Unmoored

As a Jew today I feel unmoored, like I’m floating in one of Chagall’s paintings, a rootless figure suspended in the air, disconnected from where I used to feel at home, both in the United States and in Israel. 

Ever since October 7th, my understanding of what it means to live as a Jew has changed. It’s as if the earth itself has shifted beneath my feet. Outwardly, my life as a Jew is much the same. I read The Forward and The Times of Israel, listen to podcasts like The Promised Podcast on TLV1 that relate stories about Israel. I prepare our family’s meal for Shabbat each Friday night, attend Torah study on Saturday morning, and go to temple services. But inwardly my feelings about being Jewish are so different from what they were before October 7th. The world itself feels as if everything is disoriented, unfamiliar, out of balance. 

Earlier this month I went to our temple to hear a Jewish poet speak about his life in Israel. I was hoping to find some clarity from his presentation, perhaps even some certainty in a world where events have been occurring at such a rapid pace that it’s almost impossible to keep up, never mind understand what’s happening. Maybe a poet might offer an answer or point me in a direction where I could discover answers of my own. 

As it turned out, the poet was an American who had made aliyah more than a dozen years ago. He lives in Jerusalem now where he is studying to become a rabbi. The poems that he shared with us were intimate, honest portrayals of his life, each poem filled with the heartache and despair that he and the country has had to deal with since October 7th. He gave us a brief glimpse into his heart, a view that you don’t often get in the news. 

At the start of the program he discouraged questions that delved into politics. Without mentioning the Palestinians, he told us he wanted to steer clear of divisive issues. He preferred a conversation that probed more personal issues. I understood and appreciated his approach. But when it came time for the question-and-answer session, I found myself unable to resist asking a question that veered into the political realm. 

“Do you feel differently about Israel and your life there now,” I asked, “compared to when you first made aliyah? And do you still think peace is possible?”

Hs response was gracious and as honest as the poems and stories that he had shared. Living in the Middle East, he explained, had changed many of his ideas. He found that he had moved much further left on peace. But, at the same time, he told us, he had moved much further right on security. 

How can anyone, I wondered, hold two such seemingly contradictory desires simultaneously? And yet, I asked myself, how can one not hold them together? I felt comforted to know that I wasn’t the only one who wanted peace with all my heart, and, at the same time, wanted to be able to live in a country that is safe and secure, a country that doesn’t allow terrorists to break into homes and leave behind a trail of blood and tears. 

His comments about peace and security made me think of my grandfather who, in his early twenties, had come to the United States from Poland in search of a safe haven from the pogroms taking place in Europe. But even after living in America for years, he often told me it was hard to be a Jew.

In terms of safety from antisemitism, I can’t help wondering if it matters where we live now after October 7th. For the past seventy-five years, it seems, we’ve been lucky. Since the end of World War II and the Holocaust, antisemitism seemed to have disappeared from most of the planet. For a certain number of years we were given a partial reprieve. But now it seems that reprieve has ended. 

Each day now I watch with increasing sadness and dismay at the way events are unfolding in the United States and in Israel. 

Maybe I shouldn’t feel surprised that I no longer feel at home in either land. 

Maybe it’s normal for a Jew to feel like he doesn’t belong anywhere. 

Maybe this feeling of being unmoored, of floating in air, of feeling detached and rootless, is just a sign of the times. 

Maybe my longing for the peace and security that I used to feel in both places is just a new feeling that I’ll have to get used to now, just as the poet has had to get used to the new feelings that he has experienced in Israel since October 7th. 

Or maybe I just need to accept what my grandfather knew all along, knowledge that he tried to pass on to me when I was younger and didn’t yet understand what the words truly meant, that it’s hard to be a Jew.