Ideals — A Bridge Over an Abyss

A short while ago, I went on a visit to one of the villages in the Gaza Envelope, a visit that unsettled me to my very core: burned-down shells of houses; the smell of fires still lingering in the air, destruction all around; the sight of ruin against the background of explosions heard from some five kilometers away, where the fighting was still ongoing. Inside me, all these immediately became connected to the many phone calls and referrals that started pouring in on the evening of October 7^th, while I myself was unable to fathom, to digest, what was actually going on.

Ever since the morning of that Saturday, which many refer to as “the damned sabbath” or “the black sabbath,” a single image has been engraved in my mind: white pick-up trucks full of terrorists wearing black clothes and black masks, waving assault rifles in the air as they drive down the streets of the city of Sderot, as if they owned the place. Zealous, shouting, firing their guns. An image that has no representation in the Israeli mind. Israel is living a catastrophe. Israel means us; our home; our being—a state of being that is always in turmoil, that has known no rest since its very beginning. A country attacking and being attacked, a country persecuted and occupying, impetuous and rational, fearful and arrogant.

At the very same time catastrophe washed over us, our people were experiencing a deepening rift, a different kind of war—one fought over our country’s identity. Most of us were in the middle of fiercely resisting our government’s dictatorial takeover of its citizens. That’s how the morning of October 7^th found us.

Later that evening, I started getting calls from people who knew me—perhaps through my activity as an organizer during the days of opposing Israel’s judicial reform; they were asking for help for people they know, who have been hurt in the Gaza Envelope or at the music festival near Kibbutz Re’im. This fact is important as it attests to some kind of connection held in people’s mind