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livA few people have very kindly sent me messages checking if I'm ok while Israel is at war. I really appreciate the gesture, thank you so much.
To let everybody know, I'm about as fine as any human being can be while awful things are happening in different parts of the world. I am somewhat more affected by bad news from Israel than bad news from Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Armenia etc. But only slightly; I have very few personal connections with Israel. Some family, like distant cousins I quite like and have met a handful of times in my life, friends from Jewish youth camps and university whom I am fond of and keep in touch with via small social media connections. A couple of people I know via my DW circle who happen to be Israeli, but I don't know them because I'm Jewish, I know them because they happen to be in that one-hop-away sweet spot that DW is so good at connecting. Nobody I have any connection to, even a weak tie, is currently in physical danger.
However, this is quite an unusual level of distance among British Jews. A very high proportion of people in my synagogue community, and basically everybody except me at rabbinic school, has direct personal connections in Israel, usually multiple: parents, offspring, best friends, the kind of connections where you panic if there's a bad news report and you haven't heard from them for a few hours. And many of them have already been bereaved. So the social media advice saying, if you have Jewish friends, it's a good time to reach out, is not incorrect, but I just happen to be a little unusual in this. I am not, however, unique, so please don't assume that just because someone is Jewish they're in a state of devastated dread and misery right now. It's a little hard to handle all the unneeded sympathy, because I certainly don't want to say, oh, I don't really care about Israel. Obviously what's happening is really really bad, and any decent human being should care. And I do care about the extremely upset and bereaved people around me.
Also, I don't have any particular insight into the rights and wrongs of the situation. I'm reading in the same news reports and the same propaganda that you all are. I feel very strongly that a war is not a sportsball match where you pick team Israel or team Palestine. I am thoroughly fed up with people repeating a bunch of slogans like "Gaza is the world's largest open-air prison" or "Israel has the right to defend itself" as if that justified atrocities.
I am concerned about the free speech implications of overly harsh repercussions for people protesting about Palestine; people have the right to protest against the occupation in general and about the current actions of the Israeli army, even if sometimes they are getting some of their facts from dodgy propaganda sources. I do not personally feel threatened by the existence of Free Palestine protests and commentary, but at the same time, a lot of these ad-hoc groups with little experience of activism are very susceptible to being co-opted by actually dangerous antisemites. That's a very different statement from associating any criticism of Israel or solidarity with the people under siege in Gaza with Jew hatred. Also, I don't think that repeating pro-Israel propaganda, particularly not couched in the form of dehumanizing language about Palestinians, is particularly helpful to either Israel or Jews worldwide. Aside from being morally bad.
In the UK specifically, there are a lot of reports of "increases in antisemitic attacks". These are almost entirely of the form of people smashing windows and spraypainting unpleasant graffiti on Jewish-owned premises. This is a bad thing, it certainly makes Jewish people upset, but we're not in particularly more danger than at any other time in the 21st century. Some ultra-Orthodox schools have closed, but this is against general advice about the level of threat to Jewish children. Most Jewish schools and synagogues and so on are continuing as normal with the higher level of security that we need to deploy whenever there's any incident in Israel, but not an exceptional level of security. In fact, on this occasion there have been spontaneous expressions of sympathy and solidarity, people leaving cards and flowers outside synagogues. I've never seen that before.
I found this article by Arielle Angel We cannot cross until we carry each other very insightful. The context is the US, where taking a side about Israel and Palestine is very embedded into partisan politics, but the commentary on what happens to solidarity and peace-building movements feels relevant here as well. Pull-quote:
Anyway, the reason I have time to make this post is because I've caught a cold and I'm staying home from college to avoid infecting everybody else. Pretty sure it's a cold, lots of negative Covid tests, known recent exposure, and rhinovirus colds are at much higher prevalence than plague right now. I'm not very poorly, and I did a lot of second-guessing myself about whether I should attend class anyway. I certainly would have in the Before Times, but I'm trying to apply the lessons of the pandemic as best as a single individual can when institutions are so resistant to change.
To let everybody know, I'm about as fine as any human being can be while awful things are happening in different parts of the world. I am somewhat more affected by bad news from Israel than bad news from Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Armenia etc. But only slightly; I have very few personal connections with Israel. Some family, like distant cousins I quite like and have met a handful of times in my life, friends from Jewish youth camps and university whom I am fond of and keep in touch with via small social media connections. A couple of people I know via my DW circle who happen to be Israeli, but I don't know them because I'm Jewish, I know them because they happen to be in that one-hop-away sweet spot that DW is so good at connecting. Nobody I have any connection to, even a weak tie, is currently in physical danger.
