[Sundaycommunity] FW: Rabbi Denise Handlarski - Toronto Star - excellent article

[David Walsh]

  *   copied below.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/im-a-rabbi-heartbroken-over-october-7-and-the-violence-in-palestine-heres-what-i/article_9be6869a-826b-11ef-961a-27bdb57a0a6b.html
Opinion | I’m a rabbi heartbroken over October 7 and the violence in Palestine. Here’s what I wish each side understood about the other
Updated Oct. 8, 2024 at 11:30 a.m.
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[protest-york.JPG]
A protest at BAYT synagogue in York Region.
R.J. Johnston Toronto Star
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By Denise Handlarski, Contributor
Denise Handlarski is the rabbi of Secular Synagogue and teaches at Trent University.
 The ongoing events in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and the entire region have consumed so many of us this past year. They have left me feeling torn and isolated. I am a rabbi, a proud member of the Jewish community, and a member of what in recent months has been called the “lonely Jewish left.” I often find myself stuck between an increasingly right-wing Jewish community and leftist political and activist circles that feel increasingly antagonistic towards Jews.
It has been heartbreaking to witness the catastrophic loss of life on and since October 7th. What has also been heartbreaking has been the weaponization of grief and trauma. My fellow Jews cry “never again” while allowing tens of thousands of their neighbours to be killed in the name of their safety. Pro-Palestinian supporters similarly dehumanize Jews and Israelis, celebrating their deaths as meaningful “resistance” in payback for the Nakba and decades of occupation.
The word often used for this conflict is “intractable.” It is that way because of the inability for each side to empathize with and humanize the other. While operating from their own intergenerational trauma, each side justifies the unjustifiable. Every time human life is devalued in this way, it makes possible a greater escalation of violence. October 7th is a terrible anniversary of a horrific day of violence, and also an occasion to focus on the ongoing horrific violence that has escalated ever since. There are some things I wish those who call themselves Zionists and those who call themselves anti-Zionists would understand about the other side.
Each claims Indigeneity and ancestral connection to the land, while eliding similar claims from the other. Each celebrates “wins” against the other side that include unimaginable civilian casualties, including sexual violence and the deaths of children — even when those events will certainly engender more violence. Each believes that the entire territory belongs to their side and refuses to acknowledge the ongoing cost of the pursuit of that goal.
There are seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Both have ancestral and sacred connections to the territory. A starting point must be that no one is going anywhere. It is easy to be in our outrage and grief here, away from the region, fanning the flames of an ideological war. But the hostage families, Gazan citizens, people in the West Bank, the Jews evacuated from the border with Lebanon, those under siege in Lebanon – most of these people simply want all of this violence to stop.
Jewish and Palestinian security and freedom are intertwined. Whether the eventual resolution lies in a two-state solution, a one-state solution, or a confederation of some kind, there will be no liberation or, in Netanyahu’s framing, “total victory” that comes from the dehumanization of the other.
I don’t say this to create a false equivalence between the power, death toll, or any other facet of this situation. Rather, it’s that the pain of a parent who lost a child on October 7th, and the pain of a parent who lost a child to an Israeli air strike, are exactly the same. That pain cannot be captured or healed by slogans, posturing, self-righteousness, or quippy take-downs. And the more we refuse to see the pain of the other, the more that pain gets weaponized into violence.
If we are going to take a side, let’s be on the side of peace and mutual security. The true tragedy of this past year has been that there is no community better suited to understanding the Jewish histories of exile, oppression, and trauma than Palestinians, and vice versa. We are neighbours, we are siblings. We need to find a way to live beside each other both in Israel/Palestine and in the diaspora — and that starts with seeing the humanity in one another, acknowledging the intergenerational trauma both groups carry, and deciding to create a shared future where Palestinians and Jews can flourish.
Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details<https://www.thestar.com/site/static-pages/glossary.html>

I'm a rabbi heartbroken over October 7 and the violence in ...
[cid:image002.jpg at 01DB1A5A.8F7D3D50]Toronto Star
https://www.thestar.com › Opinion › Contributors

Contributor. Denise Handlarski is the rabbi of Secular Synagogue and teaches at Trent University.





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