Our local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, has been running this multi-part series about the disengagement. It's not particularly well-done, but today's was about a family who decided to leave Gaza rather than stay on, at the last minute, agreeing finally at five AM on Tisha B'Av. I started getting weepy on the BART.
I did dry up, slightly, when I got to the bit where the father of the family is described as having helped to build the settlement 'as a young, Zionist soldier'. I was briefly overcome with parallel inane descriptions. "Frank Levy participated in D-Day as a young, Federalist soldier" perhaps? Anyway. I did say it was not particularly well done.
Then I got into the New York times, and I got to the picture of the girls in jeans skirts draped in orange ribbons blocking a road, and I just sprung a leak.
I think I finally got to the emotional part of this.
I couldn't, yesterday. I went through the fast thinking that somehow this would start to seem more real, I would feel more about it, but it wasn't until today that it really hit. And it's confusing, on a deep, fundamental level.
I support the disengagement. I have a lot of trust in Sharon's judgement, and I believe this is the best plan for the forseeable future. I think we have to do this.
I feel terrible for the people leaving. I feel for their losses, for what they built that won't continue, for how this has cut open their lives. I feel angry this has divided Jews from each other. I feel afraid for everyone involved. I can think of a thousand ways this could become even worse, very fast, in the next couple of days.
And I feel so proud of those teenage girls wearing orange headbands and standing hand in hand together to protect home that I'm crying. They're so beautiful, so strong, so full of emunah. I was overwhelmed.
My mother thinks this is NOT contradictory, and maybe she's right. Maybe it's just complicated.
May this be for the best, for all of us.
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3 comments:
It is really amazing to be so in touch, which for me is looking at the photos in the LA & NY times, and maybe hearing a little NPR, and skimming the collection of blogs that I frequent. it IS sad to leave, and still, probably for the best. the most distressing thought i read was that not enough of us moved to Israel, and that's why we had to leave the settlements. now i know this is not the direct cause, but the idea still is painful. (but not earache painful.) Oy! but then my brain kicks in and says, it's better not to have the Jews all in one place...too risky. Oy to this as well! may we be blessed.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I was in Israel a few months ago. I also know what it feels like to be displaced, to lose your home, to have no choice. But even so, it goes deeper than that.
I haven't followed the politics at all. But yesterday, I began reading all the online papers and looking at all the pictures. It amazes me how little people are talking about it in the J-blogs. I was weepy all yesterday, and will continue to be.
I, for one, am not for the disengagement because there is no rapprochement with a sociopathic mindset (but I'm not fierce about it). It will get worse and part of me lives in dread. I think that to contain all those feelings is not contradictory but reflective of the reality. As Whitman said,"I am large. I contain multitudes!"
The only thing that gave me a weird sort of hope-dread yesterday was a piece I read about Sharon and the military mind. With the settlers out of Gaza, the Pals become more defined and more accountable and it is clear they will not stop the terror and will probably escalate it. IN terms of strategy, it will be far easier to have an all out war then, with targets not hampered by the presence of settlers, and with a lot more soldiers at hand. On the other hand, Gaza will become another nest for Al Quaeda who will sacrifice even Muslims.
Oy!
I can't think of anything else to do, so I pray. I feel so connected to Israel. Man, it just hurts. The pix of synagogues being dismantled and soldiers crying really did me in.
And yet I feel so proud of Israel, for the kiddush Hashem in most of her behaviour. I am just so proud to be a Jew!
btw i enjoyed the pun!
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