Day 4- A Story of Shoes, as Told to Yitro
01/31/2024 05:44:06 PM
Jan31
This week, as I find myself in the midst of an intense mission to Israel with 20+ other rabbis and community leaders, the Torah portion, Yitro, has offered me some wisdom that helps me put these experiences into context. We read that Yitro, in his dwelling-place of Midian heard (“Vayishma Yitro”) everything that happened to Moses and the Israelites. He went to meet them. When Moses told him everything that happened, Yitro had an additional response, “Vayihad Yitro.” This literally means that Moses was glad, but the sages, in tractate Sanhedrin 94a, explain that it means that his skin became sharp points- literally he got goosebumps. He had already heard the story through indirect channels, but actually being in the community that experienced it, generated an emotional response that it was so strong that it manifested physically.
Those of us on the trip are going through the same phenomenon that Yitro did. Like Yitro, we already knew what had happened- that is why we chose to come. Many of us had already spoken and written about what happened. Today’s journey made October 7 real for us in a very different way. We saw two of the places where the massacres happened, Kfar Aza, and the site of the Nova festival. For pictures that go along with this story see. This Facebook album. I must warn you, some of what I write and show below is graphic, but I write with purpose.
I think it is possible to visit or write about such places in a voyeuristic way- for some of the same reasons that I am sometimes uncomfortable about visiting Holocaust sites. At the moment, this concern is overridden by the need to bear witness, at a time when many are already denying what happened. I went so that I could say that the pictures you see are not AI.
We visited Kfar Aza, a town whose fence is barely a mile from Gaza. This was real, no Disneyland or stage. The atmosphere at the gate where we arrived was almost peaceful. It was hard to believe that only 63 people had been murdered there. Of the 18 taken hostage, 13 have returned to tell the story, and another five are still held in Gaza. We met the survivors and the witnesses. As we approached the back gates, we saw very clearly what had happened. The homes showed damage from fire, bullets, and rocket-propelled grenades. Each house showed markings indicating the steps of what had been done. First, showing that the house had been cleared of terrorists, second, whether human remains had been found. Third, many of the homes, and even the bodies of the murdered, had been booby trapped, with explosive triggers placed on the dead, in children’s backpacks, and more, and those had to be found and dislodged. Only then could the bodies of the dead be moved.
However, security footage from the day showed that after the Hamas’s trained murderers came through, Gazan civilians followed to loot and bring back hostages, often dragged barefoot and in pajamas. The streets were still strewn with the possessions of the victims, mattresses and appliances. In front of one home, scattered shoes at the front steps gave a cryptic sign of what had happened to those who lived there.
Many houses had signs showing the faces of those who had been murdered or kidnapped from that home. We met Shimon and Anta parents of one victim. They had opened up the home of her murdered daughter and her partner. You could see the bullet holes in the walls, in the refrigerator. Pictures of the home as it looked when it was found made it clear that the inhabitants had been shattered by a grenade exploded in close quarters, and yet other pictures showed signs of the residents as they were meant to be- living their lives- a siddur and kippah, a copy of Judith Blume’s “It’s not the End of the World.” In front of another home, we found volunteers sifting through the remains of the possessions of a resident who had been kidnapped to see what was salvageable, in case he returned home. One of the families were strong peace activists. Every Saturday they went to the border to fly kites with messages of friendship and hope. One of those blue kites was found in their home next to the remains of the parents and three young children.
As we were viewing this destruction, we were startled by a loud boom that could be felt in every bone. We had signed waivers with dire warnings about shrapnel gear, but none had been provided. That close to the border, sirens are useless. 7-15 seconds is about enough time to get on the ground and cover your head, let alone get to a shelter. Within seconds our guide reassured our group “don’t worry, that was us.” Over the course of the day, we would hear occasional thuds of artillery being fired or the sounds of air force planes and drones. Often, after a few Missisippis, there would be weaker thud, or perhaps column of smoke would rise from across the border, just a few miles away. Israelis, and members of group, debate what the best way is to fight the war, and even what its goals might be, and whether those aims can be achieved. What path would actually bring about peace? In that place, knowing that the projectiles that were coming from our side were, at least for this moment, taking out possible sources of return fire was all the military strategy I could contemplate.
Later that day, we visited the site of the Nova massacre, where 364 were killed. The victims included the nephew of the Mohamud Darawshe, whom we met yesterday, and Shani Gabai, a resident of Yokneam whose picture we had had up in our synagogue, thought captured, but finally identified as murdered. It was from there that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was maimed and taken into Gaza alike, was taken. The rave with over 1000 participants had been scheduled to be held a few miles further into Israel, but was moved at the last moment. I had seen videos taken at the scene by the victims of gunmen on paragliders, of couples last photos while hiding from the gunmen, of cars trying to escape being shot into by other terrorists who had commanded choke-points on the only road out of the region. I had also seen the videos taken by those who were the first on the scene after it was cleared, where bodies lay strewn, many of them mutilated. The scene itself was all the more eerie for its calm beauty. To reach the site, we walked through a field of red Calanit flowers, thought to symbolize the blood of the dead. There was an area where there were monuments to each of the victims- a post with a sign, and objects left by their loved ones. Next to a grove of mature trees, JNF had just planted a new grove of trees, each one labelled with the name of a victim. These were young people, cut down in the prime of their lives.
