The Mood is Defiant

The mood in Israel can only be described as defiant.  As I write this, a mother and her two children, babies really, were supposed to be returned in their black coffins together with a fourth, an 84-year-old grandpa.  As it turned out, the terrorist group did not return the mother originally with her children but rather included a Palestinian woman.  Finally, the terrorists did return Ms. Bibas.  Hamas coffins were placed on a stage in front of propaganda posters and the terrorists surrounded the boxes dressed in black with their faces masked.

Such monstrous displays are barely condemned by most of the world.  They are part of the terrorism practiced by Hamas and other Islamic extremists.

At the same time this unimaginable news is reported in Israel, a woman held in captivity explained how she kept to her religious principles during the entire time.  She marked the holidays, prayed with a prayer book that the terrorists found in the field, kept Shabbat, and did not eat bread during Passover.  She said that the terrorists respected her because she believed in God, even though they hated Judaism.

This psychotic display of fundamentalist Islamic behavior should not be a surprise to anyone who has followed events and values lessons of history.  In the Middle Ages, Islam extoled the virtues of the Greek philosophers such as Aristotle.  In fact, the Druze broke away from mainstream Islam in the 12^th Century, with their heroes being the Greek philosophers.  The Druze are loyal to Israel, fight in the Israeli Army, and realize that they would be dead were it not for the existence of the Jewish State.

What happened to Islam?  Western modernity was rejected by a substantial portion of Muslims in the Middle East.  However, those who distorted Muhammad’s religion, did not go back to the Middle Ages when Islam identified with both scientific and philosophical advancement.  Rather, it became a new religion for the terrorists dedicated to the destruction of Christianity, Judaism, and any person who did not live as a Muslim fanatic.

At one time, Islam occupied most of Spain and was also making its inroads into Eastern Europe as far west as the Slavic states and portions of Southern Russia.  Christianity fought back and narrowly preserved Europe for the Christian faithful.  As Europe becomes less Christian and more Muslim, many Muslim countries are becoming more fanatical.

Terrorism takes many forms.  No doubt one of the reasons why Hamas murdered and abducted Jews on October 7, 2023, at the Nova Festival is because many of the participants at the festival danced before Buddha on a Jewish holiday.  The Islamic fundamentalists know something about religion, and they abhor anything which smacks of idolatry.

This is not to say that if all of Israel was more religious than it is today, suddenly the Jewish State would be accepted in the Middle East as a non-Islamic entity.  That will never happen.  Israel will need to fight for its existence, hopefully with the assistance of the west and more moderate Arab regimes, for as long as time exists.

Israelis are not just defiant in the face of the latest attempt to exterminate the Jewish people; they are also angry.  The Jews of Israel are in mourning, speak quietly to one another, and have not filled the marketplaces as they ordinarily would the day before Sabbath eve.  This Sabbath will be a time of national mourning, discussions between family and friends, and a group resilience unknown anywhere else on the face of the planet.

In a way, Hamas and the other terrorists have won their war.  They murdered Jews, disgraced and degraded women and babies, while torturing men, whether old or young.  Rape became an accepted method of warfare, not condemned by any of the pro-feminist forces in the world, especially in the United States. Hamas was able to fill the streets of many places in the west with masked men and women, who looked and talked just like the terrorists in the Middle East.  Hamas successfully used their own citizens as both shields and weapons, deliberately causing the death of their people in order to stir up support for their cause and anger against the Jews for fighting back.

My wife was in the hospital to help someone out.  As the murdered hostages arrived at the hospital, a loudspeaker announcement asked everyone in the hospital to stand for one minute in support of the murdered children and babies.  The announcement also asked the doctor to come to the big front picture window as the ambulances arrived.  Everyone stood, my wife reported, except the Arab patients.  She did not mention what the Arab doctors and workers did.  Imagine, the Arabs who are receiving the best healthcare in the world, often at government expense, refused to honor dead innocent babies by simply standing up.  That tells you all you need to know.

Israel is a different country today than it was before October 7^th.  Some people have left this Holy Land, out of fear and simply because they are tired of the constant war for survival.  Others, however, have come to Israel to live and be part of the productivity, diversity, and emotional wealth which this country exemplifies.

On Mondays and Thursdays, when the Torah is read, there are additional prayers in connection with Viduy and Tachanun.  Since October 7^th, I have read them more carefully.  They represent, among other things, a legitimate frustration for the suffering of God’s children.  “Remove from us the scourge of death.” We say, “Look from heaven and behold how we have become an object of scorn and derision among the nations; we are considered as sheep led to the slaughter, to be killed and annihilated, to be tortured and humiliated.   Nevertheless, we have not forgotten your name; we implore you, do not forget us.”

For millennia, Christianity preached that Jews were obligated to accept their fate.  While the church has changed its doctrine in that regard, the words remain both true and piercing.

Truly, enough is enough and it is important that we as Jews remember our peoplehood, our faith, and our fidelity to the omnipotent.  Together with our friends and supporters in the world, we can only say, Am Yisrael Chai.

As Israelis watch tens of thousands of Hamas supporters in Gaza celebrate the display of black coffins with bodies of babies and their mothers, we are reminded of what a survivor of a Kibbutz told me after describing her rape, as well as the death of her husband and grandchildren.   She said: “Remember and take back the message to America, there are no innocents in Gaza.”  How right she is.