Hey, beloved tribe.
I knew something was missing from my opening. It was the word “beloved”. I’m fixing this omission forever. You are my beloved tribe.
First, abject gratitude to all the luminous beautiful souls who gave to my fund on behalf of poor Melissa Soalt. We are less than $300 from my goal of $3600! Truly the children of Israel are never alone, and you proved that during the last two days.
If anyone would still like to contribute to an incredibly sick woman who is suffering mightily, it’s not too late. I will transfer every penny of the proceeds to her on Friday to send her into Shabbat on a tide of well-being.
Click here to access the Fund for Melissa!
I’ll be real: I didn’t have the highest hopes for this fund. There’s nothing sexy about this one. Not all stories are created equal and I knew hers would be a bit of a hard sell.
To explain what I mean, let me contrast it with the last fundraiser I organized, on behalf of a lifelong friend. I met Silas when I was 9 years old. I called him by his given feminine name for a long time and yet I knew full well he was a boy. We were very unlikely friends. He was a rough-and-tumble bad-ass kind of a kid whose friendship circle was almost exclusively other boys, and I was a prissy, femme-y, goody-two-shoes who found “cussing” distasteful (oh, how times have changed, but I digress). Our bond was really based on just one thing:
“I loved you because you always knew I was a boy,” he recently told me.
Anyway, Silas and I have dozens of mutual friends, most of whom have witnessed his transition from a desperately unhappy and unhealthy misgendered person to a much, much happier and healthier man. I did not expect to raise the full amount of what top surgery would cost him, but I had no doubt that my friends would defray that cost considerably. A person with half his life still ahead of him — with decades left to live as himself — a needed amount that was finite, a single discreet need that was fillable: all these attract us, all of us, myself included.
Melissa’s story is different. Because she’s been so ravaged by illness, she looks older than her 70 years, but besides a relatively advanced age, there’s really no confidence that she’ll ever recover the quality of life we would want for a loved one.
So what are we “achieving” when we raise a fraction of the money she needs to make a dent in her troubles?
Here we come to another concept that’s also very Jewish: acts of love have infinite inherent value. Even if they buy nothing more than temporary comfort, temporary reprieve: dayenu. We’ve sent the suffering a message: that they matter, that their comfort matters, that their feeling of having a supportive community matters. That as Jews, we are family.
So please know how deeply appreciated your gifts were, and will always be.
*
During the last day or two, the news has been full of headlines and statements like: Once again, the Israeli government is choosing war over peace.
And you’ll be shocked — shocked! — to know I consider this a wildly unfair interpretation of what actually happened.
Hamas’ proposed deal went something like this: “Agree to leave us in power as the rulers of Gaza; release a thousand murderous terrorists from prison, including many who were directly involved with the slaughter on October 7; withdraw from Gaza completely and agree never to return; increase the hundreds and hundreds of trucks’ worth of goods you’re supplying to our population daily; commit to rebuilding the Gaza Strip within 3-5 years; and we’ll return 33 of your hostages, without specifying how many, if any, are still alive.”
Now, it’s not my place to tell Israel what to do militarily, nor even to criticize her on this front. I’m willing to criticize a lot: the West Bank religious Jewish extremists who behave in ways that sicken me to my core; the leadership of Netanyahu, whom I consider at this point a counterpart of Trump; the far-right momzers in his cabinet and their soul-crushing rhetoric.
But when it comes to the existential threat of Hamas, I would not dream of thinking I know better than Benny Gantz what Israel should do.
Israel’s willingness to go to the most extreme lengths to recover her people is one of the very best of her many, many shining national traits. I died a thousand deaths over the Gilad Shalit deal and I also loved Israel a thousand times harder for it. There are no good responses to these situations, where we have to weigh the lives of the current remaining hostages against the number of future hostages we enable and incentivize when we release hundreds of murderers from prison. These answers are above my pay grade; I can see both sides all too well and I do not feel remotely entitled to weigh in on either side.
But since Israel seems to have made her own decision, what I can do is defend it.
I agree with Haviv Rettig Gur, who has said up and down and around and around that Israel must go into Rafah, that Israel has no choice but to go into Rafah, that Biden knows very well that Israel cannot do otherwise, because if they don’t go into Rafah and finish Hamas militarily, the whole war will have been for nothing, October 7 and the thousands of dead Gazans will have been for nothing, our hundreds of IDF soldiers who made the highest sacrifice will have been for nothing.
As long as Hamas rules Gaza, nothing will ever change. The whole world just saw what Hamas would do if its freedom of movement was not restricted. So nothing will change if they remain in power. The blockades will remain, the checkpoints will remain, Israel’s control over what (and who) goes in and out will remain, and the world will continue to scream that Israel is evil for protecting its own people in these ways. October 7th will happen again and again as Hamas has sworn to ensure, the world will keep sending money for them to embezzle and funnel into their own lavish lifestyles and their subterranean terror complex, and Gazans will continue to pay with their blood.
