Time to Think About The Day After

By Dr. Harold Goldmeier

Harold Goldmeier teaches international university students at Touro College Jerusalem. He is an award-winning entrepreneur who received the Governor’s Award (Illinois) for family investment programs in the workplace from the Commission on the Status of Women. He was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard, worked for four governors, and recently sold his business in Chicago. He is a managing partner of an investment firm, a business management consultant, and a public speaker on business, social, and public policy issues. HAROLD.GOLDMEIER@GMAIL.COM

This is an emotionally wrenching day to consider The Day After the October 7 War withers away. We just spent the day watching Hamas and the International Red Cross return the bodies of our Jewish mother, children, and grandfather. The British and American media reported the event as if Hamas was being gracious. But governments must envision the future.

We recommend reading Asher Ostrin’s new biography, SOVIET JEWRY REBORN, A Personal Journey (Gefen Publishing, 2024). The book is a pathway to answering the question dominating the international political landscape: What happens in Gaza The Day After? Can the next generation of Israelis reorganize their lives and unite the nation after the national trauma of  October 7? Can Palestinians move from barbarism and hate to co-existence and productivity?  Ostrin tells the stories of oppressed Soviet Jews who did it and they left breadcrumbs for Israelis and Palestinians needing to make their way in a new world.

“The Day After” has evolved from a question to a meme. It refers to the end of the October War when Hamas will be eradicated from Gaza. No, they won’t disappear. The Palestinian Liberation Movement across the Middle East, wherever Palestinians and their descendants live, will seek self-determination and a nation-state of their own. But now they have a choice. They can pursue terrorism as a means which is likely to result in their status as permanent refugees, living poor and unproductive lives, and always the victim. Or, Palestinians can choose to thrive, prosper, and be a welcomed partner in the Arab and Western world. Syrians and Iraqis are on the same precipice.

Nations experiencing major events can be turning points for them. Empires and modern nation-states have experiences that open opportunities for change. October 7 was a momentous though barbaric event; it was the focus of world attention 500 days afterward. Palestinians can use it to build a better life for themselves without guns and terror celebrating their culture and religion in peace.

The nonviolent civil rights movement changed the social mores of America. Sputnik spurred a turnaround for America; the nation committed to focusing on math, science, and tech and putting a man on the moon. The Iron Curtain pushed Soviet Jews, as Ostrin describes in detail, to turn inward spawning Jewish culture built on a foundation of law and spirituality. Jews produced a plethora of religious texts. Gave impetus to the yearning for a return to Jerusalem. Israel revived nearly lost holidays like Shavuout and Tisha B’av, Jewish music, theatre, literature, and shared community worldwide. Jews built a nation-state.  Old Hong Kong, Poland, East Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Tibet,  Singapore, and the Gulf States built thriving nations where their people flourish not by the guns.

Ostrin’s story “is about a large number of Jews who were thought to have been lost for eternity to the Jewish people but who, when a confluence of events made it possible for them to assert their identity, did so in a way that proved generations of experts wrong.” The Iron Curtain came down. Ostrin and colleagues were among the boots on the ground traipsing through Eastern Europe’s and Russia’s villages and cities for decades on behalf of the American Joint Distribution Committee.

These outsiders raised the physical and social standards of living among Jews. Knowing Jews survived and thrived outside the pale of settlement kept Jewish identity and resistance alive. “Soviet efforts to wipe out Jewish life and erase any vestige of Jewish identity had not been successful as was widely believed… JDC serviced Jews in eleven of the twenty-six secret cities in Russia.”

When President Regan convinced Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall,” Regan freed more Jews than Moses. The Jewish memory keepers were given the sobriquet of “refusniks” refusing to assimilate and abandon their hopes for the next year in Jerusalem.

Ostrin employs creative non-fiction retelling in 271 pages of the stories of individuals and families preserved by the centrality of Jewish life and culture. Soviet Jewry was reborn by attaching to Jewish traditions and community building; they were freed through political action. Palestinians have tried for 100 years to build a state with guns; they are terrorists and have failed. The Palestinians have not learned any lessons like Cubans who live in a time warp and ISIL members living in a dust bowl of tents or prisons.

