What Then Must We Do?

Yom shishi, 25 Sivan 5776.

Sigh. I love Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) with all my heart. But I hate summer in Israel. And it's never Israel's fault that I hate summer in Israel. It's because the child-eating monsters come out in the summer, more than at any time.

For those somehow not in the know, a little 13-year-old Jewish girl named Hallel Ariel who just graduated 8th grade was murdered in her bed, stabbed repeatedly by a 17-year-old Muslim boy who somehow infiltrated her Kiryat Arba home, near the holy Jewish city of Hebron. Fueled no doubt by the need to fix some broken thing in his relationship with his parents -- I have heard that a lot of these kids take their lives this way because they are losers with no other way to make themselves important -- this evil child was subsequently praised and glorified by his people and his people's leadership. Voices of protest in the Muslim community globally are hard to find. And as usual, the murderer's dear mommy sees him as a hero of the resistance, and hopes that more children of her people will die stabbing little Jewish girls to death simply for being Jewish and living in the neighborhood without her approval.

"What then must we do?" Is there a rational, effective protest we can make as a body, one person with one heart? We cannot go around murdering people, killing mothers and grandparents and children, non-combatants. We cannot deify our children for murdering other people's children in their beds. We cannot become like our enemies. Whether you believe in living by God's laws or are simply a moral person, you cannot accept this.

Yes, people say all kinds of things in bouts of impotent rage -- but surely they must know that they cease to be moral beings if they act upon such rage. Apart from the crazy among us, I am sure that this is true of nearly all Jews, of nearly all Jewish Israelis. While we want murderers and even potential murderers to be punished, we do not believe in randomly going after the enemy's civilians.

When horrible Jewish children murdered an Arab boy, we protested loudly, and called for their punishment; and they were punished, not honored. No streets were named for them, to the best of my knowledge, no soccer fields. I happily cannot remember their names, nor would I wish to. Yet the world at large turns a blind eye to Muslim murderers of children being honored posthumously by their people.

Besides continuing to live proudly in our land, without apology, how do we fight this terrible war? I am not speaking of the government. I have little to no power over the government. I vote, always, for candidates who put the safety of Israeli citizens first. They do not become Prime Minister. They are considered "too radical," because they are not interested in capitulation for the sake of currying favor with the West. While they do not espouse murdering civilians in their beds, they do believe in standing our ground and protecting Israeli civilians. This seems to be too radical for those who would sell our souls and our lives for empty promises of peace...

What's the plan for a protest, people? Do we build tent cities like young people did over the price of housing and cottage cheese?

Do we stand like John Hersey's White Lotus on one leg, a great mass of us, refusing to move, refusing to work, until our leaders protect us?

Do we march on Jerusalem? In my memory, marches since Selma never garnered the necessary support to change much of anything.

And against whom do we mount our protest? Against the Israeli government, so used to obeisance to the West, it is gridlocked? Against the world that pretends friendship while aiding and abetting those who would destroy us? Against God Himself? How many times in the few years that I have lived in Israel have we filled the Kotel Plaza with crying, praying, beseeching souls, to no apparent avail? How many random acts of kindness do we need to catalog on High for our babies to stop being murdered in their beds?

I look forward to hearing of a leader emerging -- may he or she be the Mashiach, as we cannot bear much more of this, and retain our kedusha! -- a leader who will teach us how to join together in an effective form of protest against a world that will not be happy until we all die.

May we do finally whatever is required of us -- and I assume as I always have, this largely means working together as a family, forgetting our differences, speaking with respect to and with each other, even when we disagree. May Hashem finally be satisfied with our pleas.

Ad matai, Hashem? What do You want from us?

When Will We Have Made Enough Concessions to Appease Our Supporters?

Yom rishon, 17 Sivan 5774.

Last Thursday night, three yeshiva boys were kidnapped.

Without the swearing and vitriol that this topic usually seems to arouse, I would like to hear a reasoned discussion on the possible scenarios.

There are (at least) two different opinions among those who claim to support Israel.

On one side of the discussion are those who, for religious or nationalistic reasons, believe that Jews are entitled to land beyond the so-called Green Line, that we have a right to populate and rule over the region called variously the West Bank, Yehuda and Shomron, or Judea and Samaria. On the other side of the discussion are those who, for reasons of the pursuit of human rights or merely for peace and quiet, believe that Jews have no business occupying the land beyond the Green Line, that this land rightfully belongs to the Palestinians. For the sake of this discussion, I won't present all of the arguments of each side, about which much has been written extensively already.

