One Week in July – About October, News and Sources
A friend told me this week that her son is looking for a rental place in my neighborhood. She mentioned that when he rented for the first time as a student, when they were olim hadashim (new immigrants), she was insistent on all kinds of conveniences in the apartment. Now, realizing he could easily move elsewhere in a short period of time, she just hopes he finds a place with the basics – it’s not as though he’s buying and taking a mortgage. If the place doesn’t suit him, he can always move elsewhere.
I nodded in agreement. Everything is transient in life, in life in Israel. From one war to the next, one within another. Transient, yet nowhere else to go. Statistically, Israel is not the safest place for Jews to live. Yet, somehow, for me, it fit – a place to express Jewish identity but pursue interests without framing them in Jewish identity – or so I thought.
But now, I see Jewish society in Israel (distinct from Palestinian Arab society and other minority groups of citizens of Israel) splintering into extremes. Painful to observe because I did frame my worldview with my Jewish identity, filled with nominally universal, liberal, democratic values drawn from my particular traditions and values as a Jew. Reaffirming the Jewish sources of my identity is the new requisite to reinforce the foundations of my home. It’s not a rental unit. The mortgage is paid. There is no other place. The walls feel vulnerably elastic.
Perplexed, repeatedly, by perceptions of reality, of truth. Convincing and manipulated news – fake news. I understand clinging to select beliefs as a point of departure for functioning within the chaos of the Israeli experience. Perhaps imperative for Jewish identity in other places. In conversation with a friend, she assures me that claims of over 16,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza are exaggerated, reported by unreliable, anti-Semitic, biased organizations with an agenda. We agree that even if it were only 16 children – it would be 16 children too many. Dismissing the extent of destruction and lives lost in Gaza perpetrated by Israel, excuses you from asking if this is comparable to genocide, and presumes resentment of the question, an aversion to it. We don’t have the discussion.
The subject was marginalized anyway. That conversation on Tuesday, when Monday’s news of five fallen soldiers weighed heavy on our souls. That news grasped me Monday morning. Clung to me the next day. As I write now, Friday. Date: October 644. In 644 days since October 7, 2023, such headlines started many days. Every time, that sinking sensation, thinking about the families devastated – parents, children, siblings, spouses – and endlessly affected concentric circles.
We talk about healing as a society once all the hostages are home. Yet, we talk about DNA wrapped in trauma. I’m fearful for our future. Reminding me of our past. Wondering if a different present was ever on the horizon. Not a rental unit. Mortgage isn’t paid and looks like it needs refinancing. Mutation of the DNA calls for long-term planning.
More fallen soldiers when Israelis hoped to wake to statements from the White House, declarations by Trump and Bibi, about a ceasefire and the hostages’ release. Nada. Fallen soldiers – a punch in the stomach. Alternative thoughts – which of the 20 hostages still alive in Gaza will be released now, the destiny of those not released, though the public majority supporting a ceasefire pleads for ALL hostages to be returned. Now? We’re still waiting for a date for a deal to go into effect. Negotiations. Blindly groping for a comfort zone.
Hamas introduces terms Israel can’t accept. No deal. When Biden offered a deal to bring the hostages home and impose a ceasefire, Bibi refused. Ceasefire – cessation of Israel perpetrating further atrocities in Gaza. Bibi refused because it wouldn’t suit his base – or that 12% of the population to the right of his home base, that he needs to hold his coalition government together.
We watch children in Gaza killed indiscriminately – wrong place, wrong time, or rushing for humanitarian aid, for food. Unable to restrain myself, in the past week, I reacted to a stranger’s comment on social media. A friend posted a photo and text empathizing with Gaza. The stranger condemned this, accusing the writer, a Palestinian-Arab citizen of Israel, committed to shared society in Israel and a peaceful solution to the conflict, of demonstrating unilateral sympathy for Gaza. My comment in defense, qualifying that her post in no way diminished from her recognition of Israeli suffering at the hands of Hamas, was met with a response labeling me as a self-hating Jew. Apparently, empathy for another is alien to that responder. I once thought that Jewish identity was a collective identity, but gradually it is reduced to the particularistic.
This week, I also met with a friend visiting from the US who is deeply connected to Israel and the daughter of a Shoah survivor – prominent aspects of her identity. To my surprise, she didn’t as much as wince when I alluded to Israeli actions in Gaza as genocidal. We didn’t linger over the subject. I think that reflects the fact that such implications are something confronting Jews abroad. They have to address it – at least to themselves. As Israelis, we have to address it framing our national identity. Tough. We resumed talking about the plight of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
At home, Haim holds the remote control. The parent of a hostage appears on television, speaking to his son, hoping he might hear Israeli news, as some returned hostages reportedly did. It is heartbreaking. Haim switches the channel. We see pictures of Gazan victims – of Hamas, of Israel – too painful to watch. We read about missed opportunities to return the hostages and end the war. It didn’t serve Bibi’s interests. What does that say about us as a society? That we have a collective preference to blame Hamas? We – the proverbial “we,” – switch channels.
Harriet Gimpel, July 11, 2025
