Never underestimate the power of a woman

Never underestimate the power of a woman

“A woman, even a brilliant woman, must have two qualities in order to fulfill her promise: more energy than mere mortals, and the ability to outwit her culture.”

Margaret Mead

Sadly, I live in a country where gun violence, in all its forms, is as common as birthday candles, running water, and cell phones. This is also a country where the white male president openly calls anyone who disagrees with him or is ethnically different from him, especially if the person happens to be a woman, garbage, among other vile names. I’ve stopped wondering why some people need to hate other people in order to feel good about themselves because in this environment, the evolution of a hate culture is to be expected. It’s no wonder antisemitism has dramatically increased, both here and worldwide as a result. America is, after all, supposedly the leader of the free world and if America’s president hates someone or some group, there must be a good reason to follow his lead and hate them too.

When I learned of the massacre of Australian Jews who, living in a country where mass gun violence is rare, had gathered to celebrate the beginning of Hanukkah, my first reaction was shock.  Then came deep sadness, followed by echoes of “welcome to my world.” We’d had a few shootings and high-profile murders ourselves in recent days. These mass murder events are neither unusual nor unfamiliar to Americans and they don’t just happen to Jews. Then I noticed something unusual about the Australian Hanukkah attack: one of the two people who saw what was about to happen and courageously tried to stop it was a 61-year-old woman, Sofia Gurman.

I began wondering what prompted Sofia to take bold, life-threatening action in an attempt to stop another mass shooting? We’ll never know the answer, because the gunman shot and killed Sofia and her 69-year-old husband, Boris. It appears they were an ordinary, quietly retired couple who will go to their graves with brief recognition of their heroic effort, then soon forgotten by all but their loved ones. This is just the way it is with mass casualty events – people express their horror and outrage, then return to their regular lives as soon as possible.

After several days of being unable to get Sofia’s heroism out of my mind, I realized one reason she was living rent-free in my head was that I didn’t want her name to be lost. I didn’t want her heroism to be buried with her. I wanted her name to be included among other Jewish women who lived the Talmud mandate to not ignore the wrongs you see around you and responded by trying to make the world better.

In the beginning there was Esther, who saved the Jewish people from Genocide; Miriam, who led the Israelites following their exodus out of Egypt; and Deborah, Ruth and Salome. Later, Gracia Mendes Nasi created escape networks for Jews fleeing the Inquisition. In modern times, Henrietta Szold founded Hadassah; Hanna Senesh parachuted into Nazi-occupied Hungary to rescue Jews; German Jew Regina Jonas became the first female rabbi; Bella Abzug an American congresswoman became an outspoken advocate for peace and women’s rights; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman justice on the United States Supreme Court fiercely defended the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.

All of these women did great and magnificent things, but my personal favorite is Golda Meir, Israel’s only female prime minister. She understood that antisemitism was real, that Israel already had enough enemies, without creating more through misguided war policies, and that Israel’s war was every Jew’s war. Not all Israelis agreed with her, but that didn’t make her wrong.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur attack Golda went in, took care of the problem, and got out in nineteen days. Say what you will about her leadership, she won the war and she did it without the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants for her on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity and without a United Nations Commission of Inquiry, international human rights organizations, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally accusing her, and several Israeli ministers and other high-ranking government officials of genocide and incitement to genocide. Golda’s response to the October 7, 2023, attack would have been to outwit Hamas, which would not have resulted in 50,000 children living in Gaza being killed or injured[i].

The net effect of the mass casualties of innocents in Gaza has given Hamas exactly what it wants, which is for the world to hate the Jews even more, and be more willing than ever in recent memory to take up a fight against us. All one has to do is look at the unprecedented rise in antisemitism and antisemitic violence world-wide to know the Hamas strategy has worked. In this sense, the October 7^th attack achieved the desired effect – partly because Israel’s outsized, protracted response allowed it.

There is no question in my mind that if a woman was President of the United States, America would not be experiencing the insidious hate culture currently surrounding us, and there’s no question in my mind that if a woman was Prime Minister of Israel, the October 7, 2023 attack would have been handled differently. I am among those who believe that Israeli’s Gaza war policy and stubborn refusal to consider all possible solutions to the chronic Middle East conflict are contributing significantly to the meteoric rise in global antisemitism. I also believe that the current American president is a badly misguided world leader who is actively, purposely creating a generalized culture of hate that allows him to feel better about himself and encourages antisemitism to thrive.

Most of all, I believe in the power of women to reverse these trends. Ultimately, it is up to women in power, and ordinary women of good will, like Sofia Gurman, to step up to the challenge of repairing our badly broken world. Sofia was courageous enough to do her part; the rest of us should be courageous enough to follow her lead. May her memory be for a blessing.

Shalom aleichem

שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם

[i] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unimaginable-horrors-more-50000-children-reportedly-killed-or-injured-gaza-strip