In 2005, the Israeli government attempted the experiment of removing Jews from Gaza. For years, no Jews were there (except for Gilad Shalit). It is true that Gaza was not left unmolested -- but only as a response to attacks on Israel emanating from Gaza. This did not bring an increase in peace. Those on one side of the argument saw this as proof that moving Jews out of the area was a mistake, only allowing for another (and nearer) launching pad for terrorism. Those on the other side believe that it was not enough, and that the terrorism will stop when Israel withdraws from all of the land the Palestinians claim.

For the sake of this discussion, I won't deal with the chimera of settlement construction, as it is only a stepping stone. Why does settlement construction matter? As has been proved many times, it is not about building new settlements in areas currently occupied by Palestinians. In most if not all cases, the construction is happening in existing Israeli communities. Settlement construction is offensive to one side of the argument because it indicates that Israelis are planning to stay on land the other side covets. So let's cut to the chase.

If I and my neighbors in Judea and Samaria left our homes and moved into other parts of Israel, would the attacks stop? If they did, if there were peace, I guess we would have to concede that the other side of the argument was correct -- that at least for the purposes of peaceful coexistence, moving out of these areas and leaving them to the Palestinians was the necessary approach. But if peace didn't ensue -- if instead attacks now moved into Haifa and Tel Aviv and other areas that (so far) many of Israel's supporters (within Israel and without) believe Israelis are entitled to inhabit -- would the other side begin to believe that perhaps the Arabs do not want peace at all, but merely an absence of Israelis, and specifically Jews?

Or would that side merely suggest that it is fine and understandable for the Arabs to still be attacking, because Israel waited too long to pull out, or because Israel isn't doing enough to support the new Palestinian state surrounding her, or because the Arabs have a legitimate right to further chunks of Israel?

When will it finally be enough? Is there any way to prove to those on the other side of the argument, to our friends outside of Israel and inside her (accepted) borders, that Hamas and Fatah and Hizbollah and indeed the Palestinian and greater Arab world have no intention of making peace with even a sliver of Israel?

Please pray for the safe and speedy return to their families the following young men: Eyal ben Iris Teshura (age 19); Gilad Michael ben Bat Galim (age 16); Yaacov Naftali ben Rachel (age 16, and a US citizen).

איל בן איריס תשורה
גילעד מיכאל בן בת גלים
יעקב נפתלי בן רחל דבורה

Not everybody's crazy.

Yom shlishi, 6 Kislev 5773.

Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today. ~ David Bogner, 2006

I haven't been writing here a lot lately.  Not because we are busy cowering in bomb shelters, thank G-d, but because I have been busy planning a wedding.  Life goes on, quite joyfully, except when I worry anxiously about my friends living in direct line of missile fire from Gaza, and about my dear sons, ready and waiting for orders to defend our country.

Okay -- I've also been busy on Facebook, somewhat less on Twitter, doing my part in the hasbara (public diplomacy vs. propaganda) war effort.  As you surely know, the modern battle ground isn't just fought with planes and boots in the mud, nor only with prayer.  These days, we fight on three fronts: the physical, the spiritual, and the technological.  The war of ideas is very active.  He who makes the most succinct and persuasive Facebook poster wins.

I know it seems very trite.  It does to me, too.  But I am reminded that in generations past, columnists in newspapers and writers of magazine articles went head-to-head on the meaning of any given war, and of who had a greater justification to fight for his version of what was right.

Today, you don't have to go to journalism school to have your say.  Quite frankly, I think it's better if you don't.  The once-honored field of journalism has been totally trashed by too many agenda-driven pundits.

Most recently, my efforts in telling Israel's side in this propaganda war have been fueled by two of my lovely nieces.  Both non-Jews, they had very different upbringings.  One was raised with the liberal values of loving one's fellow man, of getting along in peace and harmony on a global scale.  One was raised with the Christian values of love tempered with responsibility, of family and country first.  Both were raised with permission and encouragement to question.  So they've been asking "Auntie" a lot of those lately, since I am their eyes and ears on the ground in this tiny but overly-reported and disproportionately-vilified country.

Amanda has just been asking for perspective.  She lacks trust in the media, and just wants enough information to make up her own mind.  She craves different points of view.  I sent her to various sites, trusting in my respect for her innate wisdom that she will see and read what she needs to make informed decisions.  Though sometimes, I thought she would appreciate the beauty of simple, graphic images.

