The medieval brutality of Hamas shocks us comfortable Americans to our bones. It is terror leveraged for political gain. In the late 1800s, my European great-grandparents sent their children to a pogrom-free life in America. They could just as easily have sent them to what was then “Palestine.” I could be dead.
Israel was founded on the graves of the six million Jews who died in World War II. It was to be a home of peace for a people homeless for thousands of years. But those who crafted the Israel solution in 1945 left their work unfinished. They created a new displaced people, and generations of rage.
At Friday night services around the world, Jews will read a list of congregants who died that week in years past. It is an act of honoring — not of lives lost, but of lives well lived, who were loved, who were part of something bigger than themselves. I am comforted by knowing my congregation will say my name once a year, even after I am forgotten.
Now, as we add thousands of Palestinian and Israeli names to the list of the dead, the whole world is grieving.
Pray for the captives.
Pray for all innocent civilians in the line of fire.
Pray for peace.
Karen Muriello, Oak Park