On October 16, which was about three and a half weeks ago, I wrote a poem titled That’s Our Daughter, and a few days later I wrote a piece titled “How Does it Feel to be Jewish”. I posted both here, in my blog.
Prior to this, I hadn’t written anything in my blog for three years. If you’ve read either of those then it’s no mystery what led me to write and post. October 7 shook us in a way that we are all still trying to metabolize. I wish we didn’t have to. But no matter how much our souls try to reject the poison, there it is. And there is no antidote. We just need to learn to function with it pulsing through our veins. Even as the world seems determined to pump more of it in.
Unlike other major events I’ve lived through in my life, I can’t tell you exactly where I was when I learned about what happened. I thought that might just be me, but I’ve read this sentiment from other Jewish people as well. I can tell you where I was when I heard about the first plane flying into the WTC tower on 9/11. I can tell you where I was when I learned that my best friend’s eight year-old son had died suddenly. Hell I can even tell you where I was when I heard that Gretzky got traded from the Oilers. But this one … nope. No idea. And I think that’s because I am still finding out. In fact, I didn’t know right away that there had been a massacre. The way news reaches me, personally, I first heard that Hamas was firing rockets into Israel again. The news of what they had done on October 7th snaked into my awareness later, very slowly. And I still wasn’t processing it. Then I saw a video of a young woman being dragged from a jeep by Hamas terrorists. She had clearly been raped. She was bleeding from her head and her crotch. And the whole thing slammed into me in that moment. She could have been my daughter. She is our daughter. I am still haunted by her reality, and the reality of her parents and family. It sent me into a depressive state I had no way to navigate, and so I did what I often do, which is to start writing.
I wrote “How Does it Feel to be Jewish” to articulate to myself how it felt. When I was finished, I was not thinking about whether it was any good. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to click submit, and in fact almost did not. I wasn’t expecting the response it got. My Facebook post about it was shared almost a thousand times. Here on the blog site it has been viewed just under two hundred thousand times. It even got picked up by The National Post, which is surreal. Although I believe these facts, I still don’t really understand them. I have been overwhelmed by the response. I’ve received comments, private messages, texts, and even had people from my past or my family’s past reach out to tell me they read it and it touched them, and to share their own experiences. And I keep thinking, But I’m not special! But it slowly dawned on me. The response isn’t even remotely about me. It is about us. I am not special. WE ARE. Jewish people are special.
I know, I know. You want to respond with “All people are special!”. I will tell you right away – I agree. I agree with all my heart. All people are special. All of us are born with potential for profound humanity. Even now, my faith in humanity has not been shaken, even in the face of the recent cementing of my understanding of humans. Most people are good. My claim that Jewish people are special is, in fact, a result of the fact that all people are special. Any human could be born Jewish. And any human that is born Jewish will then live a life as a Jewish person. This is not a statement about religion, belief in God, observance or nationality. It’s just true. If you are born Jewish then the life you lead will be led as someone who was born Jewish. That can take you in many directions. But it can’t take you away from the fact of your birth. With rare exception, this means you become aware over time that there aren’t very many of us. In Canada we make up one percent of the population. Worldwide, it’s about two tenths of a percent. This has the effect of isolating you locally, while promoting a sense of community globally. Many of us tend to feel connected to each other precisely because there are so few. And if you are a Jewish person living today, then Israel as a modern Jewish state has been around for most and likely all of your life. No matter where you stand on the conflict, this is true. You may love Israel. You may hate Israel. You may support Israel fully or you may have criticism. But Israel has been there. October 7 was a massacre of Jews. It was deliberate murder, torture, and rape. What it has done to pretty much every Jewish person I know is manifest as an attack on our global community. And while it is deeply heartening to receive support from outside that community – and there has been plenty – we also see the hate that has been freed. We see how quickly the rape of our daughters, mothers and grandmothers has been brushed aside. We see how it catalyzed renewed calls for our extermination. The sentiment “Hitler was right” trends. Hitler didn’t try to erase Israel. It wasn’t even a country at that time. Hitler meant to erase Jews. We know what “Hitler was right” means.
We also see, as Mayim Bialik put it, the mysterious struggle some prominent institutions seem to have to find the words to condemn the terrorist acts of October 7. Or as she also said, the swiftness with which the very meaning of terrorism has been redefined by many so that it does not include the beheading of our babies. We see that clear hate speech is being tolerated under the nominal umbrella of nuance. And believe it or not, for us, it’s not even about blaming anyone, although there are plenty of institutions and even people we can blame. It’s a collective understanding that we get it. Again. The only community we can count on without reservation is ourselves.
Now, when we talk to each other, even when it has nothing to do with current events, there is a deeper connection. When we read each other’s posts and stories, from people who never had much presence on social media before, we understand. We’re like any other group of people. Some of us get along in our day-to-day and some of us don’t. We disagree with each other on many things and we agree with each other on many. But all of that has been put aside, because we understand our world in a way that I am glad others do not. We didn’t ask to be a group for whose extermination open calls can be made, without repercussion, in our home countries. We just are. So now the deepness of our connections is made manifest. A deepness many of us probably weren’t aware of.
I was at a Bat Mitzvah recently, and at the end of the service, the congregation sang Hatikvah. I went to Hebrew school for twelve years. I know the words and can sing them without conscious thought. In the thousands of times I’ve heard it or sung it, I have never been impacted by it the way I was this time. It brought me to tears. And it was not because of a connection to Israel, although anyone reading this would find that the most obvious explanation. What was in my heart at that moment was a connection to Jewish people. All of them. Everywhere.
I have never felt more Jewish.
Experience Has Made Me Rich 