Yes to Solidarity

“A journalist will be joining you tomorrow” – said the travel coordinator of the Solidarity Mission I was guiding. Maya Rosen, the journalist was lovely and the members of the group graciously spoke with her and included her in the difficult day that unfolded in the Gaza envelope. I never heard of her newspaper Jewish Currents, but then again, I’ve been in Israel for 35 years. When the article came out under the title The Rise of October 7^th Tourism, I literally felt like I was punched in the stomach. Academic terms of “dark tourism”, “identity tourism”, antisemitic Jews-and-money undertones, manipulation of the holocaust – all this and more were in the article. The newspaper would not print my response, so I bring it here before you:

Words, Identity, and the Phoenix in the Machine

Words are our tools. Metaphors. Descriptions. Communication. Our jobs are so similar – you, a journalist and me, a tour guide in Israel. I was one of the guides who hosted you, along with my group, on a tour to some of the killing fields of October 7^th. You wrote an article on my work so I’m sure you won’t mind if I comment on yours.

You put the Solidarity missions in parentheses and I just can’t understand why? As an Israeli, an unemployed tour guide, and speaking for the many Israelis we met along the way: farmers, fellow volunteers, wounded, hospital workers – we feel the solidarity quite literally. You may call them “pilgrimages of identity” that the organizers want to reinforce a narrative, an identity, but I think you got it backwards – those 15 busloads of mostly Jews didn’t come so that we somehow manipulate their identity, send them home with a feeling of being on the “moral upper hand” – they came because of their identity. I too asked my participants what made you come to a quite emotionally difficult trip in a country at war – and one of my participants said how could I not. I think most of the participants of these trips feel that way.

You used many academic terms for this trip “dark tourism” – what about a less academic, old-time Jewish term of a “shiva call. ” These condolence calls are not fun. I can tell you how heart-wrenching the ones of young men who gave their lives protecting Israel have been for me this year. But we go anyway – our tradition teaches that when your fellow Jew, your countryman, your family is suffering, you need to show up, hug and support. And donate. Money is not a bad word. Why is donating to rebuild houses of a kibbutz that went through burning and murder an ulterior motive of dark tourism! As I tour guide, over the years, I have had people want to come to see the shelter they donated on the northern border, the children’s home they raised money for, the forest where they once planted a tree, or Hadassah Hospital. These are such special moments. The group you joined raised money for hand bikes for soldiers who lost their legs in war. What an amazing thing to do with your money.

I’m imagining the article you chose not to write: What brings so many people to pay super inflated air tickets, use their very few vacation days from work, and come on one of these trips. As you noticed the tourists coming are from different backgrounds and the spectrum of the Jewish communities. But you couldn’t seem to get past the printed sweatshirts and the selfies. And maybe in that article you could have talked about the diversity of Jewish responses to horror and loss: from Chabad laying Tefillin and writing a Torah for the murdered, to prayers spanning the entire Jewish spectrum from traditional kaddish to modern Israeli songs. Or mention all the different ways to memorialize: planted trees, the barcode of DJ of the Nova’s playlist, Tehillim books and soccer scarves.

You talk about blurring lines of past and present. Mentions of the Holocaust, or even of Amalek seem inappropriate to you. But that’s what happens when you have a history, an identity. Biblical Amalek attacked the tired and weak, it’s not crazy that it would remind people of Hamas murdering people in their pajamas’! More to the point – this is our language: unimaginable cruelty, in Jewish, is Amalek – like Hamen, like Hitler. The Holocaust is our family story, quite literally. The Iraqi Jews were reminded of the Farhood, and I was reminded of a story from my family in Morrocco when my great uncle held the doorknob to an Arab mob that came to destroy the Jewish homes in the Mellah of Rabat in ’67. Collective memory is part of who we are. Modern Israeli, secular singers, sing “we got through Pharaoh – we will get past this too.”

There is not one group that I haven’t spoken about the history of Gaza strip and the people in it: That the Gaza strip not a geographical unit, that in 1948 Egyptians invaded in two lines- one along the coast to conquer Tel Aviv and the second along the mountain to conquer Jerusalem. The first was stopped near Ashdod less than 40 km from their goal and the second stopped at kibbutz Ramat Rachel basically at the south gate of Jerusalem. That Jewish villages like Yad Mordechai (named for leader of Warsaw ghetto commander), Beerot Yitzhak, Nitzanim and more, were destroyed by their neighboring Arab villages, and that in the course of year of ensuing battle Arab villages were captured and their inhabitants ran\were chased behind the Egyptian lines. The Egyptians created the Gaza strip by not annexing it in it to their country, but creating refugee camps and refugee mentality. When Israel made peace with Egypt they were not interested in Gaza. But no, you are right, I did not use the term Nakba – a word reflecting the Palestinian narrative. Why would I? Why do you?

There are some things that you too have omitted in your report. That this war is personal. These are not tours of historical battles in the distant past. All of the guides you met, myself included, have children in the fighting we all a have suffered immeasurable loss, fear, and much more. This war has affected us all personally in so many ways. We all have murdered people that we go “visit” at Nova, we all are connected, in some way to someone kidnapped. If we sometimes present our personal stories and not enough detail of the situation of the enemy side you have to understand why.

Another thing you have omitted is the description of the villages and towns pre-Oct. 7th. That every bus stop, every building has bomb shelters because being attacked from Gaza is common. Is that a normal way to live? Would you accept that in your town?

The biggest misinterpretation though was your sense of “reinscribing sense of victimhood”. I would say just the opposite! These trips and visiting Israel now are truly inspiring! Going to the killing fields and hearing stories of, or actually meeting real life heroes! So many lives saved! The incredible stories of police officers fighting at impossible odds. The people who didn’t wait for the draft just got in the car and went to fight terrorists and save lives. The kibbutz members who left their families to fight for their kibbutz. So many stories. So yes, there is murder and tragedy but like a Phoenix we rise from the ashes. The amount of donations, help of all types that is still going on 9 months later, so many different initiatives of all types are happening is unprecedented. We rise above – we have no choice. The broken tablets and the whole ones are together in the arc of the covenant. That is our tradition – we remember and learn from our past and rise above. The phoenix in the machine.

These is no one who doesn’t think this war is horrific, bloodshed is horrific. The Hamas clearly states that they want to destroy Israel. They have told hostages released don’t go back to your homes because we will be back. What is your magic wand?

I’m sorry that as a journalist you didn’t choose to write a more compassionate piece. You too are my sister and I invite you to reach out and continue the conversation. If I can paraphrase another reference from my Jewish wellspring: don’t imagine your fate is different from that of all the Jews, if you are silent now redemption will come from elsewhere…. But who knows if not for this exact moment in time you became a journalist.