Why I’m Scared & What I Did About It
Israel and Jews are Forever Linked
I am scared.
I am scared for my Israeli family who now need to rush to bomb shelters as military drones and missiles come from the Southern end of Lebanon, launched by the terrorist organization Hezbollah. This means the war might now expand to multiple fronts.
I’m scared because many of my Israeli family members now speak of missing or killed friends. This is now the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. Children were killed in front of their parents. Then the parents were killed. Grandparents were killed as well. The murders were indiscriminate. Terrorists went door-to-door and slaughtered entire enclaves when they could. Safe rooms & bomb shelters were breached and occupants were murdered. Hostages of all ages were kidnapped.
I’m scared for the blowback that is now happening for the Palestinians as Israel retaliates against Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian children are being killed along with other non-combatants. It is a terrible and horrific price to pay for the non-existent leadership that Hamas has shown to their own people.
I’m scared that some Palestinians and their supporters showed up in Times Square to celebrate — celebrate! — the Hamas terror attack against Israel and taunt the Jewish mourners who gathered there to show support for Israel. They chanted “700”, the number of Israelis murdered, and made throat-slitting gestures. And I’m scared that this rally — and many others — were organized by groups who call for the destruction of Israel.
I’m scared because Netanyahu is the Israeli Trump. He’s worse than Trump, actually: because he’s been far more successful than Trump in turning his Democratic nation — my second home — into an autocratic mess. He leads a despicable and dictatorial regime that I and tens of thousands of Israelis have never supported. Netanyahu continues to push Palestinians off of their land and build more settlements for the far-right Jewish Orthodoxy.
I am scared by the Israeli defense minister calling Palestinians “human animals” in a disgusting display of malicious racism.
I am scared (and surprised) that few people know that the Charter of Hamas openly calls for the “obliteration” of the State of Israel, of Zionism, and paints Jews and Judaism as “cowards” who challenge Islam and the Moslem people.
I am scared to learn that “progressive” groups claim that Israelis had it coming: this murdering of civilians, this killing of children in front of their parents, and this taking of hostages. 34 Harvard student groups signed a statement calling Israel “entirely responsible” for the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists. I’m scared as I now learn that many of the students who belonged to these groups had no idea what they were signing.
I’m scared that some folks thought that, in retaliation to signing the statement, the students should be doxxed. It’s not reasonable: it’s a disgusting and awful escalation.
I am scared and disappointed that chapters of Black Lives Matter — an organization I have supported — released statements “in solidarity with the Palestinian people” a few days after the massacre. No statements of sympathy with Israelis and no statements against violence against innocent civilians. Only the opposite. Statements that Palestinian “resistance must not be condemned but understood as a desperate act of self-defense.”
I am scared that so many of the progressive friends refuse to understand the insane complexity of a centuries-old struggle in the region and instead view the conflict through a binary lens of black/white, right/wrong. Finding one or more potential solutions to a problem this old cannot come from those who convince themselves that the problem is, simply, “Israel” or “The Palestinians”. That includes Israelis who cite Israel as the hurdle to any real peace.
I’m scared that the list of atrocities against the Jewish people is, literally, thousands of years long and still growing. And I’m scared that most people do not know the history of the region and the millennia-long connection that the Jews have to the land in Israel, nor to the constant refusal — then and now — of Arabs to accept the fact of the Jewish people and to allow them to simply exist in the region.
Worse, I am scared that recent events will become the turning point for an explosion of anti-semitism to boil over into the mainstream and infect the way that others think about me, my people, my religion, my family, and my second home. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m scared because anti-semitism is already sky-rocketing.
I am scared because, without Israel, Jews will have no nation where they can go where they will be safe to live and believe as they are.
I am scared because it feels like I was personally attacked by Hamas this week.
That’s an awful lot of fear and it’s been keeping me up at night.
Then, today, in an effort to confront that fear, I did the most illogical thing I could think of: I texted our neighbors across the street. They are Palestinians. I expressed my support for and solidarity with them and I offered to break bread. It was the simplest way I could think to create a tiny bit of peace with those who are not from my family, not from my religion, but who — just like me — also have friends and family in the region right now who share the same terror as my family does.
Different story; same story.
My invitation was accepted. And when I saw the response, I sobbed. The emotions were unexpected, honestly. When I read the response, the muscles in my body all convulsed as I released so much of what I’d been holding on to.
I cried because, for a precious moment, much of the fear I shared above disappeared.
For a precious moment, a deeper truth began to emerge: that perhaps there ARE some simple things I can do — that we can all do — to help create peace between warring tribes who both want the very same things.
Everyone wants a home. Everyone wants to feel safe. Everyone needs to eat.
From this place, things feel more connected and simple with the rest of my human family.
From this meal, perhaps, a deeper path will emerge.
