Reflections on War

A bit of a ramble this week, as I try and make sense of the last 6 days. Thanks for reading. Hello hello to newcomers.

Our son has this book called The Color Monster where this character teaches a range of feelings like calm, upset, and happy.

My emotional color wheel now? Constant trauma. On edge. Sad. Crying. Lonely. Enraged. Proud and filled with a sense of unity. Glued to the news. Checking on friends when we’re too alone with our thoughts.

That’s how every Jewish person I know has felt since Saturday.

I woke up that morning to 85 unread messages from my family living in Israel. It was a horror movie unfolding in real-time, and beyond human comprehension. Jews at a trance festival hunted and mowed down like target practice by Hamas commandos. Jewish children shot in their car seats. Jewish women executed at bus stops.

Jews are like a living internet: connected, always online, and constantly arguing. An act of this magnitude sends shockwaves across the entire network – we’re all sitting shiva right now.

I have no idea how long this sadness will sit with me – perhaps a lifetime. The only way to alleviate the stress these days? I train, call friends, and switch to airplane mode after 10 p.m. Training brings confidence and this feeling that I’m preparing for the worst.

Because I'm not fighting. I don’t even live in Israel right now. I'm tracking the war on social media, where atrocities and burning buildings are weaponized. Both sides using them to tip the scales of moral justice in their favor. Everyone gets angry and exhausted.

Here’s what I tell myself multiple times throughout the day.

1. Online is not real life. People act and speak differently on social than they do when speaking face-to-face. A lot of ‘reposts’ are knee-jerk reactions. It’s incredibly easy to feel enraged. I do think public opinion matters and affects policy, and it’s important to be aware. But how many of us have actually won an Internet fight? Or convince someone to take the opposite side?

2. Social algorithms thrive on hate content. The system rewards what makes you feel angry. It’s poison. Don’t drink too much of it, even if it tastes good. You can choose to not feel activated.

3. Prioritize your energy. Repeating the point above…no matter how many videos or posts you share with that person who you can’t stand, don’t expect to feel satisfied. They’ve already decided. Now go have a snack.

Black or white brain

For everyone who’s pissed off, remember that we tend to think in absolutes for many reasons: information overload, a desire to categorize the complex, or because we’re too lazy to bother with nuance.

I think that’s what happening here, on both fronts. For those posting about Free Palestine, I imagine they see Israel as one entity: the government, its army, and the people behind it rolled into an aggressive burrito of occupation.

The mental trick makes it easy to justify violence against your enemy, and ignore what should be clear to anyone with a shred of humanity: what took place in the kibbutzim and the south of Israel was a pure massacre of unbelievable proportions.

Shifting Narratives

What drives so many of us crazy is how the narrative and news cycle has rapidly shifted in response to events on the ground.

It started with the attacks and a hostage crisis where hundreds of Jews from around the world were kidnapped. In response, Israel unleashed its Air Force to knock out rocket launch sites and clear the way for a dangerous ground invasion. Where the news cycle went, the narrative followed.

The crisis will only get worse. 170+ soldiers have been KIA, and that’s expected to rise. If Israel seizes full control of Gaza and truly becomes the occupier, all hell will break loose. Worse still, Lebanon or Syria or Iran enters the fray. Anything could happen.

But the biggest losers will be Gazans trapped under a corrupt and brutal party that controls so many aspects of life. Check out this animated series from people who tell you what life is like. Spoiler alert, it’s awful, terrible, and forced upon them. Most of the Hamas leadership is likely gone from Gaza, hiding in tunnels or slipped to safety in Egypt. The heads of the snake will not bear the brunt of absolutely heartbreaking and punishing airstrikes.

Arguments of moral equivalency will be raised, scores of people will die, and a world fueled by viral images will have its culprit: Israel. We live in a binary world. Pick your side. There’s no room for any gray area.

But nothing's that simple.

My Inconsistent Truths

I am against the killing of civilians and people in general, AND I’m also a member of the Jewish tribe that feels threatened by activity (murder, kidnapping, beheadings) and rhetoric (Toronto chants ‘gas the Jews’) and believes we must defend ourselves.

I believe in a world where people are generally good, AND I know there are also evil people out there with intent to kill. There are varying differences in cultural attitudes and norms.

I cannot accept that the way to raise awareness about Israeli war crimes and challenge the occupation is by committing more war crimes. You can’t justify atrocities as the only response available to discharge evil anger. That’s moral stupidity at the highest levels.

But I do accept that all this horror is our reality. None of this is new to a Jew. The world simply doesn’t care about us, but we deal with it. We’ve known it all along.

The concept is embedded into our hardware. It’s why we start our own businesses and nursing homes and in 1948, a Jewish State.

Israel was a ‘project’ built because so many Russian pogroms and German execution squads signaled it was time to leave. And it’s our homeland. There is nowhere else to go.

And this time, it’s personal. My dad’s parents were Holocaust survivors. MY grandmother was one of three survivors from a family of 72. My grandfather’s entire family, except for one cousin, was sent to die in Auschwitz. Both my parents were refugees. I’ve lived in Israel. I have a huge family there. Two of my cousins will likely enter Gaza as infantrymen. Another one survived the festival attack by hiding.

And it gets worse. A close co-worker of mine has relatives in the south. Her aunt and uncle were snatched from their homes in Kfar Aza by terrorists and dragged back to Gaza. Little news and updates, mostly dread. She’s on the phone all day with U.S. officials and hostage negotiation experts while managing two kids and a job. To put it simply, it’s really fucked.

I pray for those affected and for my family. I want peace, I want safety, and I want a less violent region. But what I really want is impossible: to go back to life before Saturday.

Ask Me Anything

I believe in dialogue and conversation. How do you feel about this? How do you feel right now? What questions do you have? Let me know by replying to this e-mail.