A Reflection for Yesterday

October 7th

Dear Reader,

Yesterday was October 7th, a date that will haunt Jews around the world for centuries to come. Maybe one day when the experience becomes a memory we will have a holiday based on it. Like on Passover, Hanukkah and Purim, we will tell the story of those who tried to eliminate us as a people and how we prevailed. There will be liturgy and prayers and poems passed from one generation to the next trying to make sense of it all. 

Last year on October 7th, I was at home settling into a self-proclaimed sabbatical. Exactly one week prior, I was at The Florida Holocaust Museum for the opening of my We Share The Same Sky exhibition. I stood amongst my grandmother’s belongings and for the first time shared publicly the physical archive that guided my adult life. I told her story of being raised as a secular Jew in Prague. My grandmother, Hana, grew up in the young and vibrant democracy of Czechoslovakia; it was a society that valued the dreamers and the artists as much as the academics and the engineers. 

We know how the story unfolds. Democracy ceased to exist once Hitler marched his army across Europe. My family would be stripped of their rights, bank accounts and businesses before being murdered in extermination camps. But my grandmother would survive. Because of her involvement with the Zionist Youth Movement, she was able to escape her home at the age of 14. She spent the rest of her life demanding herself to thrive. 

Her story colors the way I see the world. It’s the lens I have on Israel and today’s mischaracterization of the original concept of Zionism. It’s also my lens on America and my paralyzing fear that we, like Czechoslovakia, are about to lose our democracy, our identities and our lives.

I thought that the We Share The Same Sky exhibition would be the culmination of my work with my family history. I’ve spent my career consuming and retelling stories about the Holocaust and other genocides, and I needed a break. I was exhausted from the suffering and the horror. I wanted to spend time in my head elsewhere. But, October 7th happened—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. 

There was no sabbatical to be had after that. But I did pause my work so I could witness. I listened to myself and to others. In the aftermath of October 7th, the world was screaming in pain. It was screaming at me and for me. And both my social media algorithm and my consciousness was demanding me to look. One side was constantly lashing out at the other and many of us were lost in between. So many people were claiming their pedestal by diminishing the experience of the other. I saw narratives of the Holocaust be misused and misplaced by politicians, journalists, academics, and in the online war of words. It was clear that I couldn’t stop retelling my grandmother’s story now. For most of my life I’m the one who needed her story, but now her story needed me.

Many years ago, in 2017, I participated in a series for WBUR called Beyond Sides of History with Julie Lindahl, my friend and author of The Pendulum. Julie’s grandfather was an SS officer, a high-ranking Nazi, and my family was killed at the hands of his comrades. In that series, Julie says to me “Whenever I think of the portrayal of our peace project as two people from different sides of the Second World War–the Holocaust–I always object strongly because your family [was] not on a side of the war. They were simply victims of terrible terrible tragedy. But we are not on two sides.”

Julie’s acknowledgement of my family’s experience, and the way it lingers and manifests nearly a century later, is what allows us to work together. Allowing pain to exist and honoring its presence is the first step towards peace. I think about that lesson every time I read the news, whether it’s about matters in America or abroad. It applies to the dueling narratives coming out of the Middle East and the worsening political divides in this country I call home. I don’t ever want to be part of the “side” that deems security more important than morality and I don’t want anybody to be killed in my name. That is not my Judaism, nor is that my Americanness. 

Last night, I was reading a book titled “Why Judaism Matters” by Rabbi John Rosove. He’s the former Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood, a congregation that I’ve brought my grandmother’s story to on different occasions. The book is written as a collection of letters to his sons and is about the importance of reform Judaism (the sect in which I was raised). In a letter he titled, “Embracing Shades of Gray and Finding Peace in the World and at Home” he writes:

“Part of the problem is that most of us aren’t clear about what peace is. I think we can transform our understanding by taking a new tack and asking not “What is peace?” but rather “What’s the opposite of peace?” When I frame the question that way, most people say the opposite of peace is war, and that’s true. A more revealing answer, though, is that the opposite of peace is Truth, with a capital T.”

Truth is a commonly discussed value in philosophy and religion. Its nature is abstract, theoretical, and conceptual, pointing to an ideal and absolute state that doesn’t exist in real life. Capital-T Truth requires an unbending, no-nonsense approach to life and relationships. Truth creates dichotomies: either/or, black/white, right/wrong, good/evil. It’s exact and exacting, uncompromising, precise, rigid, and hard. There are no gray areas in Truth.

By contrast, peace is expansive and open, embracing and inclusive. It’s soft, down-to-earth, and complex. Peace results not from various parties pursuing their separate Truths but rather from accommodation, cooperation, concession, conciliation, and compromise. Peace needs shades of gray. It’s nuanced and never cut-and-dried.”

When I reflect on these ideas of Truth and peace, I think about the attention economy we are being raised in. Our stories are so often driven by sides. We know that loud and exclamatory Truths will get more reaction than soft words spoken in pursuit of peace. I believe deep in my heart that shifting how we tell our stories can save us, but it requires intention and collaboration. We cannot let the narratives we’ve inherited become rigid and set in stone.

I’m not naive. I understand that it can feel inappropriate or insulting to talk about words and stories when bombs are being dropped, guns are being fired and people are losing their homes and their lives. To sit on my couch and demand a kinder and more forgiving narrative can seem like turning a blind eye. But for so many of us, the only power we have is our vote and our voice. 

We are currently in the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This is the holiest time of year for us Jews, and the season of restarting the story. It took me well into my twenties to have my ‘aha’ moment about what connected me to my Jewish identity, and it’s the fact that we are a storytelling culture. We value rereading and reinterpreting our own pasts. We are taught to ask questions, including of ourselves. And I do hope that, in this period of reflection, we see that task not just as a practice but as a path towards peace. Because as time goes on, our stories change. And when our stories change, so do we.

In Friendship,

Rachael

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To go deeper, here are two episodes from the Along The Seam Podcast that welcome conversation about Israel and Palestine:

• Aziza Hasan is a Palestinian-American conflict transformation practitioner and the executive director of NewGround, a community-building organization based in Los Angeles that creates, connects and empowers Jewish and Muslim Change-makers in America. In this conversation about coexistence and how to navigate difficult conversations, she said “This verse in the Quran says that when there is enmity between you and another, do what is better so that they may become your dearest friend… I see that as an important guide and a guiding force in how to be with other people… you can have your eye for an eye. You can have your accountability if you want it. And to be forgiving is better.” 

• Barak Sella is an educator, activist, writer, researcher, and one of the leading Israeli experts on US-Israel relations and World Jewry. Earlier this year, we had a long conversation about the word Zionism and his experience growing up as an Israeli-American. Barak moved to Israel just before the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who was dedicated to building peace with the Palestinian people. Rabin’s assassination deeply impacted Barak and started him on a lifelong pursuit of peace and coexistence. The episode is long, but to borrow Rabbi Rosove’s words from above, it’s a conversation that is “expansive and open, embracing and inclusive… soft, down-to-earth, and complex.”

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