We have every reason to be tired.
We have endured hearing about, reading about and seeing the terrible things done to our people on Oct. 7 and beyond. We have endured Oct. 8, a day where the world declared to us that spilling Jewish blood did not merit outrage. A day when the world declared that we were all ‘Zionist criminals’ and deserving of what we got. A day when the masks went up on the faces of protestors and the mask came down on the face of antisemitism around the world and in our own backyard. We have endured the GoPro cameras of our enemies, the murders of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra, Yaron Lischinsky, Sarah Milgrim and so many, many others. We have endured murders in Manchester on Yom Kippur, pogroms in Amsterdam and hate-filled marches throughout the cities of the West.
We have endured 2 years of our people at war. We have endured 738 days of captivity for our brothers and sisters. We are still waiting for all of the bodies of our slain Israeli brethren to come home.
So yes, we have every reason to be tired.
But we also have every reason to be inspired.
What have we been inspired by these past two years? We could be inspired by the incredible technology of the Mossad, exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, or the incredible success of the 12-day war against Iran. We could talk about the Iron Beam, which if you haven’t heard about it, is the coolest thing ever in shooting down missiles and a game changer in the world of defense systems. We can be inspired by the heroism of the young men and women of the IDF, may God bless each and every one of them. We can be inspired by the resilience and fortitude of Israelis, who brush themselves off after each and every siren, and each and every attack, and move on with their lives. We were inspired by Yale student Netanel Crispe, wearing an Israeli flag and tefillin, who continued to pray, despite being surrounded by pro-Hamas supporters screaming at him. I was inspired by a WhatsApp message that was forwarded – about a former special forces soldier who volunteered to replace a married soldier on the front lines over Rosh HaShanah so that the married soldier could go home to his family.
How can we not be inspired by released hostage Matan Angrest, who two days after his release went to attend the burial of his tank commander, Daniel Peretz, z”l, whose body was returned for full burial at Har Herzl? At that funeral Matan declared that he is ready to put his uniform on and return to Gaza to return the body of his fallen comrade, Itay Chen, z”l. How can we not be inspired by seeing the huge smile on the face of released hostage Omri Meiran, as he played at the beach with his two young daughters?
And I have been inspired these past two years watching the Jewish people come together to support each other, in Israel, in the world at large, and in our Milwaukee community. The feeling of unity and the sense of purpose and the commitment to doing and being Jewish together has been palpable.
We don’t know and can’t control how Hamas will behave and what will happen in Gaza. And we can only hope for the sake of our people and the Palestinian people that a real and true peace will blossom. That we have to leave to God. But what we can control is keeping those feelings of unity and purpose and commitment going. We can be inspired by all those around us who wore yellow and blue ribbons and dog tags and who ran for the hostages. We can fight hard to work towards Jewish unity. We can fight hard to keep our passion for Israel and its people running high. We can fight hard to be involved and committed Jewishly, using the returning hostages as inspiration. We can fight hard against antisemitism. We can fight hard to inspire those around us and to inspire ourselves.
After two years we have every excuse to be tired.
I pray and hope and believe that we will continue to be inspired.
The Chronicle publishes a variety of opinion articles, including this one, which are not necessarily representative of the views of this newspaper or its publisher.
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Free at last
With the release of 20 living hostages from Gaza last month, accompanied by at least a temporary ceasefire, several local people are offering their thoughts at this moment in history. See articles throughout this edition.
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