We are
starting the Book of Numbers today which in Hebrew is called Bamidbar, In the
Wilderness. The reason it has become
known by the name, Numbers, is because it involves the taking of a census of
the Israelites who have received the Torah and will be traveling through the
wilderness together.
The phrase
used for the counting of the Israelites in today’s parasha is si’u et
rosh. Translated literally it means “lift
up the heads.” Perhaps that way of expressing
the counting of individuals is a sign that the Torah feels that although each
individual is only a part of a group, each individual must be treated with
dignity and each person’s life within the group is to be noted as having
meaning.
We are living
in a time when numbers, data, seem to matter incredibly much. Over the past year, during the Covid19 pandemic, there have
been many numbers given; numbers about those infected, those hospitalized, and numbers about deaths. Names are not attached to the numbers and the
entire reporting system as a result feels very impersonal and cold. Yes, for a statistician it is helpful to know
the ages of those being affected and the fact that perhaps those who died had underlying
conditions, but that does not acknowledge the humanity of each person who has
died from this pandemic. It tends to take away the sense of loss for
us as a community facing a grave situation.
Numbers are seemingly dispensable, real human beings with real
personalities and real souls are not. It
is hard to relate to numbers without the names attached to them, because a
sense of relationship is only developed when we are touched by the stories of
an individual’s life.
As I think
about numbers, I am drawn to the fact that this week all over the world there
has been much data coming out about the conflict between Hamas in Gaza and
Israel. Numbers are given about individual
wounded and those who have died on each side of the conflict. There have been attempts to say that the
Israeli response to 2,000 rockets within 5 days being fired at civilian centers
in Israel is disproportionate to the numbers of wounded and dead in Gaza. There is a problem with this kind of
reporting. Let me explain my thoughts.
Yes, Israel
has the iron dome defense system that is 90% effective in downing incoming
rockets. It has that system of defense
because it has known the dangers of living by Gaza which is ruled by Hamas, a
genocidal terrorist organization which calls for the death of all Jews living
in the land of Israel as part of its charter.
The iron dome, thank heavens, has created a situation where many of the
rockets that are launched at us are exploded before they reach the ground. The ones that are not exploded do reach homes
and business and schools and buses inhabited by real people. They do wreak physical havoc and I must say
emotional havoc as well. When the sirens
go off here in Israel calling individuals to seek shelter, individuals know
they have 15-30 seconds to get to their safe room in their apartment or to a
stairwell or to a public bomb shelter. What statistics can be provided about 100,000
children affected by PTSD when living with such stress?
Why are
there safe rooms and public bomb shelters?
They exist because Israel cares about the safety of its citizens. If you look at Gaza, there is no developed
siren system and no safe rooms required in apartments or bomb shelters to
protect Palestinians. Certainly, the
amount of energy and massive amounts of cement used on building terror tunnels
to infiltrate Israel with the hopes of kidnapping and killing its citizens could
have/should have been used to protect ordinary Gazans who have every right to
live in security. However, the strategy
of a terrorist organization like Hamas is not to protect its people, rather to
use them in a way that their deaths are meant to gain media support. The “disproportional” statistics are truly a
result of a philosophy that looks at the dying of its citizens as a win
situation for an organization that desires the world to sanction Israel, to
speak out against Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas’ strategy is to manipulate the media by using statistics. In many
ways, as ironical as it sounds, the iron dome also serves the purpose of this
terror organization because it does result in their losses being so much
greater than the losses of Israel. But
that is only part of the equation, because it assumes that Israel is targeting
civilians. It is not.
When the buildings were
leveled in Gaza, they were targeted because Hamas offices were put into
residential buildings. The residents
were told in advance that the buildings would be destroyed. Even Al Jazeera News reported that the
residents left, no injuries were reported, and the offices of Hamas operatives
, their infrastructure was destroyed.
When Israel reported it was launching a ground invasion and the Hamas
leadership monitored and believed those reports, the leadership went
underground into their terror tunnels, known as the “Metro.” Although the IDF report was false, those militants
gathered underground hoping to kill or capture soldiers from hidden bases.
It
was at that moment that bombs were dropped on the underground structure,
killing the militants but not hurting any civilians. Israel’s goal is to target the leaders and
infrastructure of Hamas, to stop the reigning down of rockets on Israeli
civilians.
There
is no moral equivalency between an organization launching rockets to kill
civilians and a country trying to defend its citizens by striking at the Hamas infrastructure.
