The father of a young woman with cerebral palsy took her to a music concert in the Israeli desert because she responds well to music. As I write, I assume they are dead, because she would be too much human work for Hamas. (Hamas left her wheelchair behind when they kidnapped them, and I assume her medication.) On the other hand, this is why Hamas takes hostages, to use them as human shields. And it would give terrorists a perverse joy to let an Israeli rocket be her ultimate death. God help her and everyone in the hands of Hamas. The stories of torture are trickling in, and overwhelming. Children bound together and burned alive.
I’ve lived long enough that I shouldn’t be astonished that people don’t respond to the editor of the Jerusalem Post with horror about what he has to report, but with skepticism about his report. And yet, it is shocking. Even the hatred on social media is so evil. “What’s your source?” I watched people respond about children burned alive. He was just there. That’s his source. He’s reporting on horror he saw with his own eyes. (I can’t imagine.) He’s doing his job, which is quite unbearable at the moment. On more than one level.
And yet, it is shocking. Even the hatred on social media is so evil.
So many Jewish people throughout the world have been personally touched by the evil of Hamas this month — including as loved ones have been called up to serve on the frontlines in Israel.
I would worry that I am doom scrolling on Twitter/X looking at young faces from that concert; an ambulance driver who was murdered helping save lives; a married couple who protected their twins with their bodies, but I have been trying to say a prayer with each person. Hail Marys seem right, as she is the Jewish mother I know best. Jewish mothers’ hearts all over the world are wrecked right about now. And if God can give them any kind of consolation, she will be their best heavenly advocate. I’m also less worried about doom scrolling, because even when I get off my phone and walk around New York City, not only are there Israeli flags displayed on taxis and buildings and Grubhub delivery bikes, but there are signs for missing people.
Israel’s 9/11
Good people I respect on the ground in Israel have likened the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel as Israel’s 9/11. I was in New York on 9/11 — I remember the feeling of shock and fear, the barbecue smell that set in and winds spread. I also remember many of us thinking: We are all Israelis now, because the constant threat of terror is one that Israelis live in a unique way as a state. It’s part of the reason Israel exists in the first place. Sure, people hate Americans. But it’s not quite the insidious depths of evil with which people hate Jews. That said, my 9/11 flashback did come upon seeing photos and names posted on lampposts in Manhattan. Kidnapped by Hamas. It was a little more information than those had who were hoping beyond hope to find loved ones alive on 9/11, but still horrific.
That the newly elevated cardinal of Jerusalem offered himself in exchange for the release of children was encouraging. I’m not alone in expecting Hamas to never take him up on it — an elder Catholic cleric isn’t as powerful a hostage for them as a helpless child. He also doesn’t address their insatiable desire for Jewish blood. Antisemitism is what fueled the Holocaust and is what fueled that Shabbat of bloodshed on Israel. But the offer — the plea for the children — is the kind of courage we are called to have for our neighbors.
I understand that many religious houses have offered to be safehouses for the internally displaced in Israel and Gaza. I don’t know that they are widely being taken up on it. Israel has asked civilians in Gaza to leave before they go in to clear out the terrorists and, please God, free hostages. Why won’t Arab neighbors be more hospitable? Arguably, this is one of the reasons why you need Christians in the world. If they truly answer the call to be Christian, they will stand in radical solidarity and hospitality with their neighbors, whoever they are. Especially their elder brothers in the faith.
As violence, no doubt, escalates in the Middle East, please keep looking at the human faces, be kind to Jewish neighbors in pain and increase prayer for the innocents.
