This piece is one of an ongoing series that we are sharing 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.
I will begin by geographically and temporally contextualizing my words: I am writing from my home in Jerusalem. I am going tomorrow to a shiva for a family of six souls, three of whom were less than five years old, murdered at their home on October 7. Their farewell ceremony was one of the most devastating moments for me as a human being. It is quite late at night, but I cannot sleep. Planes are storming above my home; every sound startles me. For over two weeks, Hamas has been bombing Israel (which I think is often overlooked, as we have shelters and an Iron Dome). My thoughts are with the innocents in Gaza. I tend to think that my suffering is nothing in comparison to theirs. I just read that more trucks of humanitarian aid supplies were allowed to enter the heavily bombed Gaza. Over 200 citizens of Israel — women my age and younger, men, children, seniors — are still held captive by the same people who invaded Israeli homes, who killed the family I mentioned above. The images from their funeral — six black coffins laying in a row, the mourning friends and family — refuse to leave my heart and mind. Just like most of my friends and family members, I spend the days trying to find hope, volunteering, reaching out. Universities, schools, and many workplaces are closed, so we have to fill our days with other things that will prevent the constant thoughts, panic, and disturbing concern that this war will escalate into something much bigger than we can even predict or imagine. A war that could potentially put an end to our lives or damage them irreversibly. Our future, in Israel or elsewhere, is utterly uncertain.
First and foremost, I want to stress that all Israelis have a family member, a friend, or a friend of a friend who was hurt, killed, or kidnapped in the events of October 7. Israel is that tiny. Victims of the massacre of October 7 are still not buried as I write this on October 23. Dozens are still missing. Bodies are not yet identified (by now it seems that some were burnt or tortured to a point that they cannot be recognized). To this, I send an invaluable message to our communities: write to your Israeli and Palestinian friends if you haven’t done so already, and do it again if you did. Reach out to them, ask how they are, try to see if there is a way to support them. They (we) are undergoing the biggest collective crisis of their lives. The people who tend to pay the price are usually very far from being the ones who determine the policy, the attacks, or their limitations. Many Israelis who endured the massacre are peace activists themselves. Many of them, just like myself, oppose the Israeli government and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian population. And so, in the call for peace, I think it cannot be overemphasized that behind the narratives, the labels people put on this war, the symbols they retain from it, and the numbers – there are people. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouins, Israelis, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and the list goes on. Many members of the plentiful ethnic and social groups are doing their best to address and overcome this disaster together. Please, reach out to them! Set aside your own thoughts, ideas, and opinions about what is happening and embrace simple humanism.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has produced many symbols. See for instance the complex reflection of Naomi Klein:
Harder for us adults is the fact that, in their desire to celebrate the powerful symbolism of Palestinians escaping the open air prison that is Gaza — which occupied people have every right to do — some of our supposed comrades on the left continue to minimize massacres of Israeli civilians.
The world we live in is a world of symbols. These vehicles of meaning are often misplaced to represent something entirely different than what generated them in the first place. Barthes and many others pointed out quite a long time ago that symbols are ultimately dangerous. The foreign gaze on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a culmination point, with left-wing movements unable or unwilling to condemn the massacre of the Southern civilians of Israel because it is “lacking context.” This leads us to a colossal breaking point of humanist and left-wing values in Israel and exterior to it. I think the responsibility of the global community, if such still exists, steps in here.
It steps in because seeking peace must not pass through the populist, toxic, and dangerous discourse that we are witnessing in social media today. Many people took upon themselves to be the ambassadors of what they see as justice, uploading twisted infographics, or creating a shameful mixture of facts, disinformation, biased stories, anecdotes, and popular ideas, calling it “a short history that we all know about Israel and Palestine.” One cannot be overeducated on these matters, and the sorting out of unbiased materials is by no means an easy task. This era that we are living in surely shows us that despite the great access to knowledge, self-education is poorly achieved. I get the sense that learning, nuance, and history are replaced by the fabrication of solid opinions and convenient black-and-white stories. The results are disseminating dangerously, and along the way they grow to encompass more hate, more denial, and even more violence. Do not be tempted to criticize because you “know it all” and “understand”; do not overlook your own foreign gaze, which reproduces out of this conflict symbols such as “freedom,” “oppressors,” “colonialism,” and so on. The conflict is complicated, the foreign gaze should be simple: oppose war, support life, condemn the death of civilians of any side. Be cautious, particularly at these times when words are weapons, because it results in more polarization. A true call for peace is not a judging one. Rather, it is a helpful hand reaching out to the people who need it — recalling and emphasizing love, care, light, and faith in these times of darkness.
The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author, based on their observations and experiences.
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Yael Leokumovich is a writer, essayist, and translator. Her works have been published in Hebrew-speaking magazines, including Granta and HaMusach. In 2023, she was awarded the Hershon Prize for Fine Literature. Yael Leokumovich is currently a PhD student at the Hebrew University, affiliated with the Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Her dissertation is dedicated to researching meaning and conception in Cuneiform literature through the depiction of the Mesopotamian Marshes.