Thoughts on the Conflict: Do Jews Believe in "Intractable?"

The Israeli government ordered ground troops to enter Gaza Thursday evening, Israel time.  Though this raises the potential for immediate casualties for Israelis and Palestinians, most Israelis, it seems to me, support the incursion.

More and more, over the past week, I have heard Israeli lay people and leaders alike use the word “intractable” to refer to the conflict.  Perhaps the incursion will buy us a few years of quiet, I hear people say.

Unfortunately, the sense that this conflict has no clear end is hardly new.  In a Hartman session devoted to the poetry of war and peace, my colleagues and I read a poem called “The Winter of 1973,” written in 1994 by those who were born following the Yom Kippur War.  The narrators in the poem, written by Shmuel Haspri and set to music, are now themselves in the army and they speak out to their parents about broken promises and disappointment.  Here is most of the poem:

We are the children of winter 1973

You dreamt us first at dawn at the end of the battles

You were tired men who were grateful for their good fortune

You were worried young women and you wanted so much to love

When you conceived us with love in winter 1973

You wanted to fill up with your bodies what the war took away…

You promised a dove,

An olive tree branch

You promised peace

You promised spring at home and blossoms

You promised to keep your promises, you promised a dove

We are the children of the winter of 1973

We grew up and now we are in the army

With our weapons and a helmet on our heads

We know how to make love to laugh and to weep

We are men we are women

And we too dream about babies

This is why we will not pressures, demand or threaten you.

When we were young you said promises need to be kept

We will give you strength if that is what you need

We will not hold back

We just wanted to whisper

We are the children of that winter in the year 1973

And here is a video of a performance of the popular song, based on the poem:

Reflections from Jerusalem on a Difficult Few Weeks

Tuesday night, July 8.  My friend and I had just left his apartment building in Jerusalem when we heard the alarm siren.  We looked at each other and realized that we needed to go back into the building and search for the shelter.  When we asked a few residents of the building where the shelter was, they responded with a single Hebrew word, “אין ein.” There is no shelter in our building.  So we all stood together on the landing of one of the floors, two American rabbis, half a dozen young Israeli women and an ultra-Orthodox family with young children tugging on their mother’s dress and telling her they were scared.

Hostility and fear have risen steadily in Israel over the past weeks.  Three Israeli boys were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists while returning from yeshiva.   A Palestinian boy was lit on fire by Israeli terrorists on his way home from morning prayers.  Rockets, fired by Hamas into the south of Israel for years, increased in frequency and distance as the IDF began its operation in Gaza.

What’s it like to be in Israel when all this is going on?  As journalist and Hartman faculty member Yossi Klein-Halevi put it, Israelis seldom have time to process events since they unfold so rapidly.  Along with our Israeli brothers and sisters, we offered condolences to the families of the Israeli boys and condemned the killings.  (My colleagues and I were among thousands who attended the funeral.)  Several days later, we offered condolences to the Palestinian family and condemned the killing.  (Hundreds of Israelis, including rabbis, went to the home of slain boy, Muhammed abu Khdeir, to offer condolences and to condemn the murder.)  And now we go about our business, making sure we are never too far from a place that is at least reasonably safe in case the rocket siren goes off again which it did, two days after the first one.

Am Yisra'el United in Grief

On Tuesday afternoon, a few colleagues and I drove from Jerusalem to Modiin to attend the funeral for the three murdered Israeli teens - Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel.  Given the enormous crowd, we needed to park several miles from the cemetery and walk to the site of the funeral along with throngs of people.

It appeared that the attendees were nearly all religiously observant and mostly in their teens and early twenties, the ages of my sons.  I felt surrounded by the next generation of Israelis, expressing their grief and their solidarity with the families of their peers.  It was quite hot and several people in our area fainted, requiring medics to be called over. 

A small group started to sing a slow, soulful melody and the entire crowd soon joined in.  “May God be merciful to our fellow Jews who wander over sea and land or who suffer persecution and imprisonment.  May God soon bring them relief from distress and deliver them from darkness to light, from subjugation to redemption.”  This was followed by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s stirring setting for the dramatic verse from Psalm 23:  “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no harm, for You are with me.”  For half an hour, we sang songs of grief, hope and comfort.

The ceremony consisted of prayers recited by the Chief Ashkenazic and Sephardic Rabbis and speeches by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.  I was especially moved by the eulogy given by the rabbi who leads the yeshiva that two of the teens attended.  He spoke about the boys' kindness and creativity, giving specific examples from their lives. Reflecting on the outpouring of support from the crowd, he said that while two Jews may have three opinions, they share one heart.

Following the ceremony, the families proceeded to a private burial and the crowd began to leave the cemetery. 

I will never forget that afternoon.  Though the size of the crowd exceeded people’s expectations, things never got unruly. There were no demonstrations, no violent incidents, no calls for revenge, just a sad, soulful, communal demonstration of unity and support.  Am Yisra’el showed up that afternoon to grieve the senseless deaths of three teens who will never attend university or have families of their own. 

Toward the end of his eulogy, the boys’ rabbi reflected on the importance of prayer when all other words fail us.  “The essence of prayer,” he said, “is the underlying belief that tomorrow can be better than today.” 

Surrounded by even larger crowds than I entered with, I left the cemetery praying that tomorrow would be better.