I’ve treated scores of terror victims, traumatised soldiers and bereaved families, since I moved to Jerusalem as a psychologist in 1986. I thought I’d seen it all. Nine friends and neighbours murdered by suicide bombers, drive-by shootings, and stabbings; and a child, the son of a dear friend, bludgeoned to death. But this year has been the most painful in memory.
I don’t say this lightly: Israelis, in their seventies like me, have been through the food rations and the Sinai battles of the Fifties; the Six Day War in the Sixties; the near fatal Yom Kippur War of the Seventies; the Lebanon War and the First Intifada of the Eighties; the bus bombings and the Rabin assassination of the Nineties; the Millennium decade of suicide bombings and the second Lebanon War; and the second decade’s rise of Hamas and Hezbollah with their terrifying rocket barrages. It was more of the same in the third decade until the same morphed into the unimaginable on October 7.
A pogrom on our land, the lone sanctuary for an ancient people. And thus the painful cycle of Jewish history returned and our illusion of security was shattered. But Israel will survive. Not merely because we have a powerful military, a system that rewards innovation and creativity, a highly adaptable citizenry, or a deeply interconnected populace that can act like a dysfunctional family at nine in the morning and a band of brothers by noon. We have something else in addition.
Necessity has taught us to be the masters of uncertainty. Our Jewish faith has inscribed not knowing into our collective unconscious. We’ve made a religion out of it.
Today and tomorrow we’ll recite these well-known, solemn verses from the Rosh Hashanah liturgy:
Who shall live and who shall die,
Who by water and who by fire,
Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued…
And who will maintain the mundane when you don’t know what will be next?
Yes, who maintains the mundane when you don’t know what will be next? My son and three sons-in-law are in the army, so their wives defend the home front. In a time of insanity, they are the sacred guardians of The Routine. The kids make it to school on time in clean clothes. At the end of the day, the toys and games return to their bins and boxes. Meals materialise at the appropriate times and the homes appear remarkably suburban. When the sirens screech, they hurry the children into the bomb shelters. Bags of treats greet them in their protected rooms.
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SubscribeDespite the existence of some vocal minorities, there are a great many of us who support you.
It is literally good vs evil.
This is a very powerful statement. Israel will survive.
I am all for a Jewish state. The Jews have never tried to kill us or take over our culture unlike Muslims.
Ha ha ha.
We support you here in this house.
Love and prayers.
Am Yisroel Chaii!
Israel will survive. Appalled by the level of anti-semitism that has been whipped up and encouraged by both Left and Right. I will continue to support Israel come what may.
Oh please. Hating the ideology of Jewish supremacism is not the same thing as hating Jews.
Plenty of Jews are not Zionists. I’m one of them.
So you feel guilty for being smarter than most. You’re a Jew get over it.
Not just powerful, but very well-written.
Only those with an agenda (yes, we can see you a mile off) will quibble, or worse.
Simple fact: stop attacking Israel, and you’ll be left in peace to live your lives. Keep on attacking, and you’ll be beaten. I don’t need the religious aspect (which i’m not part of) to recognise the indomitability of the human spirit that shines through this article.
Not merely because you have a powerful military, a system that rewards innovation and creativity, a highly adaptable citizenry, or a deeply interconnected populace that can act like a dysfunctional family at nine in the morning and a band of brothers by noon. Yes, you have something else in addition.
$3.8 billion per year from the US Treasury.
Stop. Voting. Likud. Please.
It’s not just Likud, unfortunately