Hear Our Voice

I remember Saturday October 7- 2023 the way other people talk about remembering the JFK assassination, the moon landing and 9-11. I was home and it was a Shabbat morning. I was reading and Natalie called out to me from the other room and started to tell me that I needed to take a look at what was happening in Israel. The images were earth shattering and truly hard to believe. Watching the video images of the immediate aftermath of Kibbutz Nir Oz, hearing from friends that they themselves couldn’t believe what they were watching and witnessing, the news was heartbreaking. I prayed and hoped that it would turn out not as bad as it seemed. That the sensationalizing presented on television and social media was ultimately going to have outpaced the severity of it all. That turned out to be irrationally wishful thinking. But the images of Shiri Bibas, clutching her 4 year old Ariel, and 9 month old, Kfir; I don’t think I understood the definition of the word “trepidation,” before witnessing Shiri’s eyes in those terrifying moments.

I did believe that, of course this mother and her little boys were mistakenly taken, and then, of course they would be returned for who could imagine supporting anyone who intentionally held on to a mother and two small children, no matter what they believed was at stake. As it turned out, it wasn’t Hamas or Islamic Jihad who kidnapped them; it was “accidental marauders,” Palestinian noncombatants, who joined in the “merriment,” following their soldiers of God into Israel, to cause an extreme chaos and havoc against the Jewish people, only truly seen at the hands of the Nazis and the Cossacks and the Crusaders.

Kfir was nine months old and his death, along with his mother’s and brother’s and so many others, is tragic, to say the least. However, the part that is even more devastating didn’t happen in Israel or in Gaza. No, the ever more devastating part happened in many of the cities of the great countries of the world. The sound of this devastation is the sound of posters being torn down by protesters, who insisted that to sound the alarm over these children was inappropriate at best and criminal at worst. The
insistence to not shed a public tear, or offer a public prayer for the safety and well-being of truly vulnerable casualties of war is the part the devastates me the most.

I knew that it would only be a matter of time before the argument would be made, that went something like this, “Well, what did you expect?” “I mean, yes, it’s awful but this situation for the Palestinians was untenable and of course they finally exploded!” And of course it didn’t matter that Israel hadn’t been ruling since 2005 and it didn’t matter that Egypt, their other border, didn’t believe that the lives of their brothers and sisters in Gaza were valued enough to not allow them any longer to live in this squalor. Or that on a regular basis, Israel did allow Palestinians to cross the border for work and to be treated in hospitals.

I could go on but to those who disagree, its like yelling into the wind, so I’ll stop here for now and say, Please join us this Sunday afternoon at 4 pm at the JCC for a moment of remembrance and reflection. The return of the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas mark a surreal moment – a moment marking the end of the hope that many held, that at least the Bibases could return to life. And once, this Shabbat, six more of the hostages return as expected, it is quite likely that there will be no more hostages who can walk across Hamas’ evil dais, waving with clenched teeth, frightened that perhaps, with only meters left in their impossible hope to return home, that something would deter them from the finish line.