The Day After is the title of a 1983 movie. People go about their daily lives when nuclear bombs drop on a small town in Kansas. Residents must cope the day after to survive a nuclear winter. Parts of Gaza resemble images of a war-ravaged wasteland with thousands killed and injured. The day after, Gazans and Israelis have to make choices to ensure their identity and be reborn. The JDC learned in rebuilding communities that food deliveries were not the end but “a means for creating community.”

Israel began changing the day after October 7. The Holocaust never ended for Jews. October 7, 2023, was the latest burst of violent Jew hatred and savagery by creatures out to erase the Jewish People. One long war against the Jews rages with hardly an intermission. It rages on from the open gates of concentration camps to an unending War of Independence. Tactics changed to terror attacks and missiles aimed at city centers. The barbaric violence on October 7 shattered the relative peace and good life on quiet kibbutzim and at a fun-filled music festival. Israel changed that day. Israel has to decide what the new Israel will look like.

Post October 7, Israel’s public is

• Less trusting of IDF leadership, the cornerstone of the social contract;
• Many doubt politicians are working in the public’s best interests or their sectarian own;
• Doubts rage if Israel is any longer or can be a lasting democracy;
• Dissatisfaction abounds for the politicians who self-describe as Mr. Security when for years rockets and bombs sent Israelis into shelters;
• Dismay at best characterizes the Israeli’s mindset that leaders take no accountability, and have no shame ought to trigger resignations;
• Faith in religious leaders dives as they bicker over how much money they can squeeze from the treasury, hide from military service, and blackmail colleagues for power positions in the government;
• The public’s anger was energized and evidenced by mass street demonstrations which have continued daily for 16 months;
• IAF pilots rebel threatening to ground their aircraft;
• Reservists refuse to serve after repeated call-ups;
• Family and friends of Hamas kidnapped hostages are invading and excoriating Knesset members in cabinet committee meetings and outside private homes;
• Domestic media and an angry public are furious with politicians and military leaders for allegedly betraying the hallmark of transparency, denying each other’s facts, impugning motives, fraying patriotism, and undermining a free press.

Israelis will have to dig deep to maintain their dynamic character. Their social norms are progressive, the economy robust, and Israeli culture peppy. This conglomeration of Jewish nationalities, races, and ethnicities makes Israel the poster child for diversity, equality, and inclusion. But it must resolve its conflicts with Palestinians and its conflicting policies inimical to Israel’s status as a Jewish state and a democracy. The country is straining under the weight of it all. The nation feels rudderless.

Asher Ostrin’s memoir offers guidance to nation-builders. He warns to not rely on governments or old generation leaders. It is self-deluding. Soviet Russia “had a large army, nuclear weapons, near-total control of the lives of its citizens….” Yet, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Do not be complacent. “The arc of Soviet history and its aftermath” bent in the direction of repression and sacrifice of its youth. Shape your history, identity, and culture. Ostrin concludes from his life-long community development experiences, “And that is the true miracle of (Jewry’s) rebirth.”

Gaza’s civilian survivors must choose between acting as barbarians or Samaritans. They might have an opportunity to build a peace-loving community with the help of the world’s richest nations. Europe and Asia-Pacific were reborn.

Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often Rhymes.” Egypt and Israel made peace. Syria and Israel had no more war after 1973. Jordan and Israel learned to co-exist. There was Oslo and now there is the Abraham Accords. Not every Jewish community in Eastern Europe and Russia kept memories alive and observed traditions. The elderly yearn for what was, not what could be. Gazans and Israelis are among the youngest populations in the world’s census. The hope is the day after young men and women will become plow sharers, not soldiers.

Soviet Jewry reborn, A Personal Journey Asher Ostrin Gefen Publishing, 2024 228 pages; $30