I
started this talk by stating the idea that Torah wants a counting to include “the
lifting up of heads”…the recognition that each individual life matters. Yes,
that concept is held here as well by the majority of residents both Jew and
Arab. If you look at the responses of
individuals, you will see things like this piece written by Hadas Labrisch, a
medical student at Hadassah hospital. It
puts a face on what is happening to people and their responses here in HaAretz.
To my English speaking friends on Facebook
I assume most of you have heard of the goings
on in Israel and the Gaza Strip over the past week.
It’s a time of tension here, and pain.
I want to convey a little of what living here
is like this week. It’s a little long, and definitely not comprehensive, it’s
just me and my experiences.
I’m not going to speak about all the
incitements that led to this chaos. I don’t understand enough of the elaborate,
careful politics surrounding Sheikh Jarah, and the Temple Mount. I’ll talk
about what I see and know for facts.
I’m a med student in the wonderful, beautiful
city of Jerusalem, a city blessed with poignant religious love and fervency
from all possible faiths and practices. I live in the sensational Mahne Yehuda
market, walking the streets everyday side by side with ultra orthodox Jews,
seculars, religious and non-religious Muslim Arabs, Druze, Christians, teens
and parents, children and elderly, city dwellers and visitors.
On ordinary days, I head for my favorite stand
at the market to buy vegetables from two Muslim Arab 30-ish year olds living in
East Jerusalem. We’ve become friends in the four years I’ve been living here,
and they’re always happy to see me, asking how my studies are going, giving me
a fresh nectarine or strawberries “for the way”. I practice my (awful) Arabic
with them, inquire about their families, how business is going, and recently,
how they’re holding up during the Ramadan fast.
This week, it was a little different. My walks
through the market were tense, quick. Nobody stopped to chat. Jews and Arabs
alike, secular teens in summer dresses and flipflops as well as middle aged
women in head scarves (from both religions, of course), all knew we were
victims of the same situation. Fear. Fear had taken our safety from us, our
home from us. Everybody walks a little faster, eyes darting a few too many
times around us in suspicion. Instead of visiting my friends, I bought my
vegetables at the first stall I came to, just to get out of there quickly. I
kept my voice low, on the phone, assuring my mother that I was alright.
On Monday, Jerusalem Day, I wasn’t in
Jerusalem when the first rocket was fired. Jerusalem is usually the city immune
from rocket fire from Gaza, because of the holy Muslim places and the Muslim
community it contains, which could get hurt. But this time, things were
different. The first rocket was aimed at Jerusalem in response to “Jerusalem
Day”, celebrated by Israelis commemorating the day Jerusalem was united. For
the Jews, it’s a day of joy, when we could return to the holy city, the city of
David, and pray at the Temple Mount mentioned in the bible as the holiest place
on earth. For the Arabs, it’s a day of sorrow, remembering the war of ’67 and
what they consider the occupation of eastern Jerusalem, the holy city and the
West Bank territories.
So there were clashes, worse than usual, and
awful pictures of fighting on the holy land of the Temple Mount, and in the
al-Aqsa mosque. And then came the siren.
I wasn’t there, because I went to attend the
wedding of one of my best friends. The day we were so looking forward to, and
waiting throughout the COVID crisis for (side note – COVID is basically over in
Israel, praise G-d, thanks to Pfizer vaccines, and my friend thought she could
finally marry at a 400-guest venue…) turned into stress and chaos.
The hotel where we spent the night and got our
hair done was at Ashdod. We woke up to bomb sounds. We had to turn down
Rihanna, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, so that we won’t miss the rocket sirens.
We did our makeup at the balcony, our eyes scanning the skies, jumping at the
recurrent bang, bang, bang, bangs that came from nearby Ashkelon. Ashkelon is a
city of 48 km squared and 150,000 people, not too close and not too far from
Gaza. Ashkelon received hundreds of missiles over the past four days.
Thankfully, most of the booms we heard were intercepts by the Iron Dome system
that Israel invented to intercept the missiles in the air and prevent the
catastrophic outcomes.
Hundreds. Of. Missiles. On an area 15 times
smaller than New York.
The wedding, of course, was a blur of smiles
and tears. We sang our hearts out celebrating the couple, and also yelled our
voices hoarse calling all the guests into the shelter when another round of
rockets was fired, at exactly 20:54 on Tuesday, right when the couple was
making their way towards the Huppah (the wedding ceremonies). 150 missiles were
launched at Israel in under 10 minutes. Hamas was very proud of their
achievement, because at such capacities, the Iron Dome can’t intercept them
all.
We were lucky. Those missiles missed us, and
we were protected by the shelter that we managed to all squeeze into in our
wedding dresses and high heeled shoes, or barefoot because we ditched the shoes
running. Instead, those missiles hit a home in Sderot, a home in Ashkelon. A
woman was killed in Rishon Letzion. And a bus was hit in Holon, the city where
my parents live.