As her insightful questions and comments were made to me in private message, I won't repost them here.

Kirsten participated in a long thread of discussion over a video of a CNN interview with Israel's government spokesman, Mark Regev.


Kirsten's response to the obviously anti-Israel agenda in this video was so normal and healthy, it reminded me that the world is going insane, and that I am grateful that there are people here and there -- some of them, my relatives -- who still think sanely and clearly.

Kirsten: I really don't understand why there is such a huge bias in the media against Israel taking military action. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Are people truly so uninformed?

 Me: Kirsten, you hit THE question. We don't understand it, either. In the face of logic, in the face of threats they surely would not countenance if their own countries were under constant terrorist attack -- they have insisted for years that Israel "show restraint."

 Kirsten: Daniel and I were discussing this earlier today while waiting to pick up Emily. It's like the trashy group of "mean girls" on the playground all picking on the book nerd, her getting pissed and punching one in the mouth, then getting expelled from school. I know it's an awful metaphor, but it's just so completely ridiculous.

I responded by sharing with her the now-famous Treppenwitz post with a similar and very frightening analogy, "A difficult lesson," from 2006.  The sad truth is that Israel, pressured by world media and governments, still hasn't absorbed the lesson my young nieces seem to "get" with little effort.  It doesn't give me much hope for the current situation -- but it increases my confidence in the next generation.

May Hashem grant our leaders the wisdom and strength to finally, finally put the welfare of our citizens over the delicate sensibilities of pundits and politicians living far away from our terrifying situation.  May Hashem bless us with peace and victory over terrorism, in all its forms.  May our brave soldiers live to be very old men and women, with fascinating stories to tell their great-grandchildren.

"What is the Jew?"

Yom shlishi, 27 Tamuz 5772.

The hot summer, involvement in hasbara (Israeli public diplomacy), and simple contentment with life, have kept me from writing much lately.  Fortunately, the hot summer seems to inspire Yeshiva Bochur, aka Exiled Warrior, to write about his experiences in the IDF.  Here is an especially sweet post.  If you enjoy this piece, you may want to peruse some of his other recent writing at his blog.


We all looked up surprised when a bus full of young children pulled into our base on the Israel-Lebanon border. We were working on our equipment as they poured off the bus with huge smiles and eyes filled with wonderment. A smile soon crossed every tired soldier’s face as the kids ran around firing questions faster than some of the machine guns that were present.

It soon became understood that the children were those who had lost family members in war and or terror attacks. The sergeant called for a break from work and gathered everyone into one big room.

Usually this particular room is used for briefings before patrols on the border, but today it became filled with soldiers and children, or more appropriately, younger siblings and older brothers.

The kids donned with pride the red berets of the soldiers, and listened intently as they explained about the different types of guns and equipment.

All the kids had prepared letters which they handed out to the soldiers.

Mine was written by two young girls named Talia and Mashi. This is what they wrote:

Dear Soldier,

Shalom, our names are Talia and Mashi. We are campers in the summer camp "Mishpacha Echat." A camp for people whose families have been effected from war or terror. 

Both of our families have all been effected from terror. 

I (Talia), my older brothers, Lidor and Oriah, were killed on a bus in Jerusalem on a way to a family event. My father was injured slightly from the attack and my mother was not injured. My uncle, his wife and two kids were also killed in the attack. 

It is hard for me to be without my older brothers. 

I (Mashi), my father was killed in a shooting in the North. He was already let off his work before because of an injury from another terror attack. After the first attack he became a driver. He was taking people to work when he was killed. 

My father was killed when I was a year and two months. To be without a father is very hard. 

Thank you for guarding us, look out for yourselves.

We love you.


Talia and Mashi

These are the heroes I had the pleasure to be around today. This amazing camp, "Mishpacha Echat" brings these children here and they strengthen us and we strengthen them. The nation is strengthened. "The Nation builds the army, the army builds the Nation." That is the army's mantra.

Mark Twain, after studying the "The Jew," became perplexed and remarked: "All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

Our enemies have tried to destroy us time and again. They believe that they, like a mighty wave, will be able to extinguish the Jewish flame. But they, like all their predecessors, sink back into the sea, forgotten. The Jew however, is still standing. You have killed my older brothers, my father, my uncle, my nieces and nephews. But you have killed only their bodies. Their souls are eternal, we are eternal.

