Israel-Hamas war: The echoes of the Holocaust rattle the door - opinion
WE NORMALIZE what’s going on around us. The rockets are livable. The war is livable.
It’s hard to say what I am more. Disappointed or scared.
But let me start with a little confession of shame. My husband witnessed it last year when we went to visit Yad Vashem.
Like many Jews, I have a long and complicated history with the Holocaust. It shapes and haunts my very being. I am not exaggerating when I say I think about it every single day. At age 48, that’s a lot.
I regularly ask myself, “What would I do in the Shoah? How would I escape? Where would I hide? How could I save my children? What would I be willing to do? Do my kids have the requisite skills to hide on their own?” But mostly, I think this would never happen to me. I would have been one of the smart ones and known to get out in time.
And so here’s my secret shame. When I was at Yad Vashem last summer, I was furious. Misguidedly, more at the Jews than the Nazis because how could they not have seen the writing on the wall and saved themselves? I could barely look at their faces or read their stories. I was so consumed with my judgment.
Posters featuring a picture with the word ‘kidnapped’ are placed on a wall as the families and supporters of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas gather to raise awareness and demand their immediate release in Tel Aviv, Israel November 22, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/SHIR TOREM)
Posters featuring a picture with the word ‘kidnapped’ are placed on a wall as the families and supporters of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas gather to raise awareness and demand their immediate release in Tel Aviv, Israel November 22, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/SHIR TOREM)
But I was wrong. Because here I am, living in Eretz Yisrael, 78 years after the Allied victory of 1945, and I’m not sure that “Never again” isn’t knocking on my door.
“It’s either the apocalypse or the path to peace,” I recently wrote a concerned friend. And while I don’t want to be an alarmist, I’m seriously concerned that it’s the former. Hence, moments I want to flee. Though I can’t figure out where, with many parties in Canada (my birth land) clearly demonstrating the cesspool that it’s become in its utterly misplaced “sympathies” over these last many years, letting in, let’s call a spade a spade, some rather unsavory, unvetted neighbors.
At night – the witching hour of existential fear – I’m filled with dread and doubt. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, “STOP!” to the world’s media. To the farce that is the UN. To the idiots occupying the Ivy League towers. But looking at social media and the “journalists” of the world, it’s quite clear that no one cares. At least not those marching and chanting for my extermination. Smugly smirking at our unraveling. At what I certainly always recognized – North American Jewry’s ever so misguided self-flagellation of their “white privilege.”
The gaslighting of academia. The insane debates of the all-so-lovely Queen Rania over how many babies were beheaded. As if this is indeed the point; whether it was one or 40, either way all those babies are undeniably dead. And it was Hamas themselves who recorded and live-streamed it all in pride and glee. And still, somehow, we are in this loop of hell.
The expectation for us to be “humane” toward the Arabs of Gaza, who cheered the terrorists on. With thousands aiding and abetting all the way. And lest we forget, because no one seems to be calling them out, Egypt has a border it could open. A ceasefire; you jest. Open your own damn fence already!!
I SIT around with friends, passing endless afternoon hours close to home so we have somewhere to run when the inevitable rocket sirens sound. Often, in between worry, we laugh. And I realize, my God, even in Auschwitz people probably laughed too.
We discuss what’s going to happen and our odds of survival. It’s completely surreal. Could this really be the end? My gorgeous children, bustling neighborhood, beautiful country, decades of dreams. Are we about to be lynched by our neighbors rattling at our borders, cheered on by half the world?
How can this be? I’m so normal. I don’t bother anyone. Why are you trying to kill me?? Will they shoot me, bomb me, drag me away, tear me apart like the frenzied mob “greeting” the plane in Dagestan if they’d had the chance?
We normalize what’s going on around us. The rockets are livable. The war is livable. So long as it doesn’t escalate or get any worse. It becomes increasingly understandable how the Jews of Germany stayed. And here I am, no different than them. Always saying it could always be worse. It’s astounding to be here.
But I’m in Israel. The center of my life’s meaning. And I can’t think what I’d do anywhere else except plan on how I’d come back. Even in moments I’m afraid we’re about to fall like Masada or Beitar.
I console myself by thinking: People survived the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, and even the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. The US came back to persevere over the Nazis after the shock of Pearl Harbor, and the oft-oppressed Kurds beat back ISIS when everyone else failed.
It’s been hard being optimistic, that’s for sure. But Jews are resilient – a fact, I’ve been thinking lately, may even be why people hate us so much. No matter what, we get back up and build again. We don’t go blaming. We don’t go slaughtering. We focus forward.
Compare a mob of Hamas supporters and Israelis, and it’s clear to see the difference. While we sing songs of positivity, they sing songs of hate. However, when it comes to experiences of oppression, they have nothing on us.
Obviously, I can’t say how this ends. Or even what comes next. Maybe this piece will end up read in memoriam, in those same “higher” education establishments like Harvard and Columbia, in their continued Holocaust studies classes, created after the fact, when they once again ponder how these things happen. Except we already know that.
So allies of the Jews (because we deserve those too), if you think you wouldn’t have been one of Hitler’s willing executioners, this is your moment of truth. Speak! Post! Support! You’d be surprised by how much your voice counts.
As for me, I’d like to crawl under a blanket until “this passes.” But realistically, I’ll soldier on.
Surviving and coping with the October 7 massacre aftermath
ON OCTOBER 7, 2023, everyone around me instantly aged. The exhaustion immediately showed. Many sleepless nights followed, waiting for it to be morning, and then spending the day waiting for it to pass too.
Bit by bit, we’ve managed to fall into deeper sleep; but it’s never complete. Routine settles in, but we remain on edge waiting for the next siren, or worse. In between, kids laugh and play, and there are moments of hope.
The world will not end. Life will go on. And so will we. We will once again “forgive” but not forget. Or at least try to figure out how, in spite of it all, we can someday live in peace. Though the damage done to trust is so irreparable, it’s hard to imagine – perhaps the most depressing part of it all. That and the face of antisemitism that’s raised its ugly head.
And so, what I feel on top of disappointment and fear is, of course, a roaring anger. BLM supporters, binary people, LGBTQ, feminists, post-structuralists, MeToo movement, where are you? Oh yes, let me guess, correctly identifying with Hamas, where I’m sure you’d be accepted just the way you precious are.
All I can say is may God be so great as to gift you all a ticket to Gaza, Afghanistan, or perhaps even Yemen. More likely, this latest phase of virtue signaling, faux humanity will go the way of the “peaceful” BLM riots, defund the police, Ukrainian flag profile photos, grandma killing COVID exclamations – and yes, I did lump them all together.
In the meantime, I wish us all strength. War requires self-sacrifice. It’s not a comfortable state. So if your income is down, you’re tired from the kids, or you think you deserve some better government benefit or other, my personal plea is – WAIT. This is our country we’re fighting for. Let’s put all our pettiness aside and simply help each other out.
As I posted a few hours into this mayhem after the initial shock: “Yalla. Let’s get our sh#t together and get this done. There is no other choice.”
We may not be popular or well loved, but we absolutely will survive and thrive.
The author, a proud Zionist and Jew, is a freelance writer living in Israel, living the dream.