October 9, 2023

Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem. 

The news that some women at the Israeli music festival were raped by Hamas terrorists before they were murdered is a reminder that this is not the first time Palestinian Arab terrorists have employed sexual violence as a weapon.

Nearly a century ago, in the aftermath the Arab pogrom against Jews in Hebron in 1929, a journalist visiting one of the victims’ homes reported: “The 12 foot-high ceiling [was] splashed with blood. The rooms looked like a slaughterhouse … the severed sexual organs and the cut-off women’s breasts … lying scattered over the floor and in the beds … [N]ot a single item had been left intact except a large black-and-white photograph of Dr. Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Around the picture frame the murderers had draped the blood-drenched underwear of a woman.”

Many accounts of the Arab invasion of the newborn state of Israel in 1948 have described the sexual mutilation of Jewish corpses that was discovered after Arab forces overran the Kfar Etzion bloc. Likewise, Amnon Rubinstein, later a Member of Knesset, wrote in his diary about the genital mutilation of three of his comrades who were guarding a stranded tank in the 1967 war when Arab troops came upon them.

In her acclaimed book, “Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape,” the sociologist Susan Brownmiller wrote about the use of rape as a weapon against Jews in Europe before and during the Holocaust.  Brownmiller quoted from Red Cross reports about anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in 1919. In a “typical” pogrom, “the gang breaks into the township, spreads all over the streets, separate groups break into the Jewish houses killing without distinction or age and sex everybody they meet, with the exception of women, who are bestially violated before they are murdered.”

A report on a pogrom in another village, Kremenchug, referred to “three hundred and fifty cases of rape … neither children of 12 nor old women of 60 were spared. After they had been ravished, the little girls were thrown down the water-closets.”

In the town of Fastiv, where 600 Jews were massacred, the pogromists “threw themselves upon the girls under age with a perfect brutal fury and ravished them before the very eyes of their parents, powerless to interfere.” Some “particularly atrocious scenes took place in the courtyard of the synagogue where the Jews had sought refuge.” The courtyard was “covered with the bodies of women, children, old men, and young girls who had been ravished. Many people became insane.”

Brownmiller then pointed to the synthesis of rape and anti-Jewish violence in the ideology of Nazism. She noted a remark by Nazi war production chief Albert Speer: “Hitler always said that the masses are essentially feminine, and his aggressiveness and charm elicited an almost masochistic surrender and submission in his audience — a form of psychic rape … He didn’t convince his audiences, he conquered them.”

Rape “is the quintessential act by which a male demonstrates to a female that she is conquered—vanquished—by his superior strength and power,” Brownmiller wrote. “[I]t was perfectly logical within the framework of fascism that rape wold be employed by the German soldier as he strove to prove himself a worthy Superman.” Thus during the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938 and throughout the Holocaust years to follow, there were numerous instances of Nazis raping Jewish women. Many of those atrocities have been documented in books such as “Sexual Violence against Jewish Women During the Holocaust,” coedited by Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle Saidel. The USC Shoah Foundation has more than 1,700 testimonies by survivors about rapes and other sexual violence.

“In fact,” Brownmiller continued, “it would have been highly illogical if rape were not in the German soldier’s kit bag of weapons … Rape for the Germans … played a serious and logical role in the achievement of what they saw as their ultimate objective: The total humiliation and destruction of ‘inferior peoples’ and the establishment of their own master race.”

Rape appears to play a similar role in the psychology of Palestinian Arab terrorists, from the 1920s to our own time.

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest is America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.

Today, a country much like yours was invaded by barbarians — homes, schools and workplaces have all been overrun, and hundreds have been killed, or worse. Hundreds of Israeli families, much like yours, have been left traumatized and grieving in the wake of unimaginable evil. For the dozens of Israeli hostages who have been forcibly taken to Gaza, and for their loved ones, the nightmare continues.

Fifty years to the day after the start of the Yom Kippur War, as most Israelis were celebrating the joyous holiday of Simchat Torah, Hamas terrorists from Gaza mounted an unprecedented invasion of southern Israel from land, sea and air. They crossed into Israel on motorcycles, trucks, speedboats, and motorized paragliders and launched 2,000 rockets at Israeli cities, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Please understand what is happening and what is different this time, although it is what Hamas has always sworn to do if they gain power over Israeli Jews. Hamas has launched a mass invasion of the Israeli heartland, penetrating neighborhoods and kibbutzim, going house to house, and committing unspeakable atrocities.

