Friends,
I arrived in Israel early on Monday morning to join a Solidarity Mission and have had a very full and intense couple of days. There is so much to say and to process. I have written a blog, which is offered below and attempts to capture some of this experience at this devastating time. We were the first group of civilians to enter Kibbutz Be'eri, one of the sites of a brutal massacre on October 7th. I will never, never forget this. You can read more below and join me live from Jerusalem on zoom at 1pm mountain time on Wednesday I will reflect on this experience with my friend Nigel Savage who made aliyah recently and is part of this group. Join the zoom here
FJC Israel Solidarity Mission october 30th - November 1st
It is early morning in Jerusalem and the dawn chatter of the birds and traffic are just beginning. This hotel, like so many others in Israel right now, has many displaced families from the south staying here, very different from the normal buzz of tourists from around the world. In fact Israel does not feel like the same Israel I have known and loved. There is a haunting and stunned silence in the air.
I am here as part of a small mission Conservative/Masorti rabbis and others, organized by The Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center for Conservative Judaism.
Monday was one of the longest and most intense days of my life and I saw, heard and witnessed things that will remain with me forever. We met at an eerily quiet Ben Gurion airport at around 7am, many of the group having arrived together on an El Al flight (the only airline with normal operations) from Newark and I flew in from London overnight. I helped a small group of British volunteers on my flight identify and collect from baggage claim the 27 checked bags full of various items to be donated to army bases.
Our group met by Aroma cafe, usually buzzing now empty, and after a short prayer service together and an opening circle, we set off for the south, ground zero of the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th. Our first stop was Ofakim and the house of Rachel and David Edri who had five terrorists in their house for seventeen hours. Rachel gave her would-be attackers tea and cookies and she and David were ultimately saved by the Ofakim police, including their own son Eviyatar. Half of this town is now living in hotels.
We were joined in the town’s municipal building by Professor Nir Kedar - president of Sapir college just outside Sederot, which is the only academic institution in the Gaza envelope and the largest public college in Israel. The student and faculty population is very diverse and integrated; roughly half of the students and some of the faculty are Arab Bedouin and before Hamas came to power, there were students there from the Gaza strip. Be’eri, Kfar Aza and Nir Oz had student villages and all of the most impacted communities in the area on October 7th housed students and staff from the college. Even though they have lived under the constant threat of rocket attacks for more than 20 years, with 15 seconds from when the sirens sound until they get to a shelter, this was very different. At least 10 of the people murdered that day were from the Sapir community and some were killed with their whole families. Hundreds and hundreds of faculty and students are deeply traumatized and most of the survivors are evacuated all over the country and yet, somehow Nir Kedar is keeping the community going under impossible circumstances.
In Ofakim, we also got a tour of the “war room” with Danny and his team and we met some of the US founders of Moshav S’deh Nitzan - Zvi and Ephraim, who have lived in the region for decades and shared their stories of horror and loss and evacuation.
Our next stop was Kibbutz Be’eri; a site of devastating destruction. Around 70 Hamas terrorists entered that day and at least 130 people were murdered including women, children, babies, mostly killed in their homes, 10 percent of the population. We were the first group of civilians allowed to enter this closed military site, under supervision wearing helmets and vests as protection in case of rocket fire. We entered a brutal crime scene and saw burnt homes, pools of dried blood and some of the knives used in the slaughter, among the scattered objects of these family’s daily lives. We heard testimonies from some of the young soldiers who were the first to enter these places and witness the savage horrors. People not even in their twenties having to discover these scenes and will carry the images for the rest of their lives. I too will never be able to unsee, unhear and unsmell what I witnessed a few weeks after the events. The soldiers and police representatives who met and spoke to us were grateful that we had come to bear witness and wanted us to tell the world. These young soldiers and their senior officers are not blood-thirsty monsters seeking revenge. They are normal people who love their country and feel resilient even in the face of such trauma. I pray for their healing.
Our last stop before driving to Jerusalem for dinner and very needed sleep was Machane Shura - an army base where all of the bodies, soldiers and civilians, are (there are still remains being discovered) being identified and prepared for burial. This is a grim and awful process and is supervised by Rabbanut army reservists, rabbinic authorities who do everything to preserve the honor and dignity of the deceased and their families. In many of these cases, the bodies cannot be easily identified and a combination of fingerprints, dental images and DNA are used. We learned that soldiers killed in combat are always buried in coffins, even though the general practice in Israel is simple burial in a shroud, and they do not have tahara (ritual washing and preparation), as a soldiers killed in combat are considered holy and they are even buried in their combat uniforms with their blood.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be here at this time even though it has been very hard to process it all. As we see the intensity of global antisemitism in university campuses and public demonstrations, it is shocking that the world does not really seem to understand what happened here in Israel on October 7th and how much worse it could have been. At least 1400 people were killed that day in the most brutal ways and they were targeted because they were Jews, even though many Bedouin and Palestinians and foreign nationals lost their lives too. There are 239 hostages from 33 different countries, including at least 22 Thais and people of all religions, somewhere in the Gaza Strip. We hope they are alive and will be redeemed. We have just met with Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23 year old who was taken captive by Hamas terrorists in a pick up truck and driven into Gaza. His parents are working tirelessly for the release and for awareness of their son along with the other captives. His inspiring mother said “I’m in shock. I’m on a mission. I’m walking through the world without a heart.” They describe the situation as a global, humanitarian crisis. It is.
On Tuesday afternoon we spent a couple of hours volunteering in a large theater and acting school that has been converted into a חמ"ל - "war room" for getting tons and tons of supplies to the many, many displaced Israelis. Food, toiletries, clothing, cleaning supplies all being organized by teams of volunteers across the religious and political spectrum, some of whom were major organizers of the protest movement just one month ago, now working alongside their religious and political opponents. Some 200,000 Israelis are internally displaced from destroyed communities in the south and evacuated towns in the north. Our hotel, like so many others across the country, is filled with refugee families. Every room in the Prima Kings Hotel, apart from our group, is housing one of these families. This morning I saw dozens of kids getting ready to go to school in the lobby! The crisis center takes requests from families of what they need and volunteers box them up for dispatch.
There is so much more to say, including a powerful dinner and talk this evening with Mohammed Darawshe, an Arab Israeli scholar and activist who was among the delegation that met with President Biden when he was here, and speaks so intelligently and passionately about how the complex history of this population and their struggles and how this current war impacts them. This week’s parsha, vayera, includes the harrowing story of the binding of Isaac. Mohammed pointed out that in Muslim tradition, Abraham is ready to sacrifice his other son, Ishmael. Tragically, many sons are being sacrificed right now on the altar of war and we pray that Abraham will one day be able to lift his eyes and see another way, a way of peace in the form of a different sacrifice rather than anyone’s son or daughter.
We may have different perspectives on what should happen next in the harsh realities of this continuing war. Of course, it is unbearable how many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed so far and how much they are suffering too. In sharing my experiences in these few days of witnessing, I do not want to pretend that I have clarity about what we should or should not be doing, or to attempt to offer solutions. I am grateful to be alive, to be a very proud Jew and lover of Israel and to be a witness to unspeakable horrors. I believe in and admire the resilience and hope of our people in the face of all of this tragedy and care deeply about what happens here in this sacred land. That is all I can say right now.
Love and blessings from Jerusalem
Rabbi Marc
PS - many people are asking what we can do to support Israel. There is much to do, especially in the hostage release campaign and we will be providing some information and ideas, but for now, please visit our Israel resources page here
