We have to talk about it - The Jewish Standard

If we have learned anything from Tisha B’Av, it is that senseless hatred kills us. But we keep senselessly hating each other.

One of the ways that we do it is by arguing with each other not only about what is true, but whether we can report on the truth.

It reminds me of one of the word usages that drives me most crazy. Passed. Someone passed. Does that mean pulled into the oncoming lane on a country road to overtake a slower driver? Does it mean someone who did well enough on an entrance exam to continue to the next stage of a process? Does it mean someone who pretended to be something that she was not? Does it mean someone who had gas?

Often it does not. Often, it means died. Someone is dead.

But often the feeling is that if you don’t use the harsh but accurate word, the harsh but accurate truth won’t apply. The feeling is that until you say that someone is dead, it’s always possible that she’ll walk right back into the room.

In the Jewish world right now, we often get the feeling that we are not supposed to report on the rage that is driving us not only out of the rest of the world, but apart from each other as well.

We at the paper are not supposed to run a story about how rabbis talk about what’s going on in Gaza, because if we don’t talk about it, it’s not happening.

We know that the war in Gaza was caused by Hamas’s barbaric October 7 attack. We know that such an atrocity cannot go unavenged.

We look at the pictures of the hostages still left in the tunnels under Gaza, starved, tortured, abandoned, dying. They are so terrible that I can think of no adjectives to apply to them that would not cheapen the horror. We look at the photo of hostage Evyatar David, unbearably thin, digging what he’s been told is his own grave.

The hostages have to be released. Redeeming hostages is a core Jewish value, and it should be a core human value as well.

We don’t really know what’s going on in Gaza. No one who isn’t there really knows what’s going on. There’s confusion, and reporters aren’t allowed in unescorted. It’s clear that there is hunger, although certainly it’s also clear that images like the one the New York Times published of a starving child was in fact a child suffering from a genetic disease. We know that Hamas is keeping food away from its people, because its people suffering somewhere, in some profoundly evil way, helps its cause.

According to the Times of Israel, “Seventy-four percent of Israelis, including 60 percent of people who voted for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, back an agreement with Hamas that would release all the hostages at once in exchange for an end to the Gaza war.”

And we also know that the images coming out of Gaza, whether or not they are accurate, are influencing the world’s view of Israel. The images coming out of Gaza are turning the world against Israel. They are turning the Jewish state into a pariah state. The reasons for this change are profoundly unfair, but in many ways that truth is irrelevant. Despite October 7, despite the hostages, despite the history, the change is happening.

It benefits no one not to talk about it. It benefits no one to argue whether we have the right to talk about it. It benefits no one to pretend that this sea change is not going on, because if we can’t talk about it, we can’t confront it. Ignoring it certainly does not benefit our community.

—JP

Opinion

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