This piece is one of an ongo­ing series that we will be shar­ing in the com­ing days from Israeli authors and authors in Israel.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, JBI is record­ing writ­ers’ first-hand accounts, as shared with and pub­lished by JBC, to increase the acces­si­bil­i­ty of these accounts for indi­vid­u­als who are blind, have low vision or are print disabled. 

I am suf­fer­ing, enraged, and hope­ful. Thun­der­ous noise fills the sky over­head at this moment. It is from Israeli Air Force jets. I sit on my bal­cony over­look­ing the Mediter­ranean and try to decide. Are they fly­ing north? Lebanon and Syr­ia are just a few miles in that direc­tion. Or south, towards Gaza? Hard to deter­mine the direc­tion of sound. 

How am I suf­fer­ing? I am sit­ting in rel­a­tive safe­ty. I have a safe room with strong con­crete walls, a con­crete win­dow shut­ter, and a steel safe­ty door. My chil­dren are too old to be con­script­ed. My grand­chil­dren are main­ly too young. But I am suf­fer­ing along­side every­one else who is mourn­ing, out­raged, and ter­ri­fied by this unprece­dent­ed breach of our secu­ri­ty. I am in pain because the cru­el­ty of our ene­mies has brought home an incon­ve­nient truth. Nev­er again has turned into yet again.

Why am I enraged? 

I am enraged at the dou­ble stan­dards of the world’s seem­ing­ly respect­ed media out­lets who demand ver­i­fi­ca­tion of our claims — that we should need to parade our behead­ed babies and defiled bod­ies around — and who simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pub­lish false head­lines about an ​“Israeli strike on a Gazan hos­pi­tal. Hun­dreds of dead.” Let’s take the word of Hamas and not ask for ver­i­fi­ca­tion. And once the lie is exposed and the media back-ped­dles? The dam­age to Israel’s cred­i­bil­i­ty is done.

I am enraged at the demon­stra­tions in Lon­don, New York, and oth­er cities around the world with crowds chant­i­ng ​“gas the Jews.” How is this pos­si­ble? How is this allowed? Today, eighty years after my grand­par­ents and so many oth­er mem­bers of my wider fam­i­ly were gassed dur­ing the Holo­caust because they were Jews. Shameful. 

I am enraged because every Israeli cit­i­zen must now live in fear of this war which will claim more lives. Beau­ti­ful young, brave lives. Again. A gen­er­a­tion who must fight for our col­lec­tive sur­vival. Again.

I am enraged because our babies must sti­fle their cries of fear as they hear sirens wail­ing and explo­sions over­head – even if they are the pro­tec­tive explo­sions of Iron Dome inter­cep­tors blow­ing up incom­ing rock­ets. Are these young­sters doomed to be the next gen­er­a­tion of reluc­tant heroes?

I am enraged because my fel­low Jews around the world are fac­ing a mas­sive uptick in anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents and attacks. Sick­en­ing. Unacceptable.

And yet, I am hope­ful. Why? I believe with per­fect faith that we will over­come this new cri­sis in our his­to­ry as we have over­come every oth­er. Yes, the cost is hor­ren­dous, but we will sur­vive and thrive again. It was ever thus. It says in the Passover Hag­gadah ​“In every gen­er­a­tion they arise to destroy us, but God saves us from their hands.” 

I am hope­ful because today, as we can only stand in line to donate rather than spill our blood, I see the uni­ty and resolve of our peo­ple. Young and old. Those from across the polit­i­cal and reli­gious spec­trum. Unit­ed. As we must be and must remain after this war is over. May He who makes peace on high, bring peace for us here down on earth.

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

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