Another Oct 7

It’s been a year
Since Oct 7 became a significant date for Israel.
A year since the public eye started to pay attention to Palestinian rights in a bigger way.
It’s the yahrzeit of over a thousand Israelis killed,
Hundreds taken as hostages,
Many who haven’t come home.
A year since Free Palestine and Zionism have become common ideologies debated.
It’s also been just one of almost eighty years since the Nakba,
When Palestinians were removed from their homes
When Palestinians became hidden and deemed dangerous
Even though the Israelis held the guns and forced them out
The homes where they lived as neighbors to all the others
Citizens of a land with shared culture.
It’s been just another year of Palestinians being imprisoned and killed.

I’ll admit, for most of the last year, my grief was mostly about the divisiveness that continued after Oct 7.
The repetition compulsion of othering
The continuity of hatred towards the other side
The comparison of who’s lives or deaths matter more
The various news that don’t speak plainly but instead wage political warfare
The willingness of humans to over and over fall for dividing rather than uniting around care, around another way.

I am grateful that my heart no longer sees a need to choose.
I feel the heartbreak of a homeland that has become the cemetery of too much death and hatred and love.
And I know the utter fear that’s in my own Jewish lineage from persecution.
The echo across centuries – are we safe? can we trust them? will they annihilate us?
And my eyes feel open now, to a history not permitted to be taught in Israeli schools.
Fed a story of our belonging to it,
I see the lineage of harm that  intergenerational fear and trauma causes.
I know that if my family lived as Palestinians do, without rights,
I would hate the government that governed me
As well as the soldiers that controlled my home.
I can’t say I know what to do to make it stop
I can’t say any of us do
I’ve wished for a long time to call a timeout, a pause, so we can turn towards the chaos, and take a new path.
For now, all I can do is keep my eyes wide open
And let the tears fall.