On the Coverage of the War in Israel and Gaza

            I have been trying to write my thoughts on this for weeks, but I’ve been afraid of getting things wrong, or of bringing down anger from any and all directions. I have a fourteen page draft of a blog post that seems more like a thesis than a personal essay, but I’m not an expert on the history of Israel, or military tactics, or academic jargon, or even anti-Semitism; I care about those things, and am impacted by them, but other people will do a much better job of holding forth on those subjects than I ever could.

            What I can write about is how it has felt to watch the news lately, and be on social media, being told by so many people what I should think, or do, or say in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7^th, a day after the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war. I don’t believe that Jews, or Israel, should be immune to criticism; I also don’t believe that Hamas is anything but a terrorist group (calling them a liberation group suggests a real misunderstanding both of their mission and of how they have governed Gaza for the past decade and a half). What I know for myself is that hearing about the massacres on October 7th made me worry about family and friends in Israel, but watching the gradually more toxic responses around the world, and especially on American college campuses, has been frightening. I thought for sure that the chants of “from the river to the sea,” which is a demand for the eradication of the State of Israel and its current population of more than eight million Jews, plus two million non-Jews, would convince people that this pro-Hamas reaction is morally wrong, but that hasn’t happened. I thought it was the norm to recognize the difference between Hamas and Palestinians in general, and that everyone knew the difference between Israelis living within the internationally accepted borders of Israel (like the ones who were massacred and kidnapped), and Jewish settlers in the West Bank, but no. In fact, a lot of the terminology being thrown around about Israel (colonialist, apartheid, genocide) has become mainstream in a way I never expected. Social media is powerful in creating false narratives, and even more successful in advancing partial narratives that are misleading.

            An enormous number of Israelis who spent the past year protesting against Benjamin Netanyahu’s far right government and its attempts to peel away layers of democracy are now fighting for their country’s survival, both in the military and in thousands of volunteer efforts to help the survivors from the south, who had to escape Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets, and evacuees from the north, escaping Hezbollah rockets. I am proud of how quickly Israelis were able to find their way forward, and worried about the choices of the military and the government, and frightened by the lack of critical thinking and journalistic ethics that seem to abound right now when facts would be really helpful. I am proud of the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews in Israel who are joining the army for this war, despite a very contentious law that allows them to avoid military service in favor of study, and I’m angry at some Jewish settlers in the West Bank who think they have a religious right to hurt their Palestinian neighbors.

            But I can’t fix any of those things. I cannot vote in Israel, and I can’t call every reporter who takes Hamas’ word without evidence and remind them that that’s just stupid. I can only be here, living my own little life in New York, and sending prayers to my family and friends who really need it right now.

            At my synagogue, on Long Island, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about how we find comfort right now, since that’s really all we can control. We’ve had speak ups, to share our grief and confused feelings, and vigils, for the survivors and the dead and the missing and all those on the ground who are still in danger. One of the rabbis from my synagogue joined a group of New York rabbis for a short trip to Israel, to show solidarity and to learn more about what’s going on. I think, right now, many American Jews, because we are further away from the danger and, in most cases, experiencing less direct trauma, are wishing for ways to reach peace. But we, I, have no idea what the military realities are, and what it will take to make Israelis safe again. I refuse to tell Israel what they should do, though, of course, I have questions.

            I have a lot of trouble with people who equate the horror of a massacre perpetrated on civilians and a war conducted, or at least trying to be conducted, under the set rules of war.

            My focus has been on finding podcasts and articles that can help me understand more of what it feels like to be in Israel right now, so that I can be more empathetic, and to reassure me that Israel is a real place and not this cardboard cutout of evil that often gets portrayed by Pro-Palestinian activists on American college campuses.

            Israel Story, a great podcast in English that shares stories from all segments of Israeli society, has been posting short interviews with Israelis in different sectors during the current war. In the past, Israel Story has covered many Palestinian stories with empathy and clarity, humanizing and coloring in details of lives we often don’t get to hear about. The archives are full of those stories, but right now the most powerful of the short interviews I’ve heard was with a father who rescued his teenage son from the music festival in the South of Israel after the massacre had begun. www.israelstory.org/episode/sivan-avnery/                I’ve also been listening to podcasts from a school in Jerusalem called the Shalom Hartman Institute which has done a lot of work bringing together religious and secular, American and Israeli, and finding ways to have difficult conversations that are productive and even inspiring. I also watched a webinar interview with Yehuda Kurtzer, the president of the Institute in North America, that addressed what it feels like in Israel right now, and how liberal American Jews are dealing with the current news environment. https://youtu.be/Glia_tSZqmo?si=g3Fr8T4XR_D7Qkwk

            I go to the Forward and the Times of Israel and the Atlantic for articles that help me understand the issues involved. Here are links to two of the many articles that I’ve found helpful: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-is-israel-being-blamed-for-the-hamas-massacre/

            I go to Kveller and Nosher and My Jewish Learning for a break from the news and a chance to remember that there is still Jewish joy and silliness, and comfort food, and so much to learn about being Jewish that has nothing to do with politics or war.

            But most of all I go to music. I have a ridiculously long Israeli music playlist on Spotify filled with music from Ishai Ribo and Hanan Ben Ari and Yuval Dayan and Keren Peles and Jane Bordeaux and Ofra Haza and Arik Einstein and David Broza and Hadag Nachash and Hatikva 6, and I keep finding more musicians and more music to remind me that there is more to Israel than this war.

Hanan Ben Ari – https://youtu.be/z27MZP_4P_U?si=uu7wqn1pEn6cRdd8

Ishai Ribo – https://youtu.be/7mmu6EzLZfM?si=egySHSIHEU0ckn7t

Jane Bordeaux – https://youtu.be/5t59s1sa1oc?si=o2XozKDDdpCiaSFA

Yuval Dayan – https://youtu.be/V4qsi4V-NFY?si=FqlWyWA40AIKhBYA

            So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m still trying to write out my thoughts on the war itself, and the history that led to it, mostly for my own clarification, but the rest of the time I’m taking a lot of deep breaths, and listening to voices across the spectrum, when I’m up to it, and listening to music when I’m not.

            I wish everyone Besorot Tovot, good news to come, and comfort and understanding until that time comes.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?