Today was unlike any day I’ve ever experienced. It consisted of two very distinct, very powerful emotions. Early this morning I was speaking with friends in Israel, texting with others, and combing the web in search of the latest updates on the impending war. I’ve been to Israel more times than I can remember. I say age-old prayers for Israel and its people at least a dozen times a day, more than that on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. These prayers have been a regular part of my life for the last thirty-six years. I mention this only to suggest to you the centrality of Israel in my life.
On the Shabbat of October 7, like so many others, I received the searing news that there had been a tragedy in Israel. A tragedy so horrifying that I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Some one-thousand terrorists from Hamas —whose charter includes the genocidal goal of eliminating the State of Israel and killing Jews wherever they are found—crossed the border from the Gaza Strip and began a massive slaughter of innocents, a modern-day pogrom. For those of you who don’t yet know about them, here are some details of that pogrom, which unfortunately, I must now share because without them the word “horrifying” will remain vague and hollow.
Hamas raped young women, took them hostage, murdered them and paraded their naked bodies through the streets of Gaza, all the while laughing and shouting. Hamas used automatic weapons to gun down at least 260 young people at a music festival. Hamas murdered entire families in their beds, infants, men, women, and young children. In one instance, there was a room in which a family of five had been beheaded. According to Israeli Army sources, their five severed heads had been propped up against a wall —the mother’s, the father’s and their three children’s. It was said to be so gruesome that veteran medical and military personal were afraid to enter the room.
Other families were burned alive. Hamas took babies hostage, young children were ripped from their mother’s arms and driven across the border into Gaza. Elderly women were murdered, others were kidnapped, some of them are reported to have been Holocaust survivors. As I write this, the total of the murdered numbered one thousand two-hundred human beings. All killed simply for being Jews. The number of wounded — and these wounds include bullet holes, shrapnel wounds, and loss of limbs—is in the thousands. The number of people taken hostage is assumed to be at least 127. This is an event for which there is not a string of words capable of conveying the shock to a tiny nation for whom a single soldier, held in captivity in Gaza for five years, was traded for a thousand known terrorists.
My family, my friends, my brother, my sister, my mother; everyone around me is distraught. My friend, the writer Wayne Robins, portrayed these feelings so poignantly: “I feel like the graves of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and back dozens of generations have been desecrated. If asked if I knew anyone lost or missing in the current paroxysm of inhumanity, I feel like, not anyone, everyone. Everyone.” Hamas’s slaughter of innocent Jews makes it the worst catastrophe to have struck the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
So, when I hear people minimizing what happened, relativizing it, dismissing it, or ignoring it altogether, as has happened so many times in our long history, I feel as if I’m living in a lurid dream. A dream where the sky is made of dirt and the ground is made of air. I am lost in that dream. For the moment we are all lost. Running and screaming, crying and praying. I shuddered when I read a post from Columbia University professor, Joseph Massad. Writing in the The Electronic Intifada, he sounded jubilant about what he’d termed “the Palestinian war of liberation,“ and the “shocking success” of the “Palestinian resistance.” I got sick to my stomach when I read this line in a statement from the Harvard Student’s Group: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” The words “unfolding violence” are to my ears, insane; they are themselves a manifestation of evil, a shriek of moral insanity.
Violence didn’t “unfold.” A terrorist group, funded and trained by Iran, endeavored with all their debased will to create a stratagem that would allow them to massacre Jews — just as it’s written in their Charter. Hamas’s pogrom didn’t take place in a war zone; it took place in people’s bedrooms. Unfolding violence? Does an infant commit violence? Is an old woman capable of violence? Good God, beheading babies? Raping and murdering young women, parading their bodies in the streets to cheers and laughter, burning people alive, taking children hostage? Who the hell are these “students,” these so-called best and brightest?
Now, to the next part of my day.
I arrived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for a brit milah celebration around 10:30 AM. Another grandchild was born to us last Wednesday. A beautiful boy. A light, a gift, a shining star. Just as my son Isaac announced his baby’s name out loud for the first time, he and I glanced over at one another, tears of joy filling our eyes. It’s amazing, I thought. All the pain I’d been feeling has now been transformed into rejoicing. All the fear and doubt I’ve been wrestling with has turned to courage and certainty.
The miraculous nature of the gift of this baby, this gift we’ve received from God, had, for the moment at least, become unmistakable. Out of the millions upon millions of moments I’ve experienced over the course of my sixty-three years, there are so few that have been permanently etched into my memory.
And now, as evening descends, I have —with a soaring sense of gratitude—come to realize that only one of this day’s distinct and powerful emotions will remain with me forever.
I leave it to you to guess which one.
Follow Peter Himmelman at peterhimmelman.substack.com
A Day Like No Other
Peter Himmelman
Today was unlike any day I’ve ever experienced. It consisted of two very distinct, very powerful emotions. Early this morning I was speaking with friends in Israel, texting with others, and combing the web in search of the latest updates on the impending war. I’ve been to Israel more times than I can remember. I say age-old prayers for Israel and its people at least a dozen times a day, more than that on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. These prayers have been a regular part of my life for the last thirty-six years. I mention this only to suggest to you the centrality of Israel in my life.
On the Shabbat of October 7, like so many others, I received the searing news that there had been a tragedy in Israel. A tragedy so horrifying that I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Some one-thousand terrorists from Hamas —whose charter includes the genocidal goal of eliminating the State of Israel and killing Jews wherever they are found—crossed the border from the Gaza Strip and began a massive slaughter of innocents, a modern-day pogrom. For those of you who don’t yet know about them, here are some details of that pogrom, which unfortunately, I must now share because without them the word “horrifying” will remain vague and hollow.
