Neighbors, I had an entirely different note planned for you today. I was going to write to you about faucet repair as an analogy for systems change and community care. And I will still write about that, probably next week, because it’s a fun analogy and I think you’ll like it.
But as last week wore on and I thought about today’s note, something else kept getting louder and louder in my mind . . . Is there something wrong with me?
Kind of ironic that I’m struggling so much with this question, considering that just four weeks ago, I opened our 2024 by sending out a note reassuring you (and myself) that there is nothing wrong with you if you are a community care early adopter. Still, the pressure to ignore Gaza right now (and other ongoing humanitarian crises) is extreme, so we are forgiven if our confidence that caring for all human life is right and moral has been shaken.
Neighbors, I feel bewildered and betrayed by this pressure to stop centering a genocide that is happening in real-time. This disconnect between the messages I received as a young person and now is fucking with me. Hard.
Secular Lessons
I learned about the Holocaust in elementary school; like many of us, those early lessons were delivered through reading The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. We were taught to relate to Anne and never to allow such an atrocity to happen again. When I was in high school, our study and understanding of genocide deepened, and Schindler’s List came out, moved the world, and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, that year.
It seemed evident to me that the message communicated by my teachers and our culture more generally, by way of books, films, and other art, was that it is right and moral to care for all human life, even at significant cost and personal risk, just like the main character of the movie, Oskar Schindler.
Religious Lessons
In my church, as a child, our Sunday School lessons were almost entirely centered on The Golden Rule (you know, do unto others . . . ). As we got a little older, the Golden Rule concept was expanded, mainly by studying The Parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). A lot of people, whether Christian or not, probably know the basics of this story, but for clarification, it goes something like this:
A person in Jesus’s community who knows the religious law really well wanted to test Jesus, so he asked him how to get eternal life.
Jesus asks, “What’s the law say?”
The person says, “Love God. Love your neighbor.”
Jesus says, “You got it.”
But the person is testing, so he says, “Yeah, but who is my neighbor supposed to be?”
Jesus goes on to tell a story about a man getting robbed and terribly beaten, left for dead. Two other men, both religious, see the man but ignore him. A third man (a Samaritan, a people group in Jesus’s time) finds the man who has been left for dead and goes out of his way to care for him. In our time, the Samaritan did the equivalent of getting him first aid, an Uber, and a nice hotel room with excellent room service so he could recover.
Then Jesus is all, “Which of the men was a true neighbor?”
And the smartass was like, “The merciful dude.”
Jesus replied, “Yeah, so do that.” (The Bible doesn’t say so, but Jesus probably did a mic drop right there.)
I wanted to recap that parable from my Sunday School days, not because I’m pushing Christianity on any of you (I am not in any way, shape, or form evangelical), but because it shows the way that Jesus took the Golden Rule beyond, “don’t harm people, ‘cause you wouldn’t want to be harmed” to “do everything you can to actively help people.”
As a kid, my parents and most of the other adults around me, especially in my church community, emphasized that this example from Jesus, an “enhanced” Golden Rule, was what I should follow
The Disconnect
Juxtapose all that teaching, both secular and religious, plus the stressed cultural norm of “never again” with the message I’m getting now (during a genocide):
The president I worked my ass off to get elected in 2020 (probably like a lot of you, too) has wholly ignored 76% of his own party (disclosure: I am not and have never been registered with any political party) who want a ceasefire. He’s stated that Iran should be held responsible for supplying weapons to militant groups but not acknowledged the US complicity in supplying weapons to Israel. Weapons that have left at least 17,000 children orphaned.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi went on CNN’s State of the Union two Sundays ago to say that ceasefire protesters, like me and millions of others, are connected to Russia and should be investigated by the FBI. That should be a red flag for everyone who cares about civil liberties; let’s not forget COINTELPRO. (If you don’t know about COINTELPRO, the link is a very quick read.)
Historians I admire have been silent or said very little in carefully crafted, morally neutral terms on the situation.
Some progressive Christian voices and even the Pope, have spoken up and shown public solidarity with Palestinians, especially because the Israeli military has targeted ancient churches in Gaza and even shot people inside churches who were taking refuge. But other Christian voices are missing or are taking similar carefully crafted, morally neutral paths as the historians. Regrettably, there are also the folks egging it all on.
Maybe they all forgot Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s famous WWII-era words, “First they came for . . .”? BTW, Pastor Niemoeller’s poem is a very stark reminder that community care IS self-care.
Comedians I valued and trusted for their shrewd, satirical commentary about national and world events made some very delicate comments earlier on and have since said nothing as though this event has not even occurred. On the other hand, I’ve watched clips on social media of TV stars I loved as a girl maniacally laughing at jokes about the situation. Sadly, painfully, I noted former colleagues liking and supporting the routine.
Wildly Racist
But not just government leaders, historians, Christian voices, or astute comedians have left me feeling bewildered and betrayed.
There’s journalism too. Last Friday, The Wallstreet Journal ran an opinion piece titled, “Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital,” and The New York Times ran an opinion piece titled, “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom,” comparing countries in the region to various insects and the US to an old lion. It ended with the most wildly racist line among paragraphs of dehumanization, “Sometimes I contemplate the Middle East by watching CNN. Other times, I prefer Animal Planet.” Both newspapers are winners of many, many Pulitzer Prizes. The author of the NYT piece has won three Pulitzers himself, so I guess we’re supposed to think these are respected voices.
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The Honorable Mentions
The “Is there something wrong with me?” question isn’t just fueled by the conflicting messages I was raised with versus how society seems to be reacting now. There are also honorable mentions for the dreaded virtue signaling and naivete labels, plus censorship and being a killjoy to help.