So far, Hamas’ missiles at civilians has
claimed the lives of 7 Israelis. Two of them Arab Israelis. One, a 6 year old
boy.
However, the missiles and the aggression
between Israel and Hamas is definitely not the worst part.
The worst part was later that night. The world
turned upside down.
Just like me and my Arab friends at the
market, or the Arab doctors who coach me at the hospital, or the Arab driver of
the light rail train I take every day, Israel has several mixed cities, where
Arabs and Jews live side by side. We take the same buses, work the same jobs,
buy the same frozen yogurt, curse the same traffic jams, bless the same
sunlight, laugh at the same babies in strollers that wave at passerbys. But
this week, fear ruined our homes, ruined our peace.
“I’m not coming to the wedding”, said a friend
from the north, because when he tried to leave his house and drove past Arab
villages, his car was hit by stones and he returned home. “I’m not coming to
the university tomorrow”, said a friend of mine, because Haifa saw intense
demonstrations and all traffic was stopped.
“Riots in Lod” yelled the headlines, and I
couldn’t believe my eyes, seeing the news portray burning cars, shots fired at
buildings, bookcases turned upside down from actual raids inside peoples’
homes. Synagogues burned down. Synagogues. Burned. Down. Sound familiar?
I returned home that night with my roommate to
Jerusalem, shivering in fear that our car would encounter danger on the roads
of our own home.
The next night was even worse. The fear had
grown, swollen into a monstrous being that gave birth to a daemon of red hot
hatred. The hate I saw from people around me towards “Arabs”, as if all Arabs
were in charge of the chaos. The hate I saw on Facebook from all sides. Then,
the hate I saw and could not believe, when criminal Jewish youth marched the
streets yelling “death to Arabs”, and culminating in an unbearable lynch at an
Arab man in Bat Yam, and a stabbing of an Arab worker right by my house, in
Machne Yehuda.
And on the other side, not much better. A
hotel in Akko (Acre) was lit on fire by Arab criminals, Arab youth threw
stones, bottles, furniture, ruined cars and streetlamps, beat up a man in the
streets. Demonstrations, knives, guns and bats. The police can’t be everywhere
at once.
The mind can’t understand, the heart can’t
stand it. And so the fear is trying to win.
But.
Even in the midst of this horrendous madness,
most of us are together in the same state. The majority of us are appalled by
what is happening. All these atrocities are carried out by criminals, from both
sides. The hatred is scary and is rearing its head, but my Facebook feed is
flooded with so many condemnations of violence, so many prayers for peace.
Every conversation I have with my friends or family ends in a prayer for quiet.
I wake up, leave the house (hesitantly,
scanning the streets) and make my way to the Hadassah Ein Karm hospital. I go
see a procedure (kidney stone removal with laser beams, super cool) being
conducted by a Jewish doctor on an Arab patient, with a Jewish nurse and an
Arab anesthesiologist. I go out for lunch to picnic on the grass, and see kids,
Jews and Arabs, some in hospital gowns and some in jeans, running around or
talking and laughing in their wheelchairs.
The news broadcaster on the Hebrew radio
announces the fast times of Ramadan.
We remember that during the year, before this
madness, the Al Aqsa mosque holds prayers on Fridays, and the Western Wall is
filled with prayers hours later at Shabbat.
It's common to be at the bus stop and see a
religious Jewish woman with her prayer book out, and a Muslim woman right next
to her with the same. In fact, I’ve been that woman a few times, reading the
morning prayers on the bus next to the woman with the hijab who was also
running late, reading her prayers on the way.
It's not so simple. We do cry. We even curse
and scream and yell in agony. We don’t forget the hate around us. This week, we
walked around with a pit of sadness in our stomach. But that doesn’t for one
second let us forget that we’re brothers, we’re neighbors, we’re in this
together.
May there be peace quickly 
One
more story that puts a face on what is happening here within the local Arab and
Jewish communities in Jerusalem. This
time by Sarah Tuttle- Singer:
The
taxi driver who lives across the road from me in Jerusalem faces Mecca five
times a day to pray.
“Well,
actually four times,” he told me. “I skip Fajr at dawn because I need my sleep
- unless the baby is already up.”
And
ever since the recent tensions between our communities began to embroil
Jerusalem, now spilling over throughout the land, he texts me each time he’s
about to pray to let me know that my family and I are in his thoughts.
Tonight,
before I light my Shabbat candles, I’ll do the same for him.
Shabbat
Shalom.
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