It used to be such fun. A lawyer would enter the room, and then another. An eye surgeon. A sprinkling of English professors, yet more lawyers. Some ex-members of Knesset, a former ambassador, a security expert, a therapist, one last lawyer.
When we gathered each month to deconstruct books and feast on fancy food, the combined contribution to the State of Israel in each alternating lovely living room could make the desert bloom all over again. Our book club boasts mega-philanthropists who help our universities soar and our athletes win gold.
We include past heads of women’s organizations and presidents of wonderful charities, a former education minister, a human rights representative to the UN, a coexistence environmentalist. We are a powerful group of engaged, thoughtful, productive friends who long ago chose to leave luxury’s lap in the English-speaking Diaspora and come home to the hot sands of the Middle East.
And now we cry.
In the good old days, when Israel was a vibrant and exciting democracy, our WhatsApp texts giggled over aging bodies that jiggle and flop. We organized yachting adventures and rowing on the Yarkon River.
Now we drop our heads on laden tables as we pick at our food, venting about the horror. We trudge together to endless demonstrations; we run to shelters together when missiles rain on our parade. We do what we can: We help hostage families, write petitions. Some of us remain peace activists as we wonder how on God’s earth it all went so wrong.
And we cry.
WE STILL meet every month; we diligently read our books and discuss them, but the air in our lungs is different now. Who can dissect a tale of the cruel kidnapping of 250 Icelandic islanders in 1627 without agonizing about our own hostages, languishing in Hamas’s tunnels since 2023? Many of our members are second-generation Holocaust survivors; how can we examine World War II plots without aching over the rot of Oct. 7?
How can we pontificate about religious lunacy in Ireland without the image of our own crazies raking in billions of additional handouts, while wildly protesting against the draft? All this, while we – the serving, working, tax-paying, army-going public – grapple in exhaustion with across-the-board cuts.
And how can we analyze any Kafkaesque fables of gut-churning corruption of cursed coalitions that torment their own people, without our arteries exploding at the antics of our objectionable, ghastly government?
It’s not that we talk about God a lot, except how in His name much blood is being spilled. Still, thinking about religion leads me, sometimes in the middle of a creamy dessert, to share the latest Talmudic tidbits gleaned from my daily study of the holy daf yomi.
Not long ago, the tractate under the knife was “Sanhedrin” – a scrutiny of judges, judgment, and those who are judged. Some of it is breathtakingly contemporary – can judges overrule a king, for heaven’s sake? The answer, predictably, is both yes and no. It depends on whom you ask.
The current tractates being studied throughout the Jewish world meander through crime and punishment, and appropriate death sentences for deviants. Are you burned, beheaded, strangled, or stoned for having sexual relations with your wife’s mother? Was the intercourse “normal” or “abnormal,” and if with an animal, “witting” or “unwitting”?
I study this every day and am continuously blown away: The Talmud is the core of our culture and belief; dissecting its nuances sparks brain cells that sparkle; it’s a sacred and venerated text. And yet, it seems strange that our taxes fund people to ponder requisite punishments for upending society, while they don’t consider themselves part of our society. It feels desperately wrong.
Yet the coalition chucks billions to buy their support, while cutting salaries of teachers and doctors, including those who have served for hundreds of days in the military reserves.
What can we do? We sit and we cry.
When even crying doesn't help: Grappling with despair over war
SOMETIMES, EVEN crying doesn’t cut it. Recently, I visited the saddest place on Earth, or so it felt on a spring sun-drenched Jerusalem day. Mount Herzl Military Cemetery is heaving with the pain of fresh graves; row upon row, upon endless row of them – young kids and older kids. Balloons flutter from headstones. There are beer bottles, soccer jerseys, and pictures – oh, the pictures! The heart aches so that tears can’t even fall.
What can we do? We protest, we do yoga, we sigh, and read books. We gather with thumbed copies of The Seal Woman’s Gift and steel ourselves to stick to Olafur, Asta, and the captives in Algiers. But one page in, we are with our own hostages.
As sleepless Israel shivers and sweats; as we hug our babies and force our minds not to go to terrible places; as we wonder whether we should sleep in shoes for fear we’ll be running to shelters in the wee hours of the night… this is the time when our dubious coalition chooses to hit us again with insane decrees, dismissals, and anti-democratic craziness?! All the while – God forbid! – not even investigating or dismissing themselves.
Die-hard Zionists are wondering if Israel is an experiment that failed; is one man really going to take us all down?
It’s getting increasingly hard to bounce back.
Next month, we’ll take deep breaths and discuss Apeirogon, a raw examination of how a bereaved Arab and Jew together deal with death in our beloved country’s endless conflict. We know how a Jewish/Palestinian solemn ceremony to honor those dead ended recently in the bucolic suburban town of Ra’anana.
In our book club, we don’t attack one another. We discuss, deconstruct, and dream of better times ahead, when reading books is just a simple pleasure.
See you at the demo.
The writer lectures at Reichman University. peledpam@gmail.com