Yesterday I lost it with a friend’s daughter, a transwoman who routinely condemns Israel for every single thing she does while never assigning any blame to Hamas or anyone else. She and I have had several previous exchanges where I came close to unfriending and yet I always decided not to, because I don’t actually doubt her heart is in the right place. But yesterday she posted this:
the heartbreak days keep coming. i'm not sure any group who has tried has ever stood a chance of actually ending the state of israel through military power, but from what i've seen, we've had to pretend they could many times over in order to justify massive and endless retaliation. i feel like we ourselves are doing more to end the hope of a country led with actual jewish values (through our oversized violence, dehumanization, and justification of atrocities) than hamas ever could. i'm so devastated. it doesn't have to be like this. we can still stop, we can still repent for our parts in all this and fix things
And I felt I’d finally come to the end of my rope. In her comment section I wrote:
I don't think I can maintain a connection with you given your anti-Zionism. Israel is indeed facing an existential threat. Hamas is just one arm of Iran. You just saw what they would do with no restrictions on their movement. So if the IDF doesn’t disable them, nothing will ever change for Gaza. The blockades, checkpoints, walls, etc will all remain in place and you won't be okay with that either.
You live your life fully as yourself, feasting at the table liberalism and democracy set for you, and you can't stop spitting on it. Hamas would throw you off a roof or string you up from a crane after mutilating you without mercy. Israel would take you in and protect you.
You bleed for Gazan children but never said a single word about the Jewish children tortured and burned alive on October 7. You are young and confused so I don’t want to feel rage toward you but the way you are selling out your own is just contemptible.
I thought she would lash back, but she didn’t. She surprised me with this disarming and poignant response:
i really value getting to learn from your point of view and appreciate that you took the time to understand mine too. i hope that you do maintain our small connection, but also hear you if seeing what I'm saying isn't what your soul needs.
and you are right that I probably haven't mourned on Facebook for the people who were killed and truly terribly hurt on October 7th. I'm sorry and i'll do that now and here. baruch dayan emet & may their memories be for a blessing. may all learn what it will really take to make sure we break this devastating cycle
And so our Facebook connection survives to fight another day, literally.
Fam, a whole lot of young adults think like this. Most of them aren’t evil. They don’t have perspective. They themselves are being gaslit. It’s tough to hold onto patience, goodwill, and love. I’m not always great at that but I try very hard.
Every moment we can keep from severing the connection between ourselves and other misguided Jews (which isn’t always possible, I fully understand), and every moment we can allow our deeper familial feeling to prevail over our hot, hurt, clashing perspectives: all these moments, like the tzedakah that can’t fully “fix” anything: I have to believe they matter; I have to believe they have inherent worth.
I’ll be back with you on Friday. I truly love you all. We will overcome. And we will continue to find ways, big and small, to remain a family.
Am Yisrael Chai.
You are so right. It's hard to be mad at this young adult generation who has been wildly led astray by the lies, distortions, and outright propaganda on social media. They have no idea that they are being brainwashed, and we need to be more vocal about the TRUTH. We can't give up on them, for they truly are the future.
I wish your articles could be in every college newspaper!
First, your fundraising on behalf of your friend is so important. Bikur cholin is a profoundly important Jewish value that most American Jews seem to ignore. Most Americans, really. And as someone with a chronic illness, and chronic pain, who is mostly homebound and sometimes bedbound, I can attest to the fact that it’s no small thing. Knowing you’re not invisible, knowing someone else remembers you while you’re still here, is more meaningful than anything else. I’m incredibly blessed because I have more than sufficient resources now to get whatever I need that helps me feel a little better and get through the days and nights. Sometimes that’s a new pair of super soft socks. Sometimes it’s a new, different pillow. (I have quite a collection of pillows.) Frequently it’s a new audiobook that helps me go somewhere else for awhile. I can afford all these easily now, but there were times in life when I couldn’t. Everyone deserves to be comforted, loved, and acknowledged, especially when they are sick and vulnerable. Thank you for seeing your friend, for doing something, and for giving me the opportunity to do this mitzvah as well.
As for young people, this is what happens when a society decides that civics and history, including Holocaust education, are too much trouble to bother with. When a society worships youth and individualism and being entertained above all else, its children don’t grow up. They remain infantilized, puers and puellae, Peter Pans and Eternal (Mean) Girls in the Never Never Land of their own inflated egos. And the more they are indulged, coddled, and protected from anything that might result in emotional or intellectual discomfort, the more closed and inflexible they become. They cannot be taught because they do not want to learn. They can only be indoctrinated.
In a group, they regress to a kind of evil toddlerhood, with all the tantrums, demands, meltdowns, rages, lies, cruelty and deflections that characterize the age group at its worst. And without either consequences or expectations…
Well, the administrator of the University of Florida understood this when he said that they aren’t running a daycare.
So do all the Republicans in Congress who have resigned in frustration and disgust with their own party.
Sadly, too many Democrats are regressing now because of peer pressure, the need to be liked, and progressive rigidity around Israel. Double entendres intended.
I’m glad you responded as you did to your young friend. And I can’t help but notice what being on the receiving end of a respected grown-up’s severe disappointment and disapprobation did. Perhaps she will want to learn more, including how to cope with multiple complicated truths and tragedies.
Thanks again for all you do. And all your beautiful writing.