key<p>tl;dr: fuck Bibi, fuck Hamas, fuck the IDF, fuck everyone for making the world so incredibly hard to live in and a place that doesn't make sense and continuing to stoke the fires of the conflict in Israel and Palestine.</p><p>obviously, I miscalculated the work that it takes to translate the names from that article into a post that's viable for fedi. after all, there's no nuance on the internet, so why do I bother putting to use what I've learned of homiletics and posting for everyone here?</p><p>I truly don't know. I like to operate under the misguided assumption that what I post makes a difference, I guess.</p><p>but I'm also quite sure that even only four posts that <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/IsraelIsKillingChildren" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>IsraelIsKillingChildren</span></a> makes my point. I'll probably try to keep doing one per day until I finish the thread; however, it's too much for me to finish today or today and tomorrow.</p><p>as I was talking to my rabbi, my teacher, earlier tonight and trying to figure out how to address this in my little tiny leadership role in my little tiny conversion class that I am teaching this year, we were talking about the fundamental point here that two wrongs do not make a right and Israel cannot keep going forward down the path that it has chosen.</p><p>unfortunately, there are very many people in communities on both sides of <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/October7" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>October7</span></a> who are only able to have empathy for their own side. and that's no good. when I remember the dead I want to remember all of the dead, Israeli and Palestinian, Palestinian and Israeli, aid workers, doctors, university professors, all of the tragedy that has been brought about during this war and then very barely papered over to dissuade people from looking too close.</p><p>look closely.</p><p>be angry.</p><p>be angry at governments, not at ordinary people. it is not every Palestinian's fault for the actions of <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Hamas" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Hamas</span></a>, and it is not every Jewish person's, every Israeli's, fault for the actions of the Israeli government and military. be angry at Hamas, be angry at <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Bibi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Bibi</span></a>, be angry at the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/IDF" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>IDF</span></a>. be angry at any of the numerous of people who are guilty in this war; there are people to be angry at, and 'each other' isn't on the list.</p><p>if there's anyone who can think about everything that is going on in the Levant and the Middle East and think that everything's going just fine and this is a good direction, they're sick in the head. the whole thing is disgusting, and neither my teacher nor I have a good answer, other than to pray for peace, and that offers only so much comfort in the face of a world and a gxd that do not seem to care.</p><p>when I remember the dead, today and every day, when I hold space for this along with space for so many other travesties, I want to remember all of those who have passed during this war, not just the ones who share my faith. I cannot simply think about the survivors of the Nova festival and not think about the buildings and universities and hospitals that have been carpet bombed into oblivion. I want to remember that the vast majority of the people who have been killed in this war of Israeli aggression were non-combatants, women and children who even under the rules of warefare that supposedly civilised countries have agreed to, are not to be targeted, who are supposed to be allowed adequate time to exit an area before the fighting comes to it. women, and children, and people's families who weren't part of the fighting in the first place. doctors and aid workers and those who have given their lives trying to help in desperate and dire circumstances.</p><p>I don't understand how to live in this world.</p><p>I don't understand a world where a thousand people justify forty-two thousand dead and counting, justifies a child killed every fifteen minutes.</p><p>the Torah says, you shall not kill. it does not say you shall not kill except if this very specific situation which allows you to kill. it doesn't say you shall not kill unless they don't look like you or pray like you. it says you shall not kill. you shall not murder. yet for the entirety of human history it has been something that people struggle with and societies frequently get wrong.</p><p>hold space. take the space you need, where you can get it, to process this. hold space for people more affected than you, amplify voices of those closest to the ongoing tragedy, and fight back against the propaganda machines that want to keep you from actually looking at what is happening in <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Gaza" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Gaza</span></a>, in <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Lebanon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Lebanon</span></a>, in the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/WestBank" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WestBank</span></a>. </p><p>there are too many people on both sides who are only able to have empathy for their own sides. and we will not be able to move forward, to truly move forward, until both sides are ready to come together and talk to each other. not only talks about a ceasefire, but talks between Jewish neighbourhooods and Muslim ones, interfaith conversation and activity to show everyone that we are so much more alike than we are different. in order to be able to move forward we have to have empathy for all who have suffered. </p><p>it's easy to say that 'thoughts and prayers' sound dismissive, but for many of us, at the end of the day that is all we are able to do. </p><p>baruch Hashem, may the memories of all of those needlessly lost on both sides be for a blessing, and for a revolution.</p>