memory of the Holocaust was always somewhere there in the background; I never felt really close to it; I thought that anti-Semitism was essentially a thing of the past. But the events that unfolded on that terrible October day, 2023, reminded me, reminded to us all that even as a Jew living in Israel, horrors of the kind of 1943, can happen today. And it happened there, on a mass scale.
When I stood there, on that field where people came to party but had to face the unimaginable horror that they faced, I couldn’t help but cry. I felt that heavy energy: their screams, their cry, their deaths. So young, so pointless. I still feel it in my bones.
On that field, there was a board with the faces of those who died for nothing. I couldn’t help but say “sorry”. The fact that October 7th happened is a testament to the fact that we, as those who stand for anything that's good in the world, have failed. Not enough was being said. Not enough was being done.
The number one lesson from 2024 is to ALWAYS stand up for good. Because if we don’t, we pay a severe price. There’s much talk around the world about the “innocent” casualties of the October 7th war. You are the real innocents, and as much as the world would like to forget about you, I will never forget you, and those who are still held by these monsters.
One important thing I’ve learnt this year is that it’s hard to really comprehend an idea unless you feel it physically. To that point, I didn’t grasp the scale of horrors that happened on that day. Standing on that site, looking at their faces, seeing the bullet holes on the shelter walls, watching the footage, and hearing the stories makes you understand.
I have covered one of that day’s incredible stories in this post. Please read it.
Tel Aviv
Armed with that stark reminder, I went on to have a great year.
You see, Israel is a unique place. We live under constant threat. This isn’t the first war I’ve lived through, and I’m afraid it's not the last one either. My parents lived through many wars, and my grandparents lived through the Holocaust. The incredible thing about the Jewish people is that with these constant threats, we still go on and live a great life. If you go to Tel Aviv, you will not see many signs that this is a place of war. People go on with their lives; it’s not that they forget, but they know that life must be lived to its fullest. They fight in order to live. Such is the Israeli sense of life, and it is, in my opinion, the strongest one there is.
Before we embark on an international tour to cover a few 2024 highlights, I want to stay in Israel for one more paragraph.
In the short video, you can see a bit of the special concert performed by the Israeli Philharmonic for the October 7th Memorial Day. The video was taken from the start, where they played the Israeli anthem ‘Hatikvah’ (‘The Hope’). It was a very emotional concert. The main piece was Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The performance featured pictures of art made especially to commemorate the victims of October 7th. It was a striking performance.
Those of you who follow my personal Instagram know I frequent the Philharmonic as often as possible. This year, I think I broke a record for the number of concerts I’ve attended. I’m very grateful to the orchestra for continually bringing me so much joy throughout the year.
As a side note, I think the historic Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, whose existence precedes that of Israel (founded in 1936 in Tel Aviv), is a beautiful point to show that the people who built Tel Aviv built it for the purpose of building a life-affirming, value-orientated, western civilisation; it stands at the very core of Israel’s nature.
Hamburg
Germany was the country I visited the most in 2024. Of course, the most important experience for me this year was visiting the historic Caspar David Friedrich exhibition in Hamburg. If you are a regular reader, you should know that Caspar David Friedrich is among my favourite artists. I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the massive exhibition held in Hamburg, where they gathered more than 100 of his paintings to celebrate the artist’s 250th birthday.
It was a monumental occasion. If you want to read more about that experience, I've dedicated an entire post to it in great detail. This exhibition will soon reappear in New York City. I’d highly encourage you to go and see it, even if you are far away. Check it out here.
Heidelberg
In mid-August, after a conference near Frankfurt, I decided to go on a bit of a vacation to a city that had sparked my curiosity a while back—Heidelberg. The city’s magical landscape is known to spark artistic inspiration; one famous example is Mark Twain, who wrote about his travels to Hiedlerbeg with great admiration in his book A Tramp Abroad. The reason it was a highlight for me is that I loved the city so much, particularly that red castle in the background, that it was there that I managed to write poetry for the first time. Heidelberg has opened up a new art form for me, and I am forever grateful for that. I can’t wait to go back there.
London
London is my ultimate capital city. It was the first place I’ve been abroad, and it has stuck with me ever since. I was fortunate enough to visit twice last year. These visits had a few highlights, but since I must pick only one, it has to be the first-ever museum tour I led at the National Gallery. I also covered that special experience in a post here. It was amazing.
Georgia
Another place that is very close to my heart is Georgia. I’ve been there many times, and I’m fortunate enough to have made many great friends there. In September, I spent about a month there, splitting my time between the mountains and the bustling city of Tbilisi. It was in those mountains that I managed for the first time to write a fiction work. It’s a short story or a novella. And I’m super excited about it. I will share more information when it gets closer to launch.
Unfortunately, about a month after I left Georgia, a terrible series of events began that are still ongoing. Please support the people of Georgia in their battle for freedom. You can read my initial post about what happened there here.
Brisbane
I was sent down under for my second visit to beautiful Australia for the historical Ayn Rand Conference in Brisbane. The highlight was that I got the job of doing the event hosting. I had so much fun cracking little jokes in my introductions; it was truly the time of my life. I’ve included a little clip here of my introduction to Nikos; I think it’s quite obvious that I was having a fantastic time there. It was a great conference, and it was incredible seeing so many of my Australian friends there.
Sydney
I was fortunate enough to spend nearly a month in my second capital, Sydney. While one might typically expect the highlight to feature the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, or Bondi Beach, which I enjoyed visiting again, my biggest highlight of the year was actually a café on Darlinghurst Road. And no, it’s not because of the great eclairs, but the beautiful machine to its left.
For about two weeks, I went outside from my Airbnb on Darlinghurst Road almost every day, sat down for a coffee, absorbed the scenery, ate some great French pastry, worked, relaxed, and, most importantly, wrote.
I started writing my second fiction book in that cafe, which is set in the same Sydney neighbourhood. It’s an overflowing neighbourhood with personality. As a local, I thoroughly enjoyed sitting there, talking to the locals, and trying to understand the story of that neighbourhood. It sparked something truly special.
Stay tuned for updates on that project too. It’s more ambitious than the first one and will take more time. But if I manage to pull it off, it would be sensational!
Conclusion
As you can tell, this was quite a year. I want to thank you for being a part of that year through either meeting me in the many places that I’ve travelled to and, of course, for being a part of my life through Philosophy I Need It.
This year was the strongest year for the blog, where we reached record numbers of views and now have close to 400 subscribers. As I’ve already alluded to, I have great plans for 2025.
This platform will experience historic growth in 2025, so stay tuned. To get off to a good start, consider becoming a member or making a one-time contribution through Buy Me Coffee.
Thank you again, and have a very happy New Year.
Let us hope that 2025 will finally see the release of all the hostages that are still held in Gaza under brutal captivity and the total victory of light against darkness across all the fronts in the various battles for freedom around the world.
All the best,
- Yonatan
Hi Yonatan,
Sounds like you're running full-speed! Good on you old friend. And Happy New Year