Fear in the Valley of the Shadows

Fear in the Valley of the Shadows

I will be sending a few more newsletters in short order, so please ask your email box to forgive me. This one is my narrative, and the next one will be photographs.

We met our guide for the day, David Cherney, and headed to what is called the otef, the area surrounding Gaza. For context, the Hebrew word ma’ateyfah means envelope. We came bearing gifts for the soldiers. David was able to secure a trunkful of fleece sweaters and t-shirts. We brought battery packs, playing cards, deodorant, foot powder, socks and items that the soldiers might need or want to make their service bearable.

Our first visit was to Netiv Ha-Asarah, an agricultural village overlooking the northern border of Gaza. Lovely homes line the village streets. The town was evacuated after October 7 to Ashkelon, a few miles north. First responders from the village patrol the town while their families live in hotels. The terrorists invaded and overran a small section of the town. They killed, among others, a couple in their 70s. The wife was an artist. She and her husband devoted their time transporting sick Gazan children to the hospital for treatment. This sweet couple believed in coexistence. They were murdered not because of what they did or didn’t do. They did not occupy anyone’s land. Huddled together, they died a gruesome death in a fiery home because they were Jews.

Netiv Ha-Asarah is also a small army base for a paratroop division. The soldiers are deployed to Gaza. They go back and forth as needed. They store their gear on the base and eat, shower and sleep there when they can. I felt as though I was back in college. My dorm floor was a bit disheveled and strewn about and people slept at odd hours. But these kids were jovial and serious about their mission and their lives. The commander of the base was a red headed kid. I chuckled. I asked him his age. “Twenty,” he responded with a smile.

“You are twenty years old and the commander of an army base. These soldiers all answer to you?” I asked incredulously. He smiled a boyish smile and nodded his head. When I think of the sillinesses that engage our Jewish kids at the age of twenty and compare that to the responsibilities and the maturity required for these soldiers to fulfill their duties and obligations to fight a just war—well, there is no comparison. I would hate for my children and grandchildren to have to go to battle with guns, to risk their lives and perhaps take the lives of others. But these soldiers become men and women at the age of eighteen. We wait until we are thirty-five before we grow up. We live in a world of luxury and privilege.

While I was sad to see these young kids shoulder these awesome responsibilities and put their lives at risk, I admire their sense of duty and seriousness of purpose. I compared the commander with the kids on Harvard yard and in Morningside Heights chanting their nonsensical slogans with their keffiyehs. I felt proud of these young people despite their hardships and the awful tasks they have to execute with concerns for their own safety and the safety of the civilians. If I could choose for my own grandchildren, I would rather they take responsibility for what they believe than hold up signs and wear t-shirts between classes on their way to the school cafeteria. Israel trusts their sons and daughters.

We dumb ours down.

The southern town of Sderot may be known to you. It has endured rocket fire since the unilateral 2005 withdrawal of Jews from Gaza. Because of Israel’s growing population and the availability of affordable housing in Sderot, the city has thrived and grown into a vibrant city. On that terrible day, terrorists occupied the city for at least 48 hours and roamed the streets with relative impunity. Just two weeks ago, Sderot citizens began to return to their homes pretty much en masse when the schools reopened. The city feels normal. Apartment buildings are being built, restaurants are open and the veneer of normal life has returned to the neighborhoods. But Sderot was never normal.

Rockets from Gaza, a constant reality since 2005, was treated as life as normal. Bomb shelters are everywhere. When they hear the sirens, children are taught from a very young age to run to the shelters on their playgrounds No place has bomb shelters quite like Sderot. That is something for them to be proud of, but better to be proud of other things.

Terrorists took over the Sderot police station and remained holed up there for days shooting at civilians and using it as a staging ground. Finally, an Israeli tank was sent in to destroy the station and the terrorists and civilians held inside. We saw a battery of police and soldiers each listening to the stories of the town by fellow police and officers who were there. Like every defending force in Israel, the army and police know why they are fighting and what they are fighting for.

We dropped off supplies at Kibbutz Reim and Kibbutz Beiri. Through a combination of luck and courage, eight first responders kept seventy terrorists at bay until the IDF finally showed up hours later. Some kibbutzniks died during the onslaught, but most were saved.

We did a lot more in the Otef, but I want to close with thoughts about young people in Israel. The ones I saw, the soldiers and those serving them have a fantastic spirit and creativity. We dropped off a bag of gifts at the Shuva Achim (Return Brothers) rest stop. Three brothers, none of whom seemed to lead a serious-in-any way life before the war, set up a coffee stop for soldiers returning from the front. The rest stop quickly morphed into a full-service rest area for the soldiers to get a break from the difficulties involved in their duties in Gaza. They are fed homecooked meals. They can play the guitar, change their clothes, take a nap, play games, get a message, put on t’fillin. Whatever they need and whatever people throughout Israel offer to give, it is there for the soldiers. These soldiers are Israel’s boys and girls. The country has spontaneously rallied around them to ease their burdens, transition them to feel normal again after hours and days and weeks of combat.

The brothers confess that they do not see themselves as extraordinary in their accomplishments. They were examples of people coming at the right time and saying to their country, “Count on me. I can help.” Everyone at Shuva Achim is exhausted, traumatized, but still happy. What a great country. Click on this website. It will make you proud.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-769644

I am going to close my account of my visit to the Otef on the saddest of notes. We drove to the site of the Nova festival massacre. On October 7, 364 young people were brutally murdered in this open-air meadow near the Gazan border. Others were abducted. I cannot let my mind dwell on the maltreatment of those in captivity. Many of these young people were raped and mutilated before they were killed. They suffered the most gruesome deaths imaginable. All they could do against their marauding killers was to run and hide and pray that they would not be found.

Family members and friends set up beautiful memorials to these murdered loved ones. Each one individual, different—but together they portray a terrible picture, their beautiful faces and bodies and hopes and dreams contorted by the pain we can only imagine of their fear and suffering before they died.

I broke down and cried.

I cried like this when I visited Auschwitz. The enormity of that killing machine and its engineered efficiencies numbs the soul until it finally breaks into a stream of tears. Auschwitz is the burning of a people, a true genocide for the Jewish people.

The Nova festival was different. It was the destruction of individual lives, of beautiful young people who dreamed of peace and went to celebrate joy and music and dance for tomorrow.

Each family of mourners put up a picture or a saying or an individual memorial to visit and to bear testimony that this young man or woman was an individual, had a face and beautiful dreams for the future. They hoped to celebrate their youth before they grew old. Each of these dreamers and their dreams were destroyed.

The Nova Festival sight was not the faceless murder factory of Auschwitz. Instead, it was the dreamers and their dreams turned nightmare. Beauty, love and peace taken together can sound like silly cliches. But when they are extinguished one by one, counting to 364, it is enough to make you scream.

But no sounds are heard, and neither will they ever be heard agian. The silence at the Nova festival and the end of their music is the worst pain of all.