The Bomb

I’ve written this story before. 

When I was 14 while on a tour in Israel I was walking across the parking lot to my hotel. It was dark, and I was by myself, but I was walking from one hotel where the majority of our group was staying across to the other hotel where the rest of my group was. 

It was hot and sticky.

It was quiet.

And then it wasn’t.

I heard a bomb go off. 

The next day I would read in the newspaper that it was a car bomb and someone had died. Not anyone special. Just a person going somewhere. Travelling from one place in Jerusalem to another place. They had done nothing to provoke the terrorist, a suicide bomber, the very worst kind of murderer. Someone who hated someone else so much that they would rather die than have the other live.

And the victim had done nothing, nothing but be born Jewish.

I stood alone in that dark parking lot and I was changed. I realised, in a profound way for the first time, that I was hated.

Somewhere, not to far away, other terrorists were celebrating. A Jewish person lay dead. A Jewish family mourned their loved one. And the terrorists celebrated. And I finally understood that if it had been me who died, they would be equally delighted.

When you are Jewish, you grow up with a certain understanding of anti-semitism. You grow up understanding the weight of the holocaust. It’s in your blood. When did I first learn about the holocaust? I don’t know. Not knowing about the holocaust is not an ignorance afforded to Jewish children. It doesn’t matter when your relatives fled wherever they fled, you know of someone, a relative, a friend of your grandfather, there is someone missing, a branch cut-off on the family tree and you understand that it is due to hatred, to anti-semitism.

I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read that contained stories about anti-semitism, about the holocaust, about nazis. History books, biographies, autobiographies, historical fiction. 

But it wasn’t until I heard that bomb go off and I stood alone in that parking lot that I realized that I….I was hated. I was hated with a furious and passionate unreasonableness. And the unreasonableness does not make the hatred less upsetting. It is so much worse. That’s the entire point of terrorism, it is to cause despair, because you cannot reason with it.

I have opinions. Some of them are wrong. Some of them make people angry. Many of them others might disagree with. But I made those opinions. I chose them.

But my blood. My Jewish blood. Why does that make you so angry? I can’t argue with it. I can’t change it. I didn’t choose it.

And yet here I am, one of the chosen.

Praise Adonai. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of Israel. 

My fathers.

It is very difficult to explain to a non-Jewish person what Israel means to me. It is the oddest experience to have no desire to live somewhere, and at the sametime feel that it is home.

The reasons are many and complicated. But right now, I’m thinking maybe it’s the blood. The blood spilled all over the streets of Israel right now.

Test it, then test my own. You will not find many differences. Not enough for the terrorists to care if it was traded one for the other. They would see no difference if it was the victims hearts still beating and my blood that was splattered.

Sometimes I think every Jewish person lives with survivors’ guilt. Because we know that those that hate us don’t care at all which ones die.

I have some bad news for the terrorists. It really won’t make a difference who you murder. You cannot kill the brave ones, because they all are. To be Jewish is to be brave. 

I will end with one of my favourite movie quotes of all time.

“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We are chosen by God. There are no weak jews.” ~ Elsa, from JoJo Rabbit

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.

2 Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

3 Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together:

4 Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord.

5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.

7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.

8 For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.

9 Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good.

Psalm 122