October 7 and Yom Kippur reflections

In less than 24 hours, the Jews will commence Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. As opposed to common thought, it is not a sad day, but it is a solemn day, the most solemn in the Jewish calendar. For 25 hours, we will not eat or drink, but pray and think about the year that was and the year to come. We pray that we will be written in the Book of Life. We pray that we will not be the ones to die too soon.

And as I reflect on the year that was, I reflect again on what has become of this country. The so-called Lucky Country. The so-called “ one and free” as is written in our national anthem. And for the life of me I cannot see anymore the one or the free.

I look around, I read the statements made by our so called leaders, our pernicious government, and I realize I feel like the betrayed partner who didn’t see the betrayal coming. The partner who thought all was fine, who thought her partner had her back, only to discover with shock and horror that he did not, that in fact he had betrayed her trust again and again and that trust could never be reborn. And like a survivor of family violence, I wanted to believe that he would change. I wanted to believe that the cycle of violence would not  be replicated in this betrayal, that once again he would  be with  and behind me and that I could feel safe, that his words would comfort and sustain me.

But that proved to be a false belief. There were no words of comfort. The betrayal was absolute. For me , after that, there would be no forgiveness and certainly I would never forget.

I listened and read in ongoing disbelief the statements made by the prime minister and foreign minister. I read the hollow statements of blancmange support. I saw the pulled down posters of the hostages. I saw the yelling and screaming mobs. I saw the keffiyeh wearing useful idiots who, in my sleepless nights turned into the  baying crowds at Nuremberg. For is there really any difference?  I saw the university encampments and the storming and invasion just yesterday of a university professor’s office, invaded because he is  a Jew and a Zionist. Nothing to do with his physics classes. I see the police standing by and ignoring the mob. Like Kristallnacht when the police stood by while the mob destroyed Jewish businesses and homes and synagogues.

Are we there yet I wonder?

I see the handwringing and the double speak of our weak and spineless leaders. I see the endless bleating about a ceasefire and peace in our time. Oh yes, we have heard that one before. Didn’t end so well, as I recall. And I wonder who has the kishkes as we Jews like to say, for a fight, for the ability to see this through to the end. The “this” is the end of the terror fronts on Israel’s borders and in its streets and in its houses and towns and which murders and butchers its women children and babies.

I see the so called human rights and  faux feminist voices extolling the principles of human rights and women’s’ and #metoo rights ..unless of course you are a Jew…in which case no rights for you.

I see language being corrupted. Language is inverted until it becomes meaningless, just opportunities for slogans and banners.

I despair for the future of this once great country, now reeking of craven vote catching and catering to a number greater than us. For we are few and they are many.

I watch and wonder what the others think? The others who do not march and yell and pull down posters of babies who have been taken hostage into Gaza. Where are they? Where are their voices? Will they wait until it is too late to raise their voices in a crescendo of clarity that we so dearly need?

And so, I will go into Yom Kippur with a prayer book in my hand and a prayer in my heart. And I will pray, perhaps as never before, to be inscribed in the Book of Life, and for the end of speaking with forked tongue as our government does, and for the eruption of the forces of good to ignite and to create a new and better pathway for the future, one that has moral clarity as its mantra.

On Yom Kippur we are obliged to seek forgiveness from those whom we have wronged, knowingly or unknowingly. And so I do.

But  I am angry, very angry. I am not who I was a year ago. None of us is.

But I am not a survivor of family violence. I was not taken hostage or attacked on October 7. But I have been betrayed, like so many here, by those who are supposed to protect us. And that I can neither forgive nor forget.