This past weekend we spent time with family. We are so lucky to continue to have the privilege and safety to do so. On Friday night I asked my father-in-law how the world feels for him in the absence of social media (he’s old-school like that)—does he experience this sense of being hated and targeted in the same visceral and fearful way that I have over the last five weeks? He knows that hatred is out there, that Jewish people are being attacked outside their homes, that synagogues are being vandalized, and that Jewish cemeteries are being defaced with swastikas. But while he knows this on an intellectual level (he reads a lot (newspapers, not Twitter; again, old-school like that)) he explained that he does not feel the personalization of the hatred or a sense that the anger is directed towards him as an individual, not in the way I have felt since the morning of October 8th, the morning after the worst Pogrom against Jewish people since the Holocaust.
This isn’t to say he did not experience the attack on Israel and to the Jewish people as personal. That is impossible; the Jewish nation is too small to not experience it as personal. Every Jewish person I know has a brother, cousin, friend, or friend of a friend who was murdered, raped, or kidnapped into Gaza on October 7th. The babies being held captive are our nation's babies, my babies. My father-in-law feels that personalization deeply and as horrifically as we all do.
Engagement with social media adds but another layer to the horror. My social feeds have become deafening and the feeling of hatred and attack has become overwhelming. I see the person I sat next to in graduate school calling me a supporter of occupation, naming my Zionism—my love for and commitment to my Homeland and my People—as apartheid. I feel the hatred directed at me, when someone I traveled abroad with claims I do not have empathy for Palestinians and that I believe one people more deserving of human dignity and humanity over another. Yet, I have not removed myself and I continue to engage with social media both through consumption and through sharing. And why is that? Social media is a hot bed for anonymity and for the ability to be angry behind a screen. But the experience of the pain and the war is not anonymous. It is profoundly personal. It is my brother-in-law volunteering to don a uniform he last wore over 10 years ago, carrying an M16 protecting his city. It is my ex-boyfriend's cousin who I used to push on the swings stationed up north near the border with Lebanon. It is my friend from elementary school singing songs to her children in a bomb shelter while rockets go off above her head. It is very deeply personal to me and so I need to find a way to make it personal to everyone.
The presence of hatred and anger feels too anonymous and yet too familiar. What is happening is division and dehumanization of the Jewish people and the Jewish nation. Israel is our first and only Homeland. To proclaim that Israel as a sovereign country should not exist is to sign the death warrant of half the Jewish population and likely to the Jewish people altogether. The awareness that in every generation there has been an attempt at our annihilation is part of our collective memory and trauma. Without Israel, where do Jews go? Where are we safe?
But as history has shown time and again, we are trauma SURVIVORS—not victims. We are a people of strength with the capacity and fortitude to hold close our values and our traditions. Our strength has too been villainized. Our rising into positions of leadership in society is made out as an example of our evil, cunning, while we are at the same time condemned for separation and commitment to tradition. We cannot win, so we often stop trying. I don’t want to stop trying, I want to invite you to see my humanity and the beauty of the tradition and people I hold as my own. We are a people of song and a people of love.
I have not shared with my lovely and sensitive (almost) three-year-old boy the grief I have been feeling since October 7th. He is too little and does not need to be exposed to this pain yet. But I am teaching him about song and love. We sing Am Israel Chai most mornings during breakfast and every Friday night we light shabbat candles together and think of what we want for the people we love. We ask Hashem for special blessings together – we meditate on our hopes and dreams, and we pray for Auntie Rachie in Israel and wish her a peaceful and safe shabbat. We hold each other and we sing. He does not notice the extra attention given to Rachel, and Ari, and Talya, and Yoav and Asaf, but singing together is how we hold our traditions, how we honor who we are.
I have always felt fearful of voicing my opinion about Israel. I have felt fearful that I did not have enough knowledge or clout to share my voice. I did not study political science and I don't read the newspaper cover to cover. But I have read books about Israel and Palestine and learned the history of the land since before I could speak. I have spent countless nights in Israel and my sister and her family live there. Interestingly, my love of Israel and my personal connection often made me feel like I could not speak because I am biased. I am not an expert and I have skin in the game and so I should be quiet. But what this month has taught me is you most certainly do not need to be expert to voice your opinion – it doesn’t stop the social media warriors who could not even identify Israel on a map – and having skin in the game and feeling connection and love for a country opens your heart and gives you space and understanding to speak with credibility about your opinion. Additionally, I know a fucking lot. I have been learning about how the children of Abraham (Jewish and Muslim alike) have a connection to the land from the time I could listen to stories. While I may not have been introduced to the full complexities of the situation as a child, I am a very smart woman and I can hold nuance and pain now and still remain unapologetically steadfast in my knowledge that the Jewish people need and deserve a homeland, and that Israel (and the people living there) have both a right to exist and a right to live in safety.
How we unravel this centuries-old conflict is beyond me, but how we respond to hatred and terrorism feels clear. Do I think Israel and the Israeli government is perfect? Hell no, and I’m far from alone on that (see the millions of Israeli citizens protesting the government right up through the night of October 6th). But I do think an operation to end Hamas and free the 240 hostages, including a week-old baby and a 10-month-old boy, needs to be the priority. God took the people out of Egypt “with a mighty hand” and we stand with a mighty hand now, not to punish or take revenge but to take care of the Jewish nation and ensure we survive.
My 15-month-old baby does not consistently sleep through the night or go to bed easily. He often needs a bonus nursing session at 4 AM to calm his little body and help him settle or to be held against his mommy’s heart while he falls asleep. He needs me and those babies 60FT underground in tunnels, in Gaza, need their Ima’s and Abba’s too. Evil took them from the arms of their mothers and with a mighty hand we will bring them back!
Am. Yisrael. Chai.
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