We also passed one of the dumps where all the Israeli cars attacked that day and unclaimed had been taken. Some had clearly been destroyed- on the main road you can still see where cars were set ablaze. The ones that showed little exterior damage may have belonged to people who did not survive to claim them- like all the cars that remained at the commuter rail two days after 9/11.
However, the day was also a day of stories of resolve and heroism.
We met the mayor and assistant mayor of Sederot, the largest city in the region, who showed us footage of the terrorists in white trucks driving the streets that day shooting civilians, the site of the police station that they took over that was eventually destroyed. They talked about only about 1/5 of the residents have not yet returned, and how they are running a municipality that serves the rest of the residents scattered across the country. They declared that they are not leaving, and in fact, if we come back 10 years from now, Sderot will be even bigger. We met two rabbis who remained in town. The Habad rabbi . Rabbi Asher Pizem, narrowly escaped being shot a number of times, and helped get food and supplies to people before the government was able to assist. His synagogue famously has a menorah made of falling rockets. Another rabbi, Hertzel Shoabi, walked to his synagogue just a block from the police station. Terrorists shot him in the back and the bullet went right through him. He managed to get back inside the synagogue. Realizing that no ambulance was coming and that he was going to bleed out, he managed to get to a clinic from which he was evacuated, and he miraculously recovered. When he came back, he found that his office was the same as he had left it- with candy and supplies for Simhat Torah ready to be put out- except that it taken a direct hit from a rocket. (comments about how it looks compared to my own will be ignored).
There were so many stories of heroism. While many blame the Israeli government and the IDF leadership for ignoring the danger, and for horrific mismanagement of the response, there is tremendous respect for Israeli soldiers, and many others, who ran towards danger. Many Kibbutzim were defended by a small guard group of residents. There are still re-election signs up for the head of the regional council, who lived in Kfar Aza. He left his home to fight the attackers and was killed. In Atlanta, we know the story of Rose Lubin, who ran out to defend the gates of her kibbutz, only to be murdered weeks later in Jerusalem. Others had more luck. Our bus security guard grew up in a small kibbutz called Mefalsim. He had not previously told the story of what happened the morning of October 7th. He and about a dozen other defenders held off a force three times as large, armed with automatic weapons and grenades, for almost four hours until the IDF arrived. All of the residents survived. However, dozens of his friends in the area did not. Just outside the gates, dozens had been slaughtered, including 15 senior citizens on their way to a spa day.
As I contemplate these experiences, and many more that I do not have the time or strength to share, I feel them, viscerally, in a way that cannot be understood from afar. As we try to put them into context, perhaps we can understand that, as Jonathan Sarna, the scholar of Jewish history, teaches, Jewish history is cyclical. Before October 7th, our group had already intended to travel together, first to Poland and then to Israel. As the trip was reconceived, the Poland stop was eliminated in part because the sites in Poland had now been re-enacted on Jewish soil.
In fact, every generation of Jews has known these stories. My ancestor, Rabbi Yom Tov Lippman Heller, wrote religious poetry about the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-9, in which over 100,000 Jews slaughtered. In 1929, my grandmother, Frances Lesser Heller, traveled to the Land of Israel. What was intended to be a tour in the grand style quickly became something else, as she witnessed the escalation of violence. My sister, Miriam Heller Stern, has transcribed her diary, which includes accounts of the attacks she witnessed personally (an Arab trying to run down a Jewish child, an attack on a funeral procession), and the ones where she bore witness for those who could not, like the Jewish community of Hevron, which was slaughtered just a few days after she visited. Without accounts like hers, some of these stories might not be known. I don’t know if there will be peace even a century from now, let alone what path might bring us there. But I can hope that my descendants will be around to read these words about this moment. Our congregation is running a similar trip, so that you, too, can volunteer and witness, in two months. Please contact Rabbi Breit to join in.
The day ended with our ascent to Jerusalem. I had to take a break from our program because my sole was broken. That is not a misspelling- my one pair of shoes that I had brought with me had cracked in half, and while many pilgrims had walked the streets of the holy city barefoot, that was not my goal. A quick walk to Mamilla mall, full of vibrant life, brought me new sole and soul. After seeing so much, knowing that Israel lives on brought me comfort. They say that history is written by the victors. I’m not sure that is true. Often in Jewish history, knowing that our story would outlive us would be as much as we could dream.
Thu, May 9 2024 1 Iyyar 5784