They say the night is darkest before dawn. It certainly is very dark right now.
I pray that dawn is coming soon. It better be. Because the darkness is bleak, palpable, encompassing. As I write these words on Oct. 12, 1,300 Israelis are dead, 2,900 are injured, and 500 are hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. These numbers climb daily because corpses are strewn about the devastated communities near the Gazan border, and identifying the dead is time consuming.
Some 150 men, women and children were abducted by terrorists and are held hostage in Gaza, including the son of friends. Graphic images of the massacres that I shouldn’t watch pop up in my stand-with-Israel social media feed, revealing bloodied, violated women, naked bodies, terrified children. My throat tightens when I learn that 40 babies were killed in their own pastoral homes. My hands shake as I type, some were decapitated. Even volunteers for ZAKA, an emergency response organization that identifies causalities of accidents and terrorist attacks, describe encountering “gruesome carnage that smelled like death.”
On Oct. 7, the greatest number of Jews were killed since the Holocaust. Israel is a small country. Our death toll, proportionally, would be the equivalent of 33,000 U.S. citizens killed in 9-11.
Various analogies have been bandied about. The Israel-Gaza War now is a repeat of the surprise and horror of the Yom Kippur War, 50 years and one day later. It’s Israel’s Pearl Harbor. Akin to pogroms of Jews in Europe — except that these pogroms are happening in our home.
A home is a place where you can feel safe. Hamas violated our safe Jewish home.
Paramedics, police officers, concerned citizens, regular people fought valiantly, with hundreds dying to save others. Parents died protecting their babies. Heroism, plain and simple.
People trapped in their “secure rooms” whispered to newscasters, I hear gunshots ringing outside my door.
Friends from all over the world write-text-message me. Are you safe? Are you okay?
Well, yes. We’re safe. I live in Jerusalem and not many rockets have landed here. We run to the stairwell when the rockets sound. But we’re not okay.
Our self-image as a powerful nation that can defend itself from weaker enemies has been shattered.
The social contract is broken. It must be rebuilt.
Israel’s greatest natural resource is its people. The togetherness and mobilization are astounding. It seems everyone is doing something for the war effort. Raising money and equipment for Israeli soldiers. Collecting food, distributing breast milk to motherless infants, providing survivors of terror with psychological support.
Israel’s fanciest restaurants are turning their kitchens kosher so that they can feed soldiers.
My friend created a makeshift music therapy room at a Dead Sea hotel for evacuees from the ravaged Kibbutz Be’eri.
Volunteers dig graves to help the Hevre Kadisha burial society.
Yesterday we paid a shivah (mourning) visit to honor a fallen soldier whom we did not know: Nathaniel Avraham Shalom Young, a lone soldier from England. Some 100 people gathered to hear about a handsome, affable six-foot-four guy with a twinkle in the eye and mischievous sense of humor.
Solidarity is not limited to Israel’s Jewish citizens and residents. Kfar Kassem, an Israeli Arab city, opened its doors to evacuees from the south.
Asylum seekers pack boxes for hundreds of displaced people. One of my close friends, Ibtisam Erekat, was the first person to reach out when the sirens sounded to make sure we were okay.
Even when Israel bleeds with national and personal trauma, it beats with the will to defend itself.
From the wreckage, we’ll construct hope. And from there will come the light.