While the numbers are expected to rise, as of this writing, over 700 Israelis are known to have been murdered and well over 2,000 wounded on this terrible day. Most horrifying of all, at least 100 Israelis are believed to currently be held hostage in both Israel and Gaza. Some of the images I’m about to share with you in the following hyperlinks are graphic, but they need to be seen.

Video has begun to emerge of Israelis, old and young, male and female, who have been snatched from their homes and taken alive to the terror enclave. There are civilians like a Jewish Israeli woman who was reportedly kidnapped and taken to Gaza, an apparent victim of rape, as well as Israeli soldiers —including commanders — abducted. Horrific and bizarre images show Israeli toddlers held in animal cages as abductors laugh wildly.

An unknown number of young people are unaccounted for from a dance party that was attacked in the desert at Kibbutz Re’im, but there is footage of hundreds of young rave-goers desperately fleeing from incessant automatic fire. Some have been filmed being transported, screaming, to Gaza. There have been eyewitness accounts of mass rapes of young women next to their butchered friends. There are images of Shani Louk, a young German tourist,her half-naked body desecrated and paraded naked through the streets of Gaza, her leg bent at an unnatural angle.

There are many indications that young women were specifically targeted as hostages, and some even had their legs shot off to prevent escape. At least four Americans were among those taken. Some Israelis were beheaded by their assailants in an act of truly medieval butchery.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said it best in his letter to the United Nations Security Council members: “These are appalling war crimes and the international community must strongly and clearly condemn them.”

We know this attack could not have been possible without the extensive training, coordination, supply and funding that the Gaza terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) receive from Iran. Iran has celebrated the gory assault, with a senior advisor to Supreme Leader Khamenei saying it was a “proud operation” that has achieved “brilliant victories.” The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy on Israel’s northern border, says they’re assessing the situation, and there remains the risk of a multifront war.

The illusion that genocidal terrorists are focused on destroying “settlements” and not Israel itself and its people have been dispelled, along with the theory that Iran would do anything with American funds other than to invest it back into bloodshed and chaos. Most importantly,  it dispelled the myth that there’s any possibility of living side-by-side with a regime controlled by bloodthirsty murderers. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, Israel is now in a state of war: One our nation did not choose but must win. As a nation much like America reels from an inconceivable violation, please stand with us in our hour of need. Israel needs America’s support more than ever.

Noa Tishby is the former Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization of Israel.

In April, 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower visited the freshly-liberated Ohrdruf concentration camp. He vomited. Eisenhower called the atrocities “beyond the American mind to comprehend,” then ordered all available troops to visit the camp “to see why we were fighting.”

That last Saturday’s atrocities were also incomprehensible to all civilized people reveals how evil the perpetrators — and their cheerleaders — are. Over these next difficult months, let’s remember these war crimes of mass murder, kidnapping, abuse, of sheer inhumanity and Jew-hatred, as Israel does what it must do to defend itself. And anytime any of us, anywhere, hesitates, scroll back to those images of slaughtered families, of mutilated corpses, of defiled women, and of that little boy bullied by other little boys — riled by Palestinian adults — simply for being Jewish,  to “see why we are fighting.”

Thanks to Hamas, American Jewry’s long-Silenced Majority has found its voice — putting partisanship aside. I have been deluged with messages from American Jews — vindicating those of us who keep reading the polls showing that over 80% of American Jews support Israel, even as others pay too much attention to the loud, shrill minority of anti-Zionist, un-patriotic, un-Jews.

Everyone keeps uttering the four most powerful words in the American Jewish vocabulary: “How can I help?”

This may be this generation’s May, 1967 moment. That awful month, the Arab calls to “throw Israel into the sea” stirred Jews worldwide, making them realize how important it is to see Israel flourish. In October, 2023’s non-partisan, heartfelt, Jewishly-patriotic offers of assistance, I hear a similar echo, a realization that Israel is fighting for its life against barbarians — and we all need Israel and the Jewish people to live, more than many realized.

•  The first answer is, “give with your hearts”: Israelis are reeling, and it’s only going to get worse. Every day, as the lists of dead lengthen, Israelis learn of more dead loved ones, and of more evils perpetrated against their fellow citizens. As the world’s memory of these brutalities fades, as criticism mounts of Israel’s “disproportionate response,” that in this war it didn’t seek a chockful of bad choices, the need for support, understanding, empathy, true love, genuine patriotism, will grow exponentially.

