More than 500 employees of dozens of synagogues and Jewish groups signed a letter calling for a cease-fire. Most signed anonymously for fear of their jobs.
The longer this goes on, the more danger we’re all in, both Jews and Muslims. The longer this goes on, the more anti-semitism and islamophobia will become normalized, because the whole world will have somewhere to point and say “those people did bad things, so they must all be bad everywhere.”
The longer this goes on, the more our speech will be limited to avoid angering the moneyed class, the evangelical rapture cults, and the arms industry. The voices that matter most will be harder to hear because they’ll be drowned out by raw hatred coming from those who don’t understand the history of the region or its people.
We need to tone down the zealous rhetoric, back away from unconditional support of unreliable regimes, and remember that empathy is one of the most powerful and useful emotions, if we all allow ourselves to feel it.
This is what blows my mind about this situation. The tribal mentality has gotten so overwhelming as of late that people can’t even point to a conflict with two monsters fighting and just outright say that they’re both bad and not representative of everyone. On one side, people claim that Hamas literally is all Palestinians because “they elected them” despite that election being 20 years ago and Israel controlling all operations. On the other side, the Israeli government is somehow not just representative of all Jews in Israel but also all Jews globally despite Jews living all over with no ties to Israel.
It’s crazy and it’s the perfect storm for both sides to dehumanize each other and turn into martyrs and zealots. It will take a lot for anyone to get back to even the beginnings of empathy so long as people have religious motivations for their feelings and feel, not just justified, but righteous because of their beliefs.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to springboard off your post to share a similar sentiment. This is an article I read recently and I thought it was a very healthy, human, and loving take on the situation: https://lifeisasacredtext.substack.com/p/hand-in-hand
Thanks for sharing! That was a moving and insightful piece.
This is my favorite quote, which really says it all:
I asked my eldest—now a teenager—what he remembers from his experience in first grade. He chuckled wryly. “I learned that some Jewish Israelis are nice and some are jerks, and some Palestinian kids are nice and some are jerks.”
The longer this goes on, the more danger we’re all in, both Jews and Muslims. The longer this goes on, the more anti-semitism and islamophobia will become normalized, because the whole world will have somewhere to point and say “those people did bad things, so they must all be bad everywhere.”
The longer this goes on, the more our speech will be limited to avoid angering the moneyed class, the evangelical rapture cults, and the arms industry. The voices that matter most will be harder to hear because they’ll be drowned out by raw hatred coming from those who don’t understand the history of the region or its people.
We need to tone down the zealous rhetoric, back away from unconditional support of unreliable regimes, and remember that empathy is one of the most powerful and useful emotions, if we all allow ourselves to feel it.
This is what blows my mind about this situation. The tribal mentality has gotten so overwhelming as of late that people can’t even point to a conflict with two monsters fighting and just outright say that they’re both bad and not representative of everyone. On one side, people claim that Hamas literally is all Palestinians because “they elected them” despite that election being 20 years ago and Israel controlling all operations. On the other side, the Israeli government is somehow not just representative of all Jews in Israel but also all Jews globally despite Jews living all over with no ties to Israel.
It’s crazy and it’s the perfect storm for both sides to dehumanize each other and turn into martyrs and zealots. It will take a lot for anyone to get back to even the beginnings of empathy so long as people have religious motivations for their feelings and feel, not just justified, but righteous because of their beliefs.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to springboard off your post to share a similar sentiment. This is an article I read recently and I thought it was a very healthy, human, and loving take on the situation: https://lifeisasacredtext.substack.com/p/hand-in-hand
Thanks for sharing! That was a moving and insightful piece.
This is my favorite quote, which really says it all:
Glad you enjoyed it, I found it to be an unexpected and encouraging take.