Everything has changed, except...
We are once again survivors
She, the helpless widow, Jerusalem, weeps at night, as she is ashamed to weep in the daytime when people can see her, and her tears are on her cheeks. She attempts to hide her tears from the eyes of strangers. Of all her lovers, or political allies, she has no one to comfort her. All her allies have betrayed her; they have become her enemies; all the countries that had friendly relationships with her abandoned her after her downfall.
Eichah, 1:2
History is real
I attended a text-study this week, facilitated by the Shalom Hartman Institute. We discussed Jewish mourning, our obligations to each other, and the nature of Jewish resilience.
Near the end of the conversation, one of the participants, Hadassa, commented that after the events of October 7, she would never again read the Book of Lamentations (Eichah) on Tisha B’Av the same again.
Eichah is a collection of poetic laments from the destruction of Jerusalem in 586BCE. It details in horrific detail the first destruction of the Temple, the state of Jerusalem afterwards, and the impact in the aftermath: children begging for food, young men and women cut down by sword, and even the roads of Jerusalem mourning the condition of the city. We read Eichah on the day we fast and mourn the destruction of Jerusalem, the “saddest day in Jewish history.”
Hadassa noted that deep down, she had never really thought of Eichah as real, and maybe just an exaggerated way to describe the utter destruction experienced, and felt, after the Temple’s fall. She said however that after the events earlier this month, she would never read it the same again. She understood better now the death and destruction detailed in that holy book, as she has now seen it with her own eyes.
We all have.
Everything has changed
On Oct 7, the historic destruction that Jews are sadly too familiar with, revisited the People and the Land of Israel.
They wanted the world to see what they were proud of doing. And perhaps they knew something that we did not: that the world would be OK with their crimes.
Foreign invaders killed men and children. Not with swords, but with guns. They executed babies in their cribs, the elderly in their beds, tying family members to each other before burning their bodies. They raped those still alive and freshly dead. They pillaged, they showed no mercy, and they kidnapped over 200 people - Jews and non-Jews -dragging them back to Gaza. Their fates are still unknown.
They documented their crimes. Hamas wanted the world to know what they did and how they did it. They filmed with GoPros, they phoned their families to tell them proudly how many Jews they had killed, and they broadcast their crimes on Facebook and other platforms.
They wanted the world to see what they were proud of doing. And perhaps they knew something that we did not: the world would be OK with their crimes.
In the last three weeks, we have witnessed the world rationalize the murder of Jews.
It has become OK to tear down posters of those children kidnapped, ripped from their parents arms at gunpoint. The UN Secretary General justified the brutality, noting that what happened on Oct 7 “did not happen in a vacuum.” Universities, supposed to be bastions of enlightenment, have become cesspools of antisemitism, where student unions and administrators feel empowered to blame the Jews for their own murders. People are proud to march down the streets with Palestinian flags, Hamas flags, even ISIS flags, proclaiming that the Jews are at fault. Had those pathetic Jews not sought a state of their own, we would not have had to murder them in their cribs.
For many years we have known, or at least thought we have known, what people think about the Jews. Now there is no doubt. Everything has changed.
Except
We are once again survivors.
At the text study this week, I commented, holding back tears, that there is perhaps one good thing that has come from Oct 7. Not good, but helpful. I actually don’t know the right word. Fortuitous? We can once again bear witness to the horrors of antisemitism. We now have a new generation of survivors, born overnight.
Last month I attended an event in Thornhill where two Holocaust survivors were speaking - the inimitable Nate Leipciger and Sol Nayman. Nate and Sol spoke about how there are just not that many survivors left, that they are old, and that it is important for the 2nd and 3rd generation survivors, their children and grandchildren, to learn to tell their stories. They said that their stories, and those of every other survivor, needed to be shared and disseminated widely so that people never forget what happened during the Holocaust. What humans could do to other humans.
But the Holocaust is not antisemitism. It is an example of antisemitism. The ultimate example. Antisemitism has reared its head many times throughout history, and maybe we were overdue for a reminder.
Over the last several years, we have been forced to reckon with the new reality: there are just not that many Holocaust survivors left. The war ended 78 years ago, and fewer people are alive to share what they saw. We lament their deaths, not only for the obvious loss, but because their eye-witness testimony is lost forever, now relegated to being told by others. With them gone, their responsibility to tell their story has now shifted to their children.
But the Holocaust is not antisemitism. It is an example of antisemitism. The ultimate example. Antisemitism has reared its head many times throughout history, and maybe we were overdue for a reminder.
On the evening of Oct 8, I met with some family, and someone whispered that every other generation of Jews had witnessed their own massacre, maybe it was just time for us to do the same. We know that antisemitism exists, we know the barbarity of Israel’s enemies, and we have seen them try, time and time again, to kill the Jews. Several Arab-Israeli Wars, two intifadas, lone-wolf attacks, plane hijackings, community centres and embassy bombings, we have witnessed it all.
And now, we have a new batch of survivors. Of witnesses. Yes, you and I have witnessed the massacres because of what we have seen online. We saw the videos that Hamas wanted us to see of their crimes, and of their inhumanity. But those on the ground, our Israeli friends and cousins who lived or live in the Gaza envelope, around what is referred to as Hamastan, they are our new eyewitnesses. They are our new survivors. They lived these attacks. They feared for their lives. They are suffering an unimaginable pain.
Those Israelis who saw their friends raped and murdered at a music festival, those whose grandparents, parents, siblings, children, or friends, were killed in front of them, or who saw their bodies lying on the streets as the dust settled, they are our new survivors.
They must be given time to grieve, but soon these new survivors will do what so many survivors have done in the past. They will rekindle our torch of survival, that has been passed on from generation to generation of Jews. They will hold it high, not wiping off the fingerprints of past generations who have held the same, and who have proclaimed never again, often into an empty void. They will kindle the flame with their tears, they will share their experiences, they will do so with their heads held high, and they will remind us of our place in Jewish history.
Jewish history does not end. We are too stubborn to give the rest of the world what it wants.
We survive.
We live.
Israel and the Jewish people are not going anywhere.
Next week, Holocaust Education Week begins in Toronto. Consider attending an event, asking a question, and learning something new. Carrying memory forward is incumbent on us all.