A Different Day
A Different Day
I have a few more of these essays in mind before I shut down and continue on with the more typical Backwards and Forwards fare. A big trip is planned after Thanksgiving which will have me away from the computer.
As you know by now, I enjoy writing and thinking--hopefully these two endeavors work in tandem—but I have not enjoyed writing these essays. They are painful reflections of a painful time, a time beyond my imagination. I try to send out observations that my readers do not find on cable news or the internet. Hopefully, they have some value to you, as they have had to me.
Extending blessings and hope to you, dear friends.
Jonathan
Judi and I attended the March for Israel on the National Mall on Tuesday. It was a glorious day weather-wise. Were we to choose to stay home, it would not have affected the numbers of attendees, estimated at 290,000. (For Alabama readers, that is the equivalent of 3 game days converging in one huge open-air stadium.) Someone calculated that one out of every twenty Jews in the Diaspora was there. I can’t do the math, but the crowd was stellar.
I admired the people who flew in from Texas, Florida, Colorado, California, Canada, New England—everywhere, everywhere. They came by trains, buses, commercial and charter flights. The Metro was stuffed. The crowd was a sea of blue and white, except for me. Judi and I biked to the mall, and I donned my cool weather bright green bike shirt. I needed the back pockets to hold my cell phone, wallet, keys, and peanut butter sandwich. I guess I should be more savvy about fashion.
Judi, cautious by nature, takes fear seriously. There are many times in our half century together that she wished I would do likewise. We make a good couple. She was scared to go to the mall; scared of violence and scared of the crazies who would be attracted to such a tempting target of hundreds of thousands of Jews all in one place. Me, I was probably too stupid to be scared. And we were both determined to show up—not to be counted but to count among our people during this devastating time.
I want to share some observations from our blue-sky Tuesday.
Everyone was nice. Even though some got up before dawn or sat in a bus overnight, everyone was nice and courteous and understanding. I did not detect any grumpiness as we trudged in line to get through the security funnels or make our way through the crowds. Our feelings leading up to this rally, and afterwards too, are raw, as though we have a single fragile layer of skin keeping us put together. All the participants, the J Streeters and the ZOA and the Orthodox day schoolers and the Christians for Israel—everyone I saw held up signs that I would welcome my grandchildren to see. Nobody shouted out, “Death to Gaza, Death to the Palestinians, Nuke ‘em.” The crowd had genuine sympathy for the suffering of our enemies. Many of the speakers, playing to the home crowd, included mention of Palestinian victims of Hamas in their remarks.
I was proud to be a Jew. I felt strong in the crowd. I felt safe. I felt understood. I felt hopeful, too. I don’t exactly know why. Maybe because Jews and our allies asserting ourselves in history, showing up, standing proud even when we are hurting—and we are hurting so badly, this is our comfort. I was proud. I am proud of who I am. I am proud of Israel (I know her faults) and how she is waging these battles intentionally, thoughtfully, without rage or bravado. War is cruel and destructive by its very essence. Vanquishing enemies has its inevitable and tragic human cost. In this battle, the heroes are the ones who will win, as Israel will win, but win carefully, cautiously, and deliberately. If only Israel could avoid the suffering, but her enemies would not let that happen. So the soldiers soldier on.
I am convinced that the fight is not only a battle for the kibbutzim and the southern townships in the Negev and along the coast. The battle is for our very civilization, the freedoms that define our way of life. And that is the case whether or not the entire world marches against the Jews to support Hamas, or whether or not the college student elites organize Israel Apartheid Week, or whether or not the United Nations’s Human Right’s Council (which includes Pakistan, Cuba, Sudan, Somalia, Qatar to name a few nations known for their human right’s record) passes its resolutions, Israel will prevail. Israel will fix itself; true democracies correct themselves and are a beacon to the rest of the world. The alternative is hopeless despair. Despair feels deep in the moment. But I have hope too. I believe that hope will defeat despair in the same way that light conquers darkness.
Action and being there and showing up and fighting the fight, even when we are scared, is the energy that will carry our world forward. Not backward. Forward.
These days are forward marching days. On the surface, any casual observer can draw parallels between the emergent Nazi horror of the 1930s and our own day. But today is different. Two hundred and ninety thousand supporters of Israel and western values showed up across the nation, braving their fears, to stand together in our nation’s capital.
More. The forces of the IDF are determined to finish the job as best they can in the best way they can.
More. The nation of Israel stands united on the bulwark of civilization to defend itself and all of us against medieval religious tyranny and unimaginable barbarism.
More. We did not hide. We showed up.
It was a glorious day. Glorious. All of us standing together for hours in a sea of blue and white (well, one of us was wearing bright green—but, c’mon, give me a break) and praying together, fortifying each other, telling Israel that she is not alone and that we are not alone.
To many in the world, Jews may still be sheep. But this time, we do not go to the slaughter easily.