The Vocabulary of Agony – 11 Months of Horror

Israel, September 2024: Anguish upon Anguish

Our words, like our leaders, fail us when we need them most.

I have spent the past week making condolence calls to the families of beautiful young people who were executed in cold blood by their Hamas captors. They were murdered after having somehow survived close to 11 months in captivity, starved and chained inside tunnels beneath Gaza. These beautiful souls: Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubanov and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were taken hostage on October 7^th. Five of the six had gone to the Nova festival to dance and celebrate life. Another, Carmel, was spending a holiday weekend in what should have been the safety of her parents’ home on Kibbutz Beeri. All were taken hostage on the day of the worst massacre in Israel’s history. All were cruelly murdered shortly before they could be rescued.

Grigory Lubanov fell upon me crying at the Shiva of his son, Alex. I know Alex’s parents, Grigory and Oksana, from their visits to the Nova tent at Hostage Square. The Lubanovs stayed in Tel Aviv in March, temporarily relocated because of the constant missile attacks on their town of Ashkelon. They came to Hostage Square daily while they were in Tel Aviv. We met and spoke and hugged several times that week. One quiet afternoon, the three of us talked for hours. The square was sadly empty of visitors that day, perhaps because of the foreboding grey skies. [I always say, Israelis aren’t afraid of missiles, but rain on the other hand…] That day, Oksana proudly showed me photos of people in a first aid tent that Alex had sent on the morning of Oct 7^th, with the message, “Mama I am okay. I am helping people.”  Now, at the Shiva, Grigory tells me, “This should not have happened.”  This is the understatement of the century. The fact is, language fails us. We do not have anything approaching adequate vocabulary to describe this. How to speak the unspeakable? How to describe the horror and injustice of what befell Alex and the other hostages held in Gaza? No words can describe the anguish for those who were murdered and those who somehow, have survived until now, against all odds. 64 of the 101 Israeli hostages still inside Gaza are believed to be alive. [Barrons: who-are-the-remaining-gaza-hostages]

Time has run out: Left: Author’s protest sign “Time has run out” . Right: a frame from a Hamas hostage video.

I am an amateur linguist. Passionate about language, its effect on behavior, and the ability of humans to use and abuse language to twist opinion, to change reality.  I am involved in language every waking minute of every day – not just as a human who frames thoughts in words,  but as a language professional. “I speak, therefore I am” [again, not original, please see: Moro’s excellent book, I Speak, Therefore I Am]

I try to articulate and distinguish the words of October 7^th: survivors versus rescued; rescued vs freed; murdered versus killed; executed versus murdered… And then I get to the words which are sorely inadequate: anguish, agony, atrocity, abomination, horror, horrific, terror. All of these words fall short. None of them describe how devastated we feel.

I am a professional purveyor of words: I began my career as a journalist 50 years ago. Today, I teach communications every weekday morning. When I am not teaching, I write and edit. Then in the afternoon, I volunteer at Hostage Square. I use language to try to explain, to try to help people understand what happened here on October 7^th. Many of our visitors are from outside Israel. So I find myself trying to explain what we, Israelis, have been going through since that day. I say try, because I feel that I fail. Or rather, the words fail me. Whether speaking my native English, my near-native Hebrew, or my rusty French, I am always left frustrated. In class, teaching advanced-level business English and communications, I am confident and composed. I enjoy explaining the difference between ‘few’ and ‘a few’, or ‘briefly’ versus ‘shortly’ or any of the other quirks of our illogical English language. But then I leave the comfort of my zoom classroom and take the light rail to Hostage Square. That’s where my linguistic prowess falls short. That’s where I find myself saying the same trivial phrases over and over.

Incomprehensible. Unfathomable. Inexplicable. These are the words I repeat in every language that I know, as I tell our visitors about the events of October 7^th and their aftermath. I approach visitors with these words: ‘Do you have any questions? We don’t have answers. We have no explanation. But we have stories. I can share the stories of these beautiful people whose faces you see here in our tent.’  That is my opening line. I am here to tell the stories, to bring the faces in the posters to life, and somehow, through some magic or sorcery, to keep these people alive with my words.

I have tried and tried. I have spoken about these beautiful people for 10 months now. Very often I speak about the people I know personally, Eden Yerushalmi and Avinatan Or – two bright and beautiful souls, filled with goodness and love. I speak of Nova DJ, Elkana Bohbot, whose uncle erected this tent – my home away from home.  I speak of Or Levy, whose family is now my family, having bonded here at Hostage Square. I often speak of Alex Lubanov, because his parents’ stories brought him into my life. I feel I know him. I admire him. And now, I mourn him. As I mourn all of the hostages brutally murdered.

Language shapes our reality. I’m not the first to point this out. Many far wiser than I have said that.  Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, and my personal hero, Steven Pinker, have all shown us how language influences not only our worldview but also our actions.      [Linguistic_relativity]    And sadly, there is a master linguist at the helm in Israel today, a master manipulator of words. I believe Benjamin Netanyahu is the present-day incarnation of Machiavelli’s Prince. I believe Bibi is a Medici pretending to be the Lion of Judah. No, Bibi, you are not the Lion of Judah. We, the people, who rise up and march and shout, we are the lions. Our beautiful young soldiers who fight valiantly in this Sisyphus-tic, never-ending war – they are the lions. You, Bibi, are a cowardly hyena. [Please read: under-netanyahu-israel-is-in-existential-danger.]

Arise! “A nation of lions led by sheep” – The author at Hostage Families’ protest Sept 1, 2024.

Last week Omri Shtivi, the brother of hostage Idan Shtivi, shouted, “Leaders, arise! We are a nation of lions led by sheep. Arise, leaders. Arise, Israel!” I went home that night and wrote Omri’s words on my sign for the next day’s protest. Yes, we are a nation of lions, led by cowards who grovel at the feet of a despot. Bibi has said again and again that freeing our hostages is not his priority. His priorities change weekly, of course, based on political expediency.

Day after day at Hostage Square, I speak of the horror, the anguish, the tormented reality that is our daily life now. Today marks 11 months since October 7th.  And for most of us in Israel, we have not moved on. We cannot move on. We are held hostage by an uncaring government. Today is day 337. October 337^th – not September 7^th. And again today, words fail us.