I’ve seen lots and lots of commentary stating that speaking up publicly about a genocide amounts to “virtue signaling.” (For what it’s worth, I think the term “virtue signaling” is used to shut down a differing viewpoint as irrelevant and pretentious.) I’ve also received feedback that calling for a ceasefire is moral but basically naïve. I guess when our morals are naïve, we should throw them out.
Instagram is censoring the reach of posts about Gaza, and, tbh, I am self-censoring in most interactions because, much like I mentioned in this note, I don’t want to be Debbie Downer.
Despite the pressure, I wake up thinking about Gaza. I go to bed thinking about Gaza. I can’t shake the messages I received as a young person. I can’t shake my nature, which creates an internal storm so much worse than facing outward discomfort. Aren’t these people my neighbors?
Lonely But Not Alone
I’m lonely, but know I am not alone in this disconnected space. I am privileged to know so many people working tirelessly in humanitarian aid. Stories I privately hold because the steps taken to serve their neighbors have involved unbelievable risks.
I can see the example of my friend, Emelda, who cares for her neurodivergent daughter while simultaneously always putting her values into action (among many other things, she protested outside one of our state senator’s offices, helping bring him to the conclusion that he should support calls for a ceasefire).
Or, the example of my friend, Cristina, who has navigated a giant move, career change, and transition into single motherhood while centering Palestine on every platform she has non-stop for 119 days.
All these people and others in my community help ease my fears that something is wrong with me. And lately, on days when my confidence is really low, and I’m sort of wishing I could just NOT be one of the “ludicrous” people who believe this much in community care, I think about how Oskar Schindler or the lunch counter protesters in Greensboro or others like them, probably had moments of doubt where they wondered if something was wrong with them.
I’m so thankful they did not let personal doubt get in the way of what they felt called to do. Their community care actions are vindicated by the long arc of the moral universe.
We Know Who Our Neighbors Are
At a party on Saturday night, a man I talked to said he felt really hopeless about the future and asked what kept me going. In a real “fake it until you make it” moment, I pretended that I was not at all plagued by personal doubt and told him the truth I simultaneously hold, “I want to be remembered as a good ancestor. Now is my chance.”
He laughed a little and, with a combination of patronization and confusion, said, “Aww . . . that’s sweet.”
Feeling bewildered and betrayed, our confidence shaken, we’re forgiven for all that. The pressure is intense, but caring for all human life is right and moral. Community is medicine, and we know who our neighbors are . . . stay the course.
The dire situation in Gaza is absolutely heartbreaking. You've been missing the context since October 7th. There was a ceasefire in place on October 6th. On an extremely holy day for Jewish people, terrorists murdered, raped, tortured, mutilated, and took hostage innocent people at a music concert and in their homes. Hamas and Gazans that have been under Hamas' rule since 2006 celebrated and some even participated in the rape and captivity of hostages. Even the UNWRA workers were involved. Hamas has vowed to commit more genocidal acts again and again and again. Israel has a responsibility to keep her citizens safe. The colonizer narrative that you are perpetuating is harmful. Where would you like Jews to go? Where should Ann Frank have gone after her family was booted from Germany (which at the time was quite Progressive)? Where should she have gone when the Nazis invaded The Netherlands? That is why Israel exists. And it exists where it exists because it is the Jewish ancestral homeland. There are 2 Million Palestinians living in Israel with full citizenship today. It is time to recognize and call upon the Arab world to denounce Hamas and accept that Israel is going to exist, and it's going to exist as a Democratic, Jewish nation. Over 50% of the Jewish population of Israel is comprised of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa who were forced to leave their Arab, Muslim-ruled countries because of Israel's existence. They aren't trying to get back to Baghdad which had a huge Jewish population in the early 1940s. They are just trying to make a home where they ended up. The curriculum taught in Arab nations with falsehoods about Jews and Israel must be changed. The desire for martyrdom must be replaced with the goal to live a current life of goodness and kindness. Hamas must be dismantled. UNWRA must be dismantled. There should not be 4th generation refugees. Let's give the Palestinians a fair shot at living up to their potential and being successful in things other than jihad. Let's get Netanyahu out of office in Israel. Demand that Hamas release the 136 hostages including a 1 year old baby and many, many elderly men, and women of child-bearing ages that have likely been raped and possibly impregnated. In the same way that "white" people don't get to define racism, non-Jews don't get to define anti-Semitism. Zionism is simply the belief that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish, Democratic nation. Using it as a bad word is akin to the far-right using the term feminist disparagingly. It's a shame that you're disappointed by Mayim Bialik finding humor in such a dark subject. Jewish people have survived millennium of persecution by using humor and finding joy amidst the sorrow. I've attended 4 Bar/ Bat Mitzvahs since the war broke out. Every single one of them acknowledged the destruction in both Israel and Gaza, and everyone here in the US knows someone who knows someone that was either murdered or held hostage. Please stop comparing Israel's response to Hamas' genocide of Jews on October 7th to the Holocaust. It's truly a misappropriation of terms. What's happening is awful, but it's not genocide.
In 2000 when, “the hawkish Likud party leader, Ariel Sharon, staged a provocative visit to a Muslim shrine at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” and “Dozens of people were injured in rioting on the West Bank”. I first began actively arguing with friends and neighbors about Palestinian rights. I lost friends over my refusal to be quiet.
Until today when I continue to refuse to remain silent, I lose a friend here and there over my beliefs and support for Palestine.
It is truly tragic and mind boggling to me how strong Israeli propaganda and USA/British collaboration goes