• Also, “give with your spines.” You saw the Jew-hatred. You saw how anti-Zionism and antisemitism created a spiral of poison and violence. Stand up for your people! Stand tall against the haters. Be willing to be unpopular — taking on your particular tribe’s Israel-bashers and Jew-haters. Republicans should stop weaponizing support for Israel — it’s not a partisan issue — and Democrats must clean house.

This may not be politically correct, but with most American Jews leaning left, the challenge of Progressive Bash-Israel-First-ing is much greater. While most Americans, including most liberals, remain pro-Israel, let’s be honest: Being anti-Israel has become not just an easy virtue-signal but the instinctive admission card to too many Progressive circles. Knee-jerk anti-Zionism infects much Progressive discourse, including anti-racism work, campus life, and, increasingly, the Democratic Party’s disproportionately powerful radicals. It’s time to confront “Democratic Socialists of America” when they hold a pro-Palestine rally despite all that spilled Jewish blood. Start asking politicians you support to reject their endorsement — not sit there like some anxious high-schooler waiting for the cool kids’ approval.

•  “Give with your minds,” learn the facts. Start explaining Israel’s position, not because it’s perfect, but because its enemies — as we saw — are perfectly evil. Learn how Israel got into this mess and why Israel is justified in taking some time if necessary to change the military rules of the game.

Understand Israel’s dilemmas: Its lose-lose choices in managing Gaza; its moral challenge in fighting an enemy hiding behind mosques, hospitals, and kindergartens; its disappointment that the Gaza Disengagement of 2005, which was supposed to bring peace and democracy, instead rained down death and evil.

Learn about  the communal blind spots of “two-staters” who misread Palestinian political culture as seeking to live together rather than to destroy the Jewish state.  Learn about the Palestinian death cult — mimicking the nihilism of ISIS and other barbarians, all fueled by Islamism. Take it seriously when Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a Hamas leader, shares his dream: “The entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors.”

Ask the tough questions about what’s going on culturally, and existentially. Explore what has happened to the West culturally — why, when too many of us look in the mirror, we only see flaws, yet when we stare our enemies in the face, we somehow overlook their evil. See how obsessive anti-Zionism — blaming Israel for Western crimes it never committed, from colonialism to imperialism — is often the glue uniting these disparate and conflicting ideologies.

And do a deep dive into Iran. See how it foments so much evil regionally, how it targets Big Satan — America — not just Little Satan — Israel, and yet, too many American policymakers go soft on the Mullahs.

•  Give with your fingertips: use whatever internet skills you have to make Israel’s case, to expose the haters, and explain the red line distinguishing Zionism, a liberal-democratic nationalism that seeks to build its people up and help the world, from Palestinianism, a totalitarianism nationalism that seeks to knock others down and corrupts the world.

•  Give with your muscles, meaning your political muscle: Encourage Joe Biden to keep supporting Israel, to confront Iran more directly, and to try, with his Republican rivals, to keep support for Israel a rare bipartisan value, uniting America.

•  And finally, yes, give money, to individual funds and to more formal philanthropies — for supplies, for equipment, for rebuilding and healing.  One cousin wondered who helps pay for all those soldiers flying back from abroad. He was shocked that it comes out of their pockets. Open yours too.

Sunday, October 8, the day after that blood-drenched Shabbat from hell, it felt that every Israeli woke up in a fog … Those, that is, who were lucky enough to wake up — and lucky enough to wake up in freedom, in our state, not in a state of capture in savage hands. Jerusalem was deathly quiet. There was a heaviness in the air — and in my chest. Everyone seemed to be sharing the same thoughts — how could it have happened … how much higher will the death toll spike … what about those poor captives … what kind of people behave so brutally and, most nerve-wracking of all, where will this all go and how will it end?

Then suddenly by afternoon, civilians starting circulating shopping lists — buying supplies for our troops en masse. My son calls it a “balagan of trumot” — a chaotic cornucopia of donations. My wife went to buy toiletries for our son’s platoon of 80, partially financed by American friends and relatives. Mishpachat Fishman— strangers — saw her overflowing shopping cart – and added 200 shekels!

That’s why I love the Jewish people. We don’t stand idly by. So build on the great American Jewish traditions of generosity, solidarity and love of Israel — and help with your hearts, spines, minds, fingertips, muscles — and wallets. Am Yisrael Chai.

Professor Gil Troy, a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute,  is an American presidential historian, and, most recently, the editor of the three-volume set, “Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings,” the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People.