It’s 5:59am as I begin to write this. I’ve been awake for an hour and twenty minutes, after sleeping for less than five hours. These are the hours when my thoughts and feelings are the rawest, and I am unable to filter. I’ve been having so many of both, of course – thoughts and feelings. They’re all over the place, running amok and leaving me depleted and exhausted, but also alert and unable to sleep properly.
I know I’m spending too much time on social media, but I can’t seem to pull away. And, until now, I’ve tried to resist the temptation to share most of the photos and stories that loop through my Facebook feed without an end. Each photo is a world, and every story is a searing, visceral window into lives that were obliterated. Bearing witness is unbearable, as is the pain. I never knew my heart could shatter so many times. That my eyes could fill with so many tears…
And as we deal with the agonizing repercussions of what the very worst of humanity is capable of perpetrating, I desperately wanted to believe that we would not have to work so hard to elicit sympathy, that the incomprehensibly barbaric violence that resulted in the highest number of Jewish deaths in a single day since the Holocaust would not be minimized or contextualized – or celebrated. But this is where we are.
As Jews, we are used to being hated, to always being on guard, to perpetually looking over our shoulders and, at times, trying to diminish our presence. If you’re not Jewish or a member of another persecuted minority, you may not even be aware that this is how we live, and probably can’t imagine what it’s like. You may be surprised when you hear our stories or witness the venomous words flung in our direction by strangers who become apoplectic whenever Israel is mentioned, regardless of the context. We are not surprised. We’re resigned to it. We expect it.
And yet, I hoped that somehow, this time would be different. That the world would be just as inconsolably horrified as we are by this tragedy of epic proportions. By the imagery of families being burned alive. By the butchery of children. By rape of body and soul. By kidnappings and beheadings. By the sheer magnitude of depravity… Clearly, I was wrong. For when I dare to venture outside of the bubble of love and support I continue to receive from so many people in my extended circles, I’m beaten down by declarations and acts of hatred and denial – waves of people who blindly believe the words of Hamas, a terror organization that revels in death and has no respect for life, even when it comes to their own civilians. People who differentiate between civilians depending on whether they are Jewish or Palestinian. It is possible to grieve for the innocent Palestinians while condemning the acts of Hamas. Not doing so makes you no better than a murderous terrorist.
But sadly and most unfortunately, it seems that so many people still prefer to embrace the Hamas narrative, either as a misguided attempt at showing valid concern for Palestinian people (despite the fact that Hamas doesn’t actually care about them unless they can use them as fodder to delegitimize Israel and garner support for themselves) or as a glorious outlet for their Jew hatred, often masked as anti-Israel sentiment. And this is why I now feel the need—albeit somewhat reluctantly—to share the photos and stories of our victims and our heroes. Our kidnapped children. Our funerals. Our anguish and our broken hearts. It’s easy for people to say “never again”, but what’s the point if they don’t really mean it?
