9 Months and 1 Day...

 ...since those very first moments of shock and panic...are they all right, why are they not answering, maybe there is just one of those attacks that will be contained shortly after - no worries, we are strong, we are awake and not allowing the enemy, any enemy to destroy us again, to kill our children -, of feeling powerless...

...of being grateful for those few ones who asked how do we feel...

...of checking again and again who´s still alive and who is not answering and who is doing the miluim and who is gone...

...of feeling sorry for being alive, for being safe, for hiding in the attics of our fears...

...of Farhouds and Shoah and pogroms and Intifadas and terrorist attacks and 11/9...over and over again

...of learning again how to tell my children to stay away from them without telling them, to hide their stars, to train to fight, to distrust and still keep being proud...

...of highest security measures I´ve ever seen in the Gallut any kind of Gallut, for police guards on Shabbat and on Pesach and every day at schools and kindergartens and shops and broken glasses (again)...

...for tears and anger and screams and fighting and silence...because words cannot help...of running away from news because anyway, you cannot change anything, no one seems to can change anything, not today, not tomorrow never ever again...

...of seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months...nine months and 1 day since the world will never be the same again...

...of seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months of hope and despair of asking for a sign of life, or hoping there will be not another shiva...

...of simply building your own four-wall world, with a patch of sky, where to throw your curses and screams because no one, literally no one will ever help you, us, me and you...

...of having enough of rivers and seas and everything in between, of spitting on arguments made of poison and bile, of smeared Free Palestine and watermelons and ´Eyes on Rafah´ but not because hostages are kept there and keffieh and ´as a Jew´ and journalists praising them only because they cannot stop from hating us...

...of praying without words...

...of reading the news and seeing the pictures, of couldn´t stop from being anxious and fearing the worse for the world...

From Southerner to Settler

 

This is a fact that nothing and no one will change it: if you love the land of Israel and you feel connect religiously with Zionism, there is no other place to be but the land of Israel. There is no other place where one is able to learn the laws of the land and discover the everyday history in the making, but living and breathing there. 

There is a lot of harsh criticism against the ´settlers´, but rarely are took into consideration the testimonies and motivations of people included in this category. As in the case of any mass movement, there are different directions and school of thought, and listening to them may clarify this very important movement in the recent history of Israel.

And even if you are not reading books and making theoretical comparisons, spending some days in places like Efrat or Neve Daniel may put anyone in contact with the passion of people who moved to Israel by passion for the land.

This is how Susannah Schild, author of the blog Hiking the Holyland describes her decision to relocate with her family here: ´For me, Israel became the place where true spiritual pursuit was available, where religion was valued´. 

Her memoir: From Southerner to Settler. Unexpected Lessons from the Land of Israel may serve as an important guidance and explanation. Growing up in a family of established neurologists, she was aiming at raising her children in a less materialistic society. Once moved to Israel, the dissonance between life at home and life outside ended. As a Jew, she and her family were able to walk in the steps of our people, to feel the history of those places, to identify on the spot where history happened: ´an opportunity to really get to know Israel, the physical land of our forefathers and to understand its hidden message´.

The book is written in a relatable direct way, convening clearly the message and the meaning, an important testimony of Israeli and Jewish history.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Other Jews

How actual is the rift between Askenazim and Sephardim nowadays? More than one generation grew up fuelling the differences, but aren´t now the differences supposed to estompate, as the colours of an Impressionist painting?

Clearly, the new generation of Israeli, born and bred in the country, may not put too much emphasis on those old times´ differences. There are mixed marriages and except Pessach - with or without rice - there are not too many occasions when there is a clear reminder about those distinctions.

But it was not always the same and even nowadays, although praised and integrated as part of the everyday society, being Askenazi and being Sephardi may come to separate ends of the story. Which may turn against the everyday Israeli realities and may also fuel an old antisemitic stereotype regarding whitness myths and colonizer delusions.

Demographically and not only, Israeli society is not purely white. Descendants of people forced to run for their lives from the Arab lands do count in the country that, indeed, institutionally was set for the descendants of people murdered in the European lands. But Israel belongs to the Middle East and it is a success story of the Middle East, not Europe´s. 

Written at the end of the 1980s, The Other Jews. The Sephardim Today (Sephardim, not Mizrahim being considered the politically correct term used to designate Jews from Spain, Portugal, Balkans - such a neglected topic - Arab lands and Iran) , by the late researcher Daniel J. Elazar although it may have a lot of outdated information, it also has the merit of extensively covering the social and political origins of the issue. 

There is a certain note of outrage in the writing, that accompanies the general information about Israel´s ethnical origins as well as the failures, particularly institutional, in approaching the topic - but which country at the time was able to really foresee the difficulties of integration of groups of people with so different cultural and social backgrounds?

I was not very keen of the structure of the book, which outlines the situation of the Sephardim in Israel at the time, followed by a long list of short historical inserts covering communities around the world - although information is outdated, there are noteworthy details regarding the history of those communities, worth researching into depth further on - only to return to considerations about Jewish interactions and institutional and political considerations within Israel.

Looking back at those problems with the eyes and tools of 2024 gives more hopes than some of the conclusions of Elazar´s book. There were mistakes and maybe a one-sided perspective, including in the promotion of one vision of the country, one vision of history, one vision of Zionism, one vision of religious observance. But media, particularly social media, offers alternatives, displays the differences and diminishes the gaps. On the other hand, there is still so much to study and research about those communities and hopefully, will be able soon to present more studies, books and researches on this topics. Because, the biggest power of all times is knowledge, a powerful weapon against ignorance of all kinds and from all directions.