I am so proud of my Nation. When I see those bright-eyed kids that the enemy tried to destroy, wearing paratroopers’ red berets, I am reassured that we will never be defeated. We stand together, as One Family -- as a " Mishpacha Echat."

That Mr. Twain -- that is our secret.

A time to mourn, and a time to dance

Yom sheni, 13 Elul 5771.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh.  A time to mourn, and a time to dance.

I had finally accepted the inevitable.  We had made the decision to refinance our home mortgage.  I don't want to overstate it: but for me, that decision had behind it the ever-so-distant clang of the cell door closing.  It meant we weren't going anywhere, that we were staying in our lives in America.  But I was accepting it.  The clang was there, but it was far away.  I could do this.

After all, we lived in one of the finest Jewish communities in America.  We had wonderful neighbors, a loving congregation, friendships we had built over sixteen years.  We had jobs; we knew the language.  We knew what to expect day to day.  We were planning our life and aging and death in the land of our birth.

The lady at the mortgage office was very sweet.  She had explained everything to me, to us, very clearly.  I hung up the phone to discuss the details with the Dearly Beloved.

We had only shared a few tentative words on the subject when the phone rang again.  I assumed it was the mortgage company lady with some new detail.

It was the voice of my dear Rebbetzin Bracha, who was also my neighbor.  "A plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center," she said, softly and terrifyingly.

I know she said a few other words, though the shock of that few moments keeps me from remembering what they were.  I think I responded with my usual genius "Okay." (This is my favored insightful response in times of crisis.  I had used exactly this remark when my husband had gotten off the phone with the US Army captain who had informed him that American troops were entering Iraq.  The Gulf War had begun...  and that announcement unleashed all the coiled fear of anticipated poison gas attacks against Israel.)

I turned on the radio at the same time the announcer was incredulously sharing news that the second plane had just hit the World Trade Center.  It felt like War of the Worlds -- except that this was no hoax.  The next two weeks were out of a novel or a movie or a dream.  The tectonic plates of our American lives shifted.

They never again returned to the same place.

We never called the mortgage company lady back.  (When things resembled sanity again, we joked that the reason was that hugely bad things seem to happen when we talk with mortgage companies...)  We hadn't expressed it at the time, but one of the excuses for staying in America had been the taken-for-granted safety of our sons.  In Israel, it was a given that they would put on uniforms, that they might have to fight for their and our survival.  But in America...  Well, there were no guarantees anymore, were there?

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At about 4:30 PM yesterday, the Dearly Beloved and I left our apartment in Neve Daniel to catch a bus to Jerusalem.  It occurred to me as we walked that it was 9:30 AM in Baltimore on September 11, 2011.  I started to think of what had been happening that morning, ten years ago... and how much our lives had changed as a result.

We were on our way to a wedding.  We were privileged to attend the wedding of the daughter of Laura Ben-David, a woman who had been very instrumental in our aliyah to Israel nearly four years earlier.

Sports Guy was on his way to Jerusalem as well.  His destination was Kraft Stadium, where he and his fellow Israel National Flag Football team members would gather before going to watch on someone's over-sized TV screen his beloved Baltimore Ravens against their arch-rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Yeshiva Bochur and Stunt Man were in training with the IDF, becoming the guys who help to keep Israel safe.

Soldier Boy, now retired from the IDF, was in Baltimore with his wife and children, planning to introduce his wife to a concert of our favorite family band, Gaelic Storm.

Later, as we moved among our Neve Daniel neighbors in the wedding hall, we felt that old familiar feeling of being with a huge group of family members.  Only now we were celebrating the building of a brand-new bayit ne'eman in Israel, with our Israeli branch of the family, instead of with our dear Baltimore mishpacha.

In other words, the terrorists lost.  We as Jews, as Americans, and as Israelis, have much life still in us, and much to celebrate.

Wedding photos by Lisa Sturman Melamed

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"A time to weep, and a time to laugh.  A time to mourn, and a time to dance." 

Mazal tov, Shyra and Gidon!  Mazal tov to all good and decent life-loving people.  May there be no more weeping, no more mourning, and much dancing.

Glossary:

Aliyah: Jewish immigration to Israel

Bayit Ne'eman:  lit. faithful home, this refers to the building of a new marriage, a new microcosm of the greater Jewish family and inherent mission

Mishpacha: family