A Year of Death: We Are Not Free to Desist From the Work

It is hard to fathom that it has been a year since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. For many, the world was altered forever and has stood still since then. Here in Israel, many mark the date in two ways. Today, for example, the day I am writing this piece, is both Sept. 15 and October 345. That says it all.

Last summer, I received an email about an online course in Thanatology, the study of death and dying. I signed up immediately. Somehow, I knew this was going to be a year of death and dying.

The course was scheduled to start on Oct. 14, at 2 a.m. Israel time. I had assumed I would not attend that session live, but rather, would watch the recording. But at 1 a.m., a siren went off — missiles were headed to our area — so I spent an hour with my family in our safe room. When we were told we could come out, I looked at my watch. It was 2 a.m., just in time to join my course. So I went online and joined the class.

That class began a journey into making peace with death — mine and that of others. From the moment we are born, we walk through life with death on our shoulder. At any moment, we could die, and at some moment, we surely will. Yet ironically, most people do not talk about death. It is the one thing we know will happen to us all, but we rarely discuss it. In this course, we did.

In that first session, we watched a video a woman had made of her husband’s death. Terminally ill, he decided that he would stop eating when he felt ready to die. She filmed him at various points in his death journey until his cremation. This man had full control over his death and funeral to the last detail. I wept through the film. I had spent the last week reading about person after person who had died a tragic, brutal and horrible death — nothing like the death of this man. It was painful to watch, so unfair.

That was my initiation into this year of death.

It is customary at the first year after a death to unveil the headstone and make a speech. I could focus on all the tragic deaths of this past year, both in Israel and in Gaza, and in the West Bank, too. But that would feel endless, especially as it is ongoing. A traditional year of morning has closure. Not this one. The Kaddish continues. So, the topic of this yahrzeit “speech” will be what has been lost and gained for me these past 12 months on a more spiritual level.

I moved to Israel in my 20s. I grew up in a religious Zionist home with much family in Israel. I arrived with love for this place but also with eyes wide open. I knew there was work to be done, and I was an activist from the start. I hit the ground running.

At first, my activism was more focused on religious pluralism, and I am still involved in that work. But when I moved to the Galilee, made many more Palestinian Israeli friends and realized the extent to which the Zionist narrative I had been taught is only part of the story, the foci of my activism, and much of my writing became healing our painful past and building a joint peaceful future. (It was the theme of my debut novel, Hope Valley.) If that issue is not solved, I see no future for this country.

More recently, I became especially involved in Standing Together, a grassroots activist movement based on equal partnership among Palestinian and Jewish Israelis. I had a clear redemptive vision of how we were meant to live together in peace, and I believed we were on the path towards it. I knew it was a long road ahead, but I believed we were moving in the right direction.

Then Oct. 7 happened. My vision was not shattered, and my relationships with my Palestinian Israeli friends remain intact. In fact, our local Standing Together chapter has doubled in size since then, and our work has only intensified. And so, I believed this major crