My People, Revisited, Two Years After October 7
Will there ever again be peace in Eretz Yisrael?
Two years ago…
I lay on the narrow exam table with “everything off” except the blue-and-white hospital gown tied at my neck and open to the back.
It was early morning in Los Angeles and I was hungry—empty, really—and tired from the clear liquid diet—apple juice, vegetable broth, ten lemon Jell-Os—and the routine colonoscopy “prep” I’d endured the day before.
A surgical assistant approached me with a wristband.
Inwardly, I moaned. Did I have to do this? Answer: yes.
“Hold out your arm,” the assistant instructed. “Just think of this like you’re at a music concert.”
At my side, the stocky, dyed-blond nurse stiffened.
As did I.
It had been only four days since Hamas militants massacred two hundred and sixty people at a dance party in Israel’s Negev Desert. Israeli soldiers now stood guard at the site, strewn with mattresses, tents, food, clothing, and one militant’s dead body, left there as a warning. In Israel, 1,200 people were dead with another 2,800 wounded. In Gaza, the death toll surpassed 1,500. The war had only just begun.
Could anyone be as clueless as this surgical assistant seemed to be? Apparently so.
“That’s…maybe not the best comment right now,” I said.
The nurse murmured, “I am half-Russian, half-Ukrainian.” Her thickly accented voice came low, as if for my ears only.
She sounded like my grandmother. Born in Kishinev, my father’s mother immigrated first to Panama, then to Los Angeles as a young woman.
I was born Jewish and brought up Jewish. As a teenager, I’d spent one glorious, fearless summer in Israel, studying Hebrew, harvesting potatoes, traveling throughout the state and visiting my great-aunt and great-uncle, who lived part-time in Netanya.
Later, though, my feelings toward my religious heritage changed. As an atheist, I had no interest in prayer. As an adult without children, I felt marginalized, even unwelcome, in synagogue life. But I don’t celebrate Christmas, either. No Christmas tree. No Christmas lights. No Christmas cards. I’m an outsider in almost any religious space.
So why did this Hamas massacre in Eretz Yisrael feel so personal?
Because even without formal religion, I’m still a member of the tribe. I’m not always sure what that means, but I’ve never denied it and can’t imagine that I ever would. Jewish values, history and culture are visible threads woven through the fabric of my life. I don’t know whether I still have distant relatives in Israel, but really, everyone who lives there feels to me like my family. Those vicious attacks? Those people murdered? They could’ve been my loved ones. Or me.
I extended my arm toward the surgical assistant.
“I don’t watch all that stuff happening on the news,” she declared, as if “all that stuff” could not have been of less interest to her. Or to anyone.
She snapped the band around my wrist.
I withdrew my arm.
“It’s easy to look away,” I said, “when it’s not your people.”
Today, at home, safe, in my narrow, ill-lit office, I revisit this story. Israel remains at war with Hamas in Gaza. The death toll’s horrific; the destruction massive; the suffering unspeakable; the conflict unresolvable; the hate unending.
Of the 251 people Hamas and other militants kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, 148 have been released, 140 alive, eight dead. Israeli forces rescued eight others, alive, and recovered the bodies of 51, dead. Forty-eight remain captive. Of those, fewer than half are believed to be alive. These totals, from the AP, include two hostages who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, and two soldiers killed in the 2014 war.)
With Israel in the news every day, my connection to my people feels stronger. I try not to look away. Through genealogy research, I discovered I do have family in Israel. Cousins. We exchange email messages from time to time. Mostly, we compare notes about our ancestors. Rarely, we talk about the war. Never do we mention politics here or there.
Looking back, I remember my glorious, fearless summer in Israel with a greater appreciation for how special it was and how lucky my friends and I were to stay there at a time of relative peace, and I wonder: will that ever be possible again? #
“My People” was first published June 17, 2024, by The Jewish Writing Project
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