I am living in a world of extremes this week.
One minute, reflecting on the power of community. Videos of soldiers, hugging, singing, dancing, laughing, and living life despite their constant dance so close to the border of death. Photos of hundreds of women making challah or packing meals for soldiers. Witnessing many hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by friends and family to support our state of Israel. It seems that every Jew is playing their part and then some right now.
And then, I am reeling at the videos and images that will be burned into my brain for the rest of my waking life, the worst of which are too horrific to even talk about, but we must. Babies, incinerated to a crisp. Beheaded teenagers. Dead women, limbs askew, thrown into the back of a pickup truck, covered in crusty blood, while the hyenas around her dance and laugh and howl to their wicked idols.
I’ll share what I wrote a few days ago:
It is the middle of the day at a work conference and I am struggling to think clearly. I know that I should eat, but the well of hunger does not seem to bottom out. No appetite for food, anyways. All I can consume is content, content, content. I am eating it three meals a day, two snacks, dessert, and everything in between. My appetite for content is voracious and knows no bounds. Videos. Tweets. News articles. Telegram chats. Whatsapp chats. Instagram. Facebook. What is going on in Israel?
I try my best to keep up with the hum and the drum and the notifications that regular life requires of me. Emails, DMs, text messages, a phone call from my mother. On the other side of the world, young men wrap their arms and lace their boots and snap their helmets into place. Some women do too. Brave, strong, fearless Israeli women. Others send their men off, heavily pregnant, weeping by the bus stop. They braid challah, organize fundraisers, bath their children, say a prayer under their breath. They must do everything in their power to keep the wheels in motion. To pretend that they are okay.
The Jewish nation is at war. “A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”
My husband FaceTimes me during the lunch hour. I am pumping milk for my son, watching videos of his smiling face to increase production, or so they say. The screen lights up with two smiling faces. I realize later that my son is 9 months old on this very day. All I can think when his cherubic face comes into focus is Oh My God. My sweet, sweet, baby. The light of my life. My sun, my moon, my stars, my child, my everything and more. And then, the screen in front of my eyes goes dark despite the WiFi connection being perfectly crisp.
Do I even allow myself to accept the thoughts that penetrate (and even flood) my blood-brain barrier? Forty babies. Body bags, tied one third of the way up. Beheaded and burned. It takes all of my might not to run to the bathroom and barf up all the content that I have consumed for the last four days.
And immediately, I beg myself to amputate. To cut the thoughts off from their source. I plead with my consciousness. We cannot let them infiltrate our brain waves. We cannot let them get our spirit down. This is psychological warfare and this is what they want. Our attention. A jar of our tears. A bowl of our organs. A bucket of our babies.
I stare at my child through the screen, and I cannot wait to squeeze his thighs and to hold him so incredibly close the second that I land home tomorrow. I thank Gd over and over and over, and over and over and over, again that my baby is safe. That my children are home safe. And then, I pause. Are they safe? Are we safe? We scream into a void while the world watches.
I grieve for the mothers who are forced to wake up and drag their broken bodies out of bed when their babies are not safe. Or worse. To be alive with the knowledge that you are alive and that your sun, your moon, your stars, your baby is not. Is there a more horrifying sentence in this universe than that? There is nothing worse that can pass the blood-brain barrier than that piece of information.
40 babies. Forty. Beheaded and burned. We will never forget. And will never back down.
Am Israel Chai
As we head into the weekend, and into Shabbat especially, I am choosing to focus on the light in the world. The Jewish people, my people, are a people of light. We bring goodness into the world and no matter how many times the world tries to bring us down, we rise up and we grow even stronger out from the ashes.
I’m asking you, dear reader, to please be a source of light in honor of the 1200+ Israeli souls who died over in the last week. Do a good deed. Smile at a stranger. Donate money. Light Shabbat candles. Pray for the soldiers. Pray for the hostages. Volunteer your time. Volunteer your expertise. Raise awareness. Do good, do good, do good, and then do some more. We are a people of the light.
If you’re in Brooklyn, this Sunday I am hosting an event with my friends Jolie & Sofya to raise money for Magen David Adom. We have already raised almost 5K and secured a corporate match so we hope to raise 10K+ for Israel. Please consider joining us at the event or simply donating to me (via venmo: janearielkatz). We will combine the funds and donate through the corporate match. There will be delicious food, drinks, crafts for kids, a silent auction, and a chance to all be together. And there will be security.
Wishing you all a restful and peaceful Shabbat. May all of the hostages return home safely and in complete health. May all of our soldiers be protected on the field and may we come to a complete victory with as little loss of innocent life as possible.
Big hugs,
Jane