However, this is quite an unusual level of distance among British Jews. A very high proportion of people in my synagogue community, and basically everybody except me at rabbinic school, has direct personal connections in Israel, usually multiple: parents, offspring, best friends, the kind of connections where you panic if there's a bad news report and you haven't heard from them for a few hours. And many of them have already been bereaved. So the social media advice saying, if you have Jewish friends, it's a good time to reach out, is not incorrect, but I just happen to be a little unusual in this. I am not, however, unique, so please don't assume that just because someone is Jewish they're in a state of devastated dread and misery right now. It's a little hard to handle all the unneeded sympathy, because I certainly don't want to say, oh, I don't really care about Israel. Obviously what's happening is really really bad, and any decent human being should care. And I do care about the extremely upset and bereaved people around me.
Also, I don't have any particular insight into the rights and wrongs of the situation. I'm reading in the same news reports and the same propaganda that you all are. I feel very strongly that a war is not a sportsball match where you pick team Israel or team Palestine. I am thoroughly fed up with people repeating a bunch of slogans like "Gaza is the world's largest open-air prison" or "Israel has the right to defend itself" as if that justified atrocities.
I am concerned about the free speech implications of overly harsh repercussions for people protesting about Palestine; people have the right to protest against the occupation in general and about the current actions of the Israeli army, even if sometimes they are getting some of their facts from dodgy propaganda sources. I do not personally feel threatened by the existence of Free Palestine protests and commentary, but at the same time, a lot of these ad-hoc groups with little experience of activism are very susceptible to being co-opted by actually dangerous antisemites. That's a very different statement from associating any criticism of Israel or solidarity with the people under siege in Gaza with Jew hatred. Also, I don't think that repeating pro-Israel propaganda, particularly not couched in the form of dehumanizing language about Palestinians, is particularly helpful to either Israel or Jews worldwide. Aside from being morally bad.
In the UK specifically, there are a lot of reports of "increases in antisemitic attacks". These are almost entirely of the form of people smashing windows and spraypainting unpleasant graffiti on Jewish-owned premises. This is a bad thing, it certainly makes Jewish people upset, but we're not in particularly more danger than at any other time in the 21st century. Some ultra-Orthodox schools have closed, but this is against general advice about the level of threat to Jewish children. Most Jewish schools and synagogues and so on are continuing as normal with the higher level of security that we need to deploy whenever there's any incident in Israel, but not an exceptional level of security. In fact, on this occasion there have been spontaneous expressions of sympathy and solidarity, people leaving cards and flowers outside synagogues. I've never seen that before.
I found this article by Arielle Angel We cannot cross until we carry each other very insightful. The context is the US, where taking a side about Israel and Palestine is very embedded into partisan politics, but the commentary on what happens to solidarity and peace-building movements feels relevant here as well. Pull-quote:
And now, we do not have a shared struggle able to credibly respond to these massacres of Israelis and Palestinians. With all of the work that many Jews and Palestinians have done to reach toward each other over the years, I believe at heart it is this failure that is now driving us apart.I hope it's entirely obvious from this post that I am not at all here for rehashing the "debate" about which "side" deserves to commit atrocities and war crimes against the other, and if anyone tries to start it I will delete comments.
Anyway, the reason I have time to make this post is because I've caught a cold and I'm staying home from college to avoid infecting everybody else. Pretty sure it's a cold, lots of negative Covid tests, known recent exposure, and rhinovirus colds are at much higher prevalence than plague right now. I'm not very poorly, and I did a lot of second-guessing myself about whether I should attend class anyway. I certainly would have in the Before Times, but I'm trying to apply the lessons of the pandemic as best as a single individual can when institutions are so resistant to change.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-17 12:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-17 12:43 pm (UTC)I hope that what you have is in fact just an ordinary cold, and that you recover quickly.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-17 12:52 pm (UTC)I hope you feel better soon. Sympathy with the second-guessing! I had to do similar thought processes a couple of weeks ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-17 02:21 pm (UTC)I was doing the cold thing last week, and thought I was over it as of the weekend, but just hoovering a couple of rooms yesterday left me physically shaking, so watch out for hidden energy suckage.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-21 09:55 am (UTC)Sympathy re cold. I do prefer it when people stay at home.