We are in what I not so fondly think of as “the split-screen season.” It’s the time of year when my social media feed divides into those riding an emotional roller coaster and those who have no idea it exists.
It is a uniquely Israeli period from Passover, which we have just celebrated, to Holocaust Remembrance Day (which is marked this coming week) and the following week’s back-to-back commemoration of Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars and the celebration of Independence Day.
Jews everywhere, of course, mark these days to a greater or lesser extent, but there is something in the Israeli experience that makes them stand out. Especially post-October 7, 2023.
We struggle to find an appropriate way to celebrate when the country is still at war, soldiers and reservists are still fighting, and there are ongoing rocket attacks – like the Houthi rocket launched on Israel at the end of the first day of Passover. There are still Israelis who are not able to return to their homes, destroyed by rockets in the October 7 invasion or the subsequent rocket barrages. And, above all, no one can forget the plight of the hostages who are held by Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza, among them 24 believed to be alive and 34 bodies awaiting decent burial.
Add to that the global wave of antisemitism, which continues to swell. There are too many examples to cite but the firebombing of the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Seder night stands out.
IN 2021, BRITISH comedian David Baddiel wrote a book with the provocative title Jews Don’t Count. More than 550 days after Oct. 7, 2023, the world doesn’t give a damn. The 1,200 men, women, children, and babies tortured and slaughtered in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad invasion, the worst attack on Jews since the end of the Holocaust, count for nothing. The protests – against Israel – began before the country even began to fight back.
There was no international outrage over the murders in captivity of sweet redheaded baby and toddler Kfir and Ariel Bibas and their mother, Shiri. Feminist movements were silent even when faced with evidence of the mass rapes and torture of Jewish women on Oct. 7 and those abducted to Gaza.
There’s been no equivalent of Michelle Obama’s prominent participation in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign for the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram terrorists in 2014. Boko Haram, of course, are jihadists similar to Hamas and the other terrorist groups who launched the unprovoked invasion and attack on Israel as it was celebrating the Simchat Torah holiday 18 months ago.
Recently, I got sucked into the frustrating ping-ponging that passes as dialogue on social media. At one point, after I’d pointed out that Hamas could end the war by releasing the hostages and refraining from launching rockets and terror attacks, I was told that “Israelis should crawl back to where they belong.”
Well, I’m not into crawling anywhere. When I moved to Israel, my personal Exodus more than 45 years ago, it was as a proud Zionist and Jew. That I don’t “belong” anywhere else is abundantly clear – and ironically every antisemitic attack and pro-terrorist rally abroad makes that even more evident.
Israel wasn't created because of the Holocaust
As Chaim Gouri, an iconic fighter-writer of the 1948 War of Independence once told me, “Remember, Israel wasn’t created because of the Holocaust but in spite of it.” We’re part of a chain reaching back to biblical times.
A PIECE by Simon Evans on Spiked caught my eye this week with its catchy title: “The Second World War ain’t what it used to be. The national myth that glued Britain together is fast fading from memory.”
In it, he commented on an argument in a Hertfordshire borough council over the proposal to hold a military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day.
“Lib Dem councillor Caroline Smith-Wright said that while ‘street parties’ might bring people together, a parade would just be for the ‘elite’... it seems to me that she appeared to be complaining less about ‘elitism’ than pomp. Perhaps she feared that a military parade would promote the dangerous notion that the war was won through courage, discipline, sacrifice and military might, rather than, say, community spirit or ‘values’ – such as those of Paddington Bear.”
I love Paddington Bear, but I get Evans’ point. The generation that fought in World War II and the survivors of the Holocaust are dying out. The nearly-60-year-old Evans notes that his generation (and mine) is the last to grow up so close to the war. In London, stories of the Blitz were common. Friends grew up without grandparents and extended family, who had perished in the Shoah.
“Winning the war – and keeping our collective pecker up as we did so – is the foundational myth of modern Britain. It is the Blitz and Britain’s ‘Very well – alone!’ stance that reminds us of our moral fibre and national character,” opines Evans. “... Nobody can any longer pretend that if push came to shove, we’d all rally round the flag. We can barely agree on which one to wave at the Last Night of the Proms.”
And this is the rub. Israelis have been through so many wars that my family in conversation sometimes has to clarify which one we’re referring to: “The War” as in WWII (my mother’s war); “The War” as in Lebanon I (my brother’s war, when I did reserve duty); the current Operation Swords of Iron, in which my son’s generation is so involved; or any of the many rounds of combat and waves of terrorism in between.
We don’t have to wonder about what would happen if push came to shove – we rallied together when shove became a murderous rampage, a modern pogrom.
ISRAEL IS politically polarized – like many other countries. And our enemies deliberately play on that split. All Israelis want the hostages home; the question is how best to achieve that and at what future price. It is Hamas that holds the hostages, not the Israeli government. The terrorist organization also holds its own people hostage – deliberately using the population as human shields and exploiting schools, mosques, and hospitals to shelter its weapons and terror tunnels.
But, as a Facebook meme sums up, “There are currently more anti-Hamas protests in Gaza than in the rest of the world combined.”
Some of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations rally around slogans so absurd they would be funny if they weren’t supporting a terrorist organization. Take, for example, the “Essex March for Palestine” which participated in the rally that took place last Saturday in Westcliff, a town on Britain’s southern coast.
Referring to the Westcliff resident who last month climbed London’s most iconic spire and waved a Palestinian flag, the promotion for the rally declared: “Dan Day scaled Big Ben. Jesus braved the Cross. Both acted to save humanity.” The comparison should make every decent person cringe, not just Christian believers. I agree, however, that humanity needs saving – from Hamas and its mindless supporters. And that requires brave, trained, and dedicated soldiers.
When it comes to anti-Israel rhetoric and deeds, anything goes. Eighty years after the end of WWII and the Holocaust, people are so far removed and so ignorant that they are willing to believe anything. This is how the Holocaust is simultaneously denied and hijacked as part of the Palestinian narrative, which turns the Gazans into the victims, while chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” calling for the destruction of the one Jewish state, while denouncing a non-existent genocide of Palestinians.
And that’s why the split-screen phenomenon prevails this time of year. When on Passover we sing, “In every generation they rise up to destroy us,” it’s sadly not theoretical. Every Jew is painfully aware of antisemitism. Every Israeli has known rocket attacks and can put a face to the names of victims of terrorism and fallen soldiers – especially after Oct. 7.
How do we carry on celebrating and commemorating, commemorating and celebrating? We have no choice. We have collectively suffered terrible losses – and survived, battle-scarred but still kicking. When we refuse to remember what was done to us, simply for being Jews, and how time and again we have arisen from the ashes, that’s when we lose the battle and grant the terrorists a victory. Our very existence depends on remembering who we are – not victims, but survivors; not as dead people, but as a people very much alive.