I want to tell you what the blind girl saw

I saw her first. Led by a gentle yellow Labrador on a harness. Really, she’s a woman with a husband and daughter. She had stopped by the coffee shop where I write every morning. I said hi and introduced myself because I knew her as a girl in Sydney, Australia. Before she became blind. She is a beautiful girl. Woman now. She hasn’t changed much. Slim. Straight, honey-streaked hair. Honey eyes that see what many can’t see.

I ask how she is. How was Pesach? For some reason, the protests came up. She told me she hears them from her home. They shout through loudspeakers, waving yellow flags and hostage posters. They make her angry. What does free the hostages at any cost mean? Why are they shouting? Why is there so much hate? How about the soldiers? Their families? The fallen soldier’s family? How about everyone else?

She tells me how she works with the sister of a fallen soldier’s wife. This soldier was a rabbi and was killed in Lebanon, tending to the wounded. He had eight children. The orphan son of this fallen soldier lives on the corner where the protests take place. They are giving them nightmares, she tells me. I wince like someone had screamed through a loudspeaker in my ear.

I admire how she says, “They make me angry.” Just owns it. And continues. “The other side is just as bad, tearing down hostage posters. Who tears down hostage posters?”

Both sides are tearing down posters. Fallen soldier posters and hostage posters. Like one’s pain is more important than another’s. No one wants to see the other’s pain. How do you measure pain?

It is all our pain.

Where are the people in the middle? We both ask each other. The majority of people are not tearing down posters. The majority are not screaming through loudspeakers.

Why are we quiet? “We shouldn’t be quiet,” she says and reflects on her recent trip with her family to Vienna. “It would have been easy to say I’m Australian and my husband is from America. But I wanted them to know we are from Israel. I don’t want to hide. We are so lucky to have Israel. We are lucky we don’t have to hide being Jewish anymore.”

She is part of the majority, I think, as I say goodbye and she and her guide dog make their way up the hill to work.

Later that day, I see a friend who tells me about the hostage Bar Kupershtein’s mother, Julie, who received a phone call from Hamas saying in Iranian-accented Hebrew that she’s not doing enough to free her son. She should be going to protests against the government. She needs to go to the Hague and testify that the Israeli government is killing Palestinian children.

I don’t know why this story didn’t make bigger headlines. I only hear this story now, in April. I check the Hebrew and English news articles. It’s reported in early January. When we protest, who are we strengthening and who are we weakening?

When we blare hate and anger, can we even think straight?

All I can think of is the chaos and confusion that lies beneath the surface of our world.

I think of Rabbi Doron Perez, whose son Daniel Shimon Perez was killed, courageously fighting Hamas on the 7th of October, may his memory be a revolution of light and unity. He says that it doesn’t even matter who is right. Both may be right. The problem is when we stop listening to each other. What world do we live in when we are so filled with hate that we stop listening to each other? Stop seeing the other as human? He asks. I too am asking.

That evening, I drove by the protests on Pierre Koenig and there was a young, dark haired woman, her arm raised, blaring into her speaker. It was very loud, like a hive of wasps. A frenzy of fury. A man with a long beard tied himself to the traffic light in the middle of the street intersection. He blindfolded himself. It was painful to see. I was glad I had no children in my car. The truth is, there weren’t even that many people. And those who were there were mostly older. I don’t know what they are shouting.

We all want the hostages home.

I write this having said goodbye to two soldiers that morning. Worrying as a mother does. Did they drink the fresh orange juice I squeezed? Annoying them with sandwiches for the long bus ride. I cannot protect them as they leave my front door. I can’t express to you the helplessness of a mother who cannot protect her sons.

Protection is everything. I can’t do much more than light candles and pray. I want to approach the protesting woman but she is shouting so loudly. All I want to say is there are children who can’t sleep at night because of her shouting. Some are fallen soldier’s kids.

Whose war is this?

On October 7th, everyone fell victim in the path of the terrorists. It didn’t matter if you were Israeli, Jewish, Bedouin, Druze, Muslim or Christian Arab, Orthodox or Secular. The intention was to destroy the Jewish state and anyone who supports it.

So what can we do?

This is Yom HaZikaron — the day we remember all who have fallen for the Jewish state. All those killed in terrorist attacks. The cost of a Jewish homeland. Israeli flags fly over evening and morning memorials that will take place throughout Israel. Torches and candles will be lit in school fields, public squares, parks, and private homes. Everyone has lost somebody. And in grief, we are humbled. We are together.

I often wonder how we will unite. I think of Arnold Clevs, 92, who is a child Holocaust survivor and last week visited Auschwitz for the first time since he was released at the age of 12 in 1945. He spoke to the freed hostages who were also visiting, Agam Berger amongst them. He said, Do not compare now to the Holocaust. We are not in a Holocaust. When you were in the Hamas tunnels, you had hope. You could hear the IDF airplanes above you. We only had chimney smoke, the ashes of our families and people above us. We had no hope.

How do we return to hope and unity?

The answer is also on the streets of Jerusalem. The next day, I was walking down the street and a kerchiefed Jewish woman dropped her baby. I don’t know how a mother drops her baby. All I know is she gave a curdling shriek that stopped the cars. In seconds, she was surrounded by people. For some reason, they seemed to be mostly older, balding men. The panic was real. The relief was felt deeply as the baby let out a wail. The men kissed the baby’s head as they comforted the mother. And I felt this welling up within me. We are so human together when we are there for each other.

Remember how human each of us is. How fragile our hearts. How much grief there already is. We all need to battle in our individual hearts. Choose life, Arnold Clevs says. Choose to love each other no matter what your ideologies. We only have one country, home for over 6 million Jews and two million Arabs and Druze and other minorities who fight and mourn, love and live together (however messily). We only have each other in this increasingly insecure, confusing world.

And I like to remember and take strength from what Bar’s mother replied to the Hamas terrorist, “Bar is in the hands of the Creator of the world and so are you.”

There was silence on the line, and then the terrorist surprisingly said “Kol Hakavod to you, madam.”

Let us honor our world – its beauty and pain, which is so humbling. We stand in silence on Yom HaZikaron for the beautiful souls we have lost. This is what we celebrate on Yom HaAtzmaut – Israel’s Day of Independence, how we love and live better together — so they did not die for nothing.

So yes, we are grieving. Grieving 59 hostages still in the darkness of Hamas tunnels. We grieve the 319 soldiers and 79 Israeli civilians killed since last Memorial Day. We grieve a war we do not want. Enemies who want to destroy the dream of a democratic Jewish State where Jews are safe, as well as 2 million Arabs, Druze and minorities. A hope for safety and security that many in the Middle East also dream of.

I cannot ignore the blind girl’s wisdom. See what she sees in this world. She sees more than most. She and Bar’s mother know we are all in the hands of a power bigger than ourselves. We need to be humble, do our part and unite.

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This post first appeared on Sarah’s Substack – Picking Lemons