Hamas raped young women, took them hostage, murdered them and paraded their naked bodies through the streets of Gaza, all the while laughing and shouting. Hamas used automatic weapons to gun down at least 260 young people at a music festival. Hamas murdered entire families in their beds, infants, men, women, and young children. In one instance, there was a room in which a family of five had been beheaded. According to Israeli Army sources, their five severed heads had been propped up against a wall —the mother’s, the father’s and their three children’s. It was said to be so gruesome that veteran medical and military personal were afraid to enter the room.
Other families were burned alive. Hamas took babies hostage, young children were ripped from their mother’s arms and driven across the border into Gaza. Elderly women were murdered, others were kidnapped, some of them are reported to have been Holocaust survivors. As I write this, the total of the murdered numbered one thousand two-hundred human beings. All killed simply for being Jews. The number of wounded — and these wounds include bullet holes, shrapnel wounds, and loss of limbs—is in the thousands. The number of people taken hostage is assumed to be at least 127. This is an event for which there is not a string of words capable of conveying the shock to a tiny nation for whom a single soldier, held in captivity in Gaza for five years, was traded for a thousand known terrorists.
My family, my friends, my brother, my sister, my mother; everyone around me is distraught. My friend, the writer Wayne Robins, portrayed these feelings so poignantly: “I feel like the graves of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and back dozens of generations have been desecrated. If asked if I knew anyone lost or missing in the current paroxysm of inhumanity, I feel like, not anyone, everyone. Everyone.” Hamas’s slaughter of innocent Jews makes it the worst catastrophe to have struck the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
So, when I hear people minimizing what happened, relativizing it, dismissing it, or ignoring it altogether, as has happened so many times in our long history, I feel as if I’m living in a lurid dream. A dream where the sky is made of dirt and the ground is made of air. I am lost in that dream. For the moment we are all lost. Running and screaming, crying and praying. I shuddered when I read a post from Columbia University professor, Joseph Massad. Writing in the The Electronic Intifada, he sounded jubilant about what he’d termed “the Palestinian war of liberation,“ and the “shocking success” of the “Palestinian resistance.” I got sick to my stomach when I read this line in a statement from the Harvard Student’s Group: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” The words “unfolding violence” are to my ears, insane; they are themselves a manifestation of evil, a shriek of moral insanity.
Violence didn’t “unfold.” A terrorist group, funded and trained by Iran, endeavored with all their debased will to create a stratagem that would allow them to massacre Jews — just as it’s written in their Charter. Hamas’s pogrom didn’t take place in a war zone; it took place in people’s bedrooms. Unfolding violence? Does an infant commit violence? Is an old woman capable of violence? Good God, beheading babies? Raping and murdering young women, parading their bodies in the streets to cheers and laughter, burning people alive, taking children hostage? Who the hell are these “students,” these so-called best and brightest?
Now, to the next part of my day.
I arrived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for a brit milah celebration around 10:30 AM. Another grandchild was born to us last Wednesday. A beautiful boy. A light, a gift, a shining star. Just as my son Isaac announced his baby’s name out loud for the first time, he and I glanced over at one another, tears of joy filling our eyes. It’s amazing, I thought. All the pain I’d been feeling has now been transformed into rejoicing. All the fear and doubt I’ve been wrestling with has turned to courage and certainty.
The miraculous nature of the gift of this baby, this gift we’ve received from God, had, for the moment at least, become unmistakable. Out of the millions upon millions of moments I’ve experienced over the course of my sixty-three years, there are so few that have been permanently etched into my memory.
And now, as evening descends, I have —with a soaring sense of gratitude—come to realize that only one of this day’s distinct and powerful emotions will remain with me forever.
I leave it to you to guess which one.
Follow Peter Himmelman at peterhimmelman.substack.com
Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.
Editor's Picks
Israel and the Internet Wars – A Professional Social Media Review
The Invisible Student: A Tale of Homelessness at UCLA and USC
What Ever Happened to the LA Times?
Who Are the Jews On Joe Biden’s Cabinet?
You’re Not a Bad Jewish Mom If Your Kid Wants Santa Claus to Come to Your House
No Labels: The Group Fighting for the Political Center
Latest Articles
Gaza Masquerade Parties Can’t Mask Ugliness
By Putting Feelings Before Truth, Universities Created a Time Bomb
Taste Buds with Deb Celebrates One Year, A Triple Chai of Eps
The Nazis at George Washington U.
Elisha Wiesel and the Elie Wiesel Foundation Host Disrupting Uyghur Genocide Conference
John Ondrasik, Jonah Platt Highlight AJC, ADL Press Briefing at UCLA Hillel
Culture
Chico Menashe: Asif: Culinary Institute of Israel, Cooking with Chutzpah and The Open Kitchen Project
Welcome Back, Carbs!
A Perfect Pair of Confits
‘The Enemy Beside Me’: Can the Truth of Lithuania Holocaust History Be Told in Lithuania to Lithuanians and By Lithuanians?
Shabbat Prayer for Our College Students and Ourselves
1,400 Yizkors
In their memory, we must declare: Am Yisrael Chai.
Being Good is Easier to Resist than Sweezy vs New Hampshire
A Bisl Torah – Souls Connected
It is each soul connected to each other that enables the dwelling of God.
All the Fish in the Sea – A poem for Parsha Acharei Mot
There are plenty of fish in the sea …
Hollywood
Spielberg Says Antisemitism Is “No Longer Lurking, But Standing Proud” Like 1930s Germany
Young Actress Juju Brener on Her “Hocus Pocus 2” Role
Behind the Scenes of “Jeopardy!” with Mayim Bialik
Podcasts
Chico Menashe: Asif: Culinary Institute of Israel, Cooking with Chutzpah and The Open Kitchen Project
Beth Lee: OMG Yummy, Exciting Flavors and Preserved Lemons
More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.