Reflections on Israel and Gaza after October 7th
When the attack by Hamas occurred on October 7th, I was leading a service for the festival of Simchat Torah, the Rejoicing in the Torah, a particularly joyful day in the Jewish calendar. I had heard there was an attack, and mentioned in the service that we were thinking of those who had been killed, but we had no idea of the full extent or horror of the events of that day.
Details emerged over the following days, and then Israel began its attack on Gaza and our television screens were dominated by pictures of the terrible suffering there. Like many of my colleagues and friends, I found myself close to tears for weeks. My emotions were a mixture of anger, sadness, confusion and grief.
Unlike my colleagues, I did not have a congregation as I had recently retired. Initially, this came as a relief because I did not have the burden of leading a congregation and addressing what had happened in preaching and prayer. But I also began to realise how much I missed being with my congregation. I knew that, alongside the mourning, there would diverse opinions at my Synagogue, particularly about the Israeli response, but I also knew that everyone would feel the same welter of confusing emotions.
At the same time, I was speaking to friends and family in Israel. I soon discovered that everyone, it seemed, knew someone who had been murdered or kidnapped. My own daughter knew someone whose brother, a peace activist, was amongst those killed. His sister had spoken powerfully at his funeral about the need for peace. However, although most of my friends and family were on the left and also favoured peace, they were adamant at that early time that Hamas needed to be dealt with. The shock was too great for rational thinking and I deeply respected their feelings at a time when the whole of Israeli society was experiencing trauma.
At the same time, I was in touch with Muslims and their shock at what was happening in Gaza was equally palpable. Dialogue felt difficult. It was not that either Jews or Muslims did not feel grief at the loss of all lives, but the rights and wrongs of Israel’s actions were much harder to disentangle. When we held a face to face meeting, we were at least able to listen to each other, recognise our grief and hug each other.
After the initial shock, the questions began to emerge. In December, I went to a talk by an Israeli woman. She talked about how Israelis were experiencing a loss of faith: in God, in people, in their leaders and in the army, which they had relied on to defend them. The age-old question ‘Where was God?’ recurred. It was asked after the Holocaust and has been asked after every tragedy. We can suggest answers, but each time a tragedy occurs, the question comes back and the answers seem inadequate.
For me, the answer lies in God’s presence, expressed in Jewish mystical thought as the Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The Shechinah, our tradition teaches, accompanied the Jewish people into exile. I believe it continues to accompany those who suffer, to give strength to those who are bereaved and courage to those who continue to hope and refuse to give in to despair.
However, as the full extent of the brutality of the October 7th emerged, the rapes, mutilation and torture, a more difficult question for me became ‘Why are human beings capable of such brutality?’ This is not only a question of how those who perpetrated the attack behaved but part of a wider question about humanity, which has sadly committed acts of unbelievable cruelty and savagery throughout history. How can human beings, who, Judaism teachers, are created in the Divine image, treat other human beings in such a way? To that question, I have no answer.
There is some comfort, though, in the way that many people responded. They reached out to those in need; the bereaved in need of comfort; the traumatised women who had been raped; the orphaned children; the displaced; those who waited and continue to wait for news of hostages. There was the courage of those who continued to speak of peace, of the need to look beyond the right of Israel to defend herself to how to prevent the conflict recurring time and again. There was the coming together of Israelis and Palestinians in Israel to volunteer together. And there was the inspiration of so many of those who had been murdered, like Hayim Katzman, who had protected Palestinian shepherds in the Hebron Hills, and Vivian Silver, who co-founded Women Wage Peace.
However, this led to another question: Many of those who were killed had spent their lives working for peace, reaching out to Palestinians and exemplifying the best that Judaism teaches. Why were so many of them secular Jews who had no religious faith? At the same time, there have been those who spoke in the name of God, both in Hamas and amongst the Israeli right, to sow division and hatred. What does that say about how we understand God and what God asks of us? How can we learn to listen more carefully, to others, to the voice of God within us, to lead us from conflict to understanding and from hatred to love?
I continue to puzzle over the rights and wrongs of Israel’s actions. Judaism is not a pacifist religion (nor are Christianity or Islam, for the most part). Nations do have a right to defend themselves. Israel had a right under international law and a moral responsibility to defend itself in the wake of the October 7th attack. But at the same time, Judaism also teaches us to seek peace and pursue it. Every life is of value, and, as the great rabbi Rava taught in the Talmud: ‘Who is to say that your blood is redder than his?’ – that is to say, we cannot say one life is more valuable than another. How do we balance the right to self-defence in order to preserve lives from attack with the need to preserve other lives? Is there a point where legitimate defence crosses a line and becomes an unwarranted aggression? As the conflict progresses this question becomes ever more pressing. I know we must keep asking the question and also that we must keep seeking roads to peace, knowing that reaching an agreement is the only way ultimately to stop the cycle of bloodshed.
Perhaps my final question is the most important, though. Appropriately in terms of ‘practical theology,’ it is a practical question: What can and should we do? I would suggest three things, inspired by our guide on an interfaith tour of Israel and Palestine a few years ago, Ophir Yarden.
- Rather than ‘taking sides’, Israeli or Palestinian, as if it were a football match, we should try to understand both sides. Both Israelis and Palestinians have experienced trauma, not only from October 7th but over more than 70 years. It is painful listening to the hurt and trauma but we will never understand the conflict if we do not try.
- We can take sides with the peace-makers and bridge-builders. Against the odds and in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, organisations such as Solutions not Sides and the Parents Circle-Family Forum are trying to build links between Israelis and Palestinians, working at finding solutions and building a more hopeful future. They deserve our support.
- Most importantly, we must maintain and strengthen our relationships with others here in our own localities who hold different beliefs. That may be people of our own faith who hold different views or people of other faiths. Those relationships have been tested in recent days. However hard, we must recognise that our grief is a reflection of our humanity and reach out across divides to mourn together and to affirm our commitment to building a more peaceful world, beginning where we are, with our neighbours and friends.
As I move beyond my initial shock, the questions remain but I can also begin to act despite them, knowing that others share my desire to reach out across divides and support each other in our grief.
Author’s Note:
This article was written in February 2024. It reflects the time it was written and I might write a different article today. No doubt, I would write a different article again in three months time. I hope the reader will bear this in mind.
© Margaret Jacobi, 2024.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Cover Image: Created with DeepAI.
Rabbi Dr. Margaret Jacobi recently retired as the rabbi of Birmingham Progressive Synagogue, where she served since 1994. Before entering the rabbinate, she studied medicine and worked in medical research. She has been involved in interfaith work through the Birmingham Faith Leaders' Group, the Council of Christians and Jews and Nisa Nashim (Jewish and Muslim Women). She is Chair of Tzelem, a Jewish social justice organisation and has a particular interest in justice in Jewish teaching.
