Eli Kimbell
Elishe Avracham Simcha ben Baruch Shalom
Hi everyone. Welcome back, it’s been a little while. If you’ve been wondering where we’ve been, I can explain. The last time we published a post was before October 7th. We met to write a new one a few days later, and both finished a draft. For a litany of reasons, we couldn’t get it over the line. I think it’s probably better that we didn’t. Our post was about the unfolding events in Israel and Palestine, and they were gut reactions to events we weren’t entirely acquainted with at the time. For this blog, our job is not to report the news. Our job is to react emotionally to the world around us and try to make some sense of it all. Doing so in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attacks proved nearly impossible.
At the heart of my conflicted emotions about everything was the simple fact that I am Jewish.
We took some time to reflect over the last month, moved on to other projects and let ourselves sit with these emotions for a while. Time is an incredibly useful tool if you’ve got it and know how to use it, and despite the fact that we had previously committed to posting on a much more consistent basis, we came to an unspoken understanding that the time between then and now was necessary for us to grapple with our thoughts.
For me, that doesn’t mean I am feeling any less confused or anguished about what is happening in Israel and Palestine right now. It just means that I am more sure of that confusion and anguish.
In many ways before this year, my views on the world were sheltered, or otherwise not fully formed. October 7th opened my eyes wider than they ever have been to the nature of chaos in the world. I have seen chaos unfold before me more this year than in any year prior, both from a personal standpoint and from a global one. In the past, I sought easy solutions to problems that required more intricate ones. Even the birth of this blog was partially motivated by a naïveté on my end about how easy it might be to reconcile the chaos that had befallen our family. With this time I’ve been given to reflect, and through some of the projects I’ve taken on, I have gained a level of understanding about the chaos and nonsense that constantly rears its head in our world that I would never have gained otherwise. I have come to an understanding with that chaos, and seek to grow and thrive because of it and not outside its parameters. It is there, and for lack of a better term, turning a blind eye to it is never the answer.
There have been few occasions over the last month when I have felt any form of wholeness about Israel and Palestine. I have had discussions with friends and family that have driven wedges between us. I have learned when adding fuel to that fire is the right thing to do, and when it is futile. I have seen any semblance of an echo chamber shattered, and it’s about time. I have seen those close to me, many of them Jews like me, succumb to vile opinions that betray the morality they have otherwise exhibited in the past and on which the tenets of Judaism rest. I see their human inconsistency, and it hurts, but after a month, I can see how they can be reconciled with my own human imperfection. I have seen the truth twisted in a million ways, I have fallen to hopelessness because of it, and also because of those close to me, I have exited that hopeless inferno into the fields of change; sown but not yet bearing fruit.
Solidifying this comfort amid the chaos were the images I saw last week of the protests calling for a cease-fire at the Statue of Liberty. I had been waiting for an image of hope to strike me for many weeks, and I found it in those who have ignored the likelihood of continuing chaos in favor of the existing possibility of peace. I was unable to arrive there on my own, but humans continue to amaze and inspire me. I had lost that faith for a bit, but that image of hundreds of people standing for peace at the symbol of global peace refocused my spirit. I am aware that a cease-fire, if executed, would only be a small measure of progress, and would likely be temporary. But it is the only start I can see that can bring lasting change, and my reaction to that potential was visceral.
I know for a fact that there are readers of our blog that stand staunchly on the side of Israel without hesitation; without discretion. For those of you who are Jewish and have this unwavering opinion, I understand why that is the case, particularly those of you who have traveled there recently or at all, and particularly those of you whose parents or relatives are Holocaust survivors. With such emotional and historical trauma wrought upon our people–OUR people–these proclivities to stand in solidarity without caveats is the path of least resistance to wrap our heads around the events unfolding currently. At one point in my life, my loyalty to the state of Israel was also unwavering.
To those of you who might fall into this camp, I encourage you to appeal to your Judaism rather than your Zionism. Israel has played its role in the longevity of our people, but the true engine of our survival has been our Judaism. And our Judaism is a loving tradition, even in the face of hate which has never failed to find us. I encourage you to question yourselves, at the very least. Assume everything you know to be true is not, and relearn how to find the truth. Arrive at your conclusions after breaking yourself down to a blank slate and considering all possibilities. Listen to the youth. Nearly every successful global movement for peace and justice has begun with the youth. We have less unlearning to do than older generations, and so we are capable of arriving at valuable solutions a bit quicker, much of the time. If you are unwilling or unable to do this, you are part of the problem and not the solution. And I wouldn’t offer suggestions I haven’t already taken myself, and continue to take every day.
Be a voice of peace. Those at the Statue of Liberty are the purest version of that–they are quite literally calling for an end to the violence, and that is the baseline for all of us, even if it seems impossible at the moment. It may seem like too simple a solution to an incredibly complex problem, but it is not a simple solution by any means. It is possible, however. Fight through the hopelessness and find your humanity amid the chaos. The world has made it difficult, but it’s there, I promise.
