Recently on Facebook a friend of many years shared a piece about Israel and Palestine that made me feel defensive. I left a comment asking, "what made you want to share this? Help me understand."
Five minutes later I deleted the comment, because the thought of having that conversation (again) made me feel ground-down. I wasn't ready to face the prospect of another friendship foundering on these shoals.
This is a familiar story to many of us, I know. I've heard variations on it from so many. "I thought they understood me until they said..." "What must they think of me if they agree with that person about..."
Anytime I bring up the Middle East I feel braced against the likelihood that someone will get angry at me for what I am saying, or what I am not saying, or what they think I should be saying, about what I am feeling.
Vagueness makes for poor writing, I tell myself. Grow a pair. Say what you mean.
It hurts to care about Israel and (some) Israelis and to know that some people reject me for that reason. It hurts to be angry at Israel and (some) Israelis and to know that some people reject me for that reason.
It hurts to live with the moral injury of bearing witness to horrific trauma in Gaza, knowing that people who share my religion have made choices I find unbearable. And it also hurts to see Israelis experiencing harm.
It hurts to know that my Israeli beloveds are living with trauma, including the trauma of needing to warn their children, "don't speak Hebrew aloud when you travel because you might get attacked if you do."
(That one also pushes my button marked: will my teenager be safe today as the only person in his school who wears a kippah, or will today be the day someone lashes out at him because of what they think he represents?)
It hurts to brace myself against expected accusations: "how can you care about Israelis traveling abroad when Gazans can't leave Gaza at all?" Or "How can you care about them when we live with terror and fear?"
It hurts to catch myself counting how many times I've expressed empathy for Israelis in this post, and how many times I've expressed empathy for Palestinians in this post, as though balance would protect me.
It hurts to feel the Jewish community fraying, maybe breaking in two. Haven't we always balanced universalism and particularism?"If I am not for myself, who will be for me; but if I am only for myself, who am I?"
I wish we could give ourselves space to feel without making excuses. And especially on matters of Palestine and Israel, I wish we could give each other grace for all of the feelings swirling in our broken hearts.
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