Alex DeOrio
The Hamas attack in Israel blindsided us like an oncoming semi. A tragedy taking place half a world away that had the foreboding feeling of murder taking place right outside our front door. As a result of controversy, nationalism and, you guessed it, antisemitism, the Israel-Palestine conflict is something that has become embedded in the western world’s consciousness. An unwinnable debate in which even the most ignorant, uneducated and out-of-touch seem to have an opinion. This isn’t a crisis we’re getting through together. It’s a disaster we’re fighting between ourselves. Collective Chaos on steroids. A conflict that’s created a counter-conflict.
In recent memory, I’ve witnessed some bizarre trends. The fanatical fever that cast a hypnotic spell over hard-core Trump supporters. The Q-anon frenzy in which everyone from street bums to Ivy-league scholars were spreading awareness about the Lizard people in Hollywood feeding off the adrenochrome of children. The blatant in-your-face racism not seen since the 1960s. The year 2020. The election of a president who looks like he could be a Civil War veteran. I could go on and on.
However, what I witnessed immediately following the Hamas massacre was something I don’t think I could’ve prepared myself for. Never, in 10 million years, did I think I’d see the day when American citizens would hit the streets to openly support a terrorist organization that harbors the exact same beliefs as the monsters who flew two planes into the Twin Towers. College students, reaping the spoils of capitalism, born and bred on land stolen from Native Americans, cheering on a bunch of cowards who kidnapped civilians from their homes, filled with excitement that Palestinians and Hamas finally stood up to Zionist Israel. Members of the LGBTQ community, too pitifully ignorant to realize they’re celebrating militants who would throw them off the roof of a building for being queer.
It’s hard to describe the mixture of emotions I felt while watching this take place. Not fear. Not even sadness. More like shock and bewilderment transfigured into anger and vigilance. It was hard to process how people could possibly have become so misguided. But with that bewilderment came nefarious thoughts. The images of teenagers and young adults getting gunned down at an EDM concert along with the charred corpses of families inside their homes kicked up dark and violent aspirations inside me. For a moment, I viewed these clueless protesters as one and the same as the Hamas militants themselves. It reminded me of this seething feeling I’ve felt when watching that scene from Schindler’s List. The one where the crowds of people are laughing and cheering while watching the helpless Jews being dragged from their homes and escorted by the Nazis to the concentration camps.
They’re collaborators. No different than the Gestapo. Line ‘em all up. Take ‘em into the showers and then see if they’re still laughing.
Then I abruptly snapped back to reality, shivering with terror at the realization that I could even think of such a thing.
If only it was that simple…
In some cases, it is. In jail, for example, there’s no better way to make your stay more comfortable than by beating up the toughest guy on the tier after he tries to take your food tray. In the streets, you respond to the hardest gangster by hitting harder. Take the most sadistic and ruthless bruiser and force feed him his own medicine. Defeat the monster by becoming one.
Take the case of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz who perfected Zyklon B. As soon as Germany surrendered, he did the same thing most war criminals do once the tables turn: run and hide like a coward. While other captured Nazis rotted away in POW camps, Höss hid in the German countryside, working as a gardener under a pseudonym. When the British Royal Pioneer Corps showed up at his home, his wife quickly divulged his location after they began beating their son.
The British, normally better known for their manners than their brutality, weren’t too concerned about playing by the rules. Aside from the fact that their country had just spent the last five years devastated by German airstrikes, Rudolf Höss was also arguably one of the most evil men in history. So when he lied while under interrogation and refused to admit who he was or what he’d done, the Brits didn’t read him his rights or promise him that “justice will be served in the name of international law.” Instead, they treated him similarly to the way he treated so many others. Under such harsh yet justifiable tactics, Mr. Höss was no longer feeling very confident. To think just a year earlier, he was enjoying life, effortlessly ordering the extermination of Jews, watching with pleasure as they perished in the gas chamber and sipping Schnapps from the luxury of his villa outside the camp. Now he was learning that when those tables turn, oh boy do they turn, baby! Playtime was over. The führer was dead. The devil wasn’t coming to save him. You reap what you sow.
It was very simple. Why? Because there was a direct line drawn between the ally and the enemy. Sure, there were innocent civilians who suffered the consequences of their government’s actions. But it was clear who they were fighting versus who they were just displacing.
In Gaza, no such form of simplicity exists. It’s an impoverished enclave, roughly the size of Washington D.C., with an overcrowded population. In theory, the enemy is Hamas. In reality, to drive out cowardly terrorists hiding underground, Israel’s response has affected innocent Gazans. Considering the unprecedented and brazen brutality Hamas displayed on October 7th, the world waited for the IDF to retaliate and do what they’ve proved to do best. To no one’s surprise, that’s what they’ve done in the exact way we all expected them to do it.
I’m not pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro Muslim, pro Jewish, leftist or fascist. I’m pro-humanity. Because without humanity, we’re just animals in the wild. The ever-growing divide in society that has become the foundation for the present collective chaos was originally spawned by a difference in ideologies. For me, in this case, there is no ideology. If you slaughter over a thousand innocent, defenseless civilians, I’m no longer concerned about whether you’ve been oppressed. Just like Rudolf Höss, the only thing I care about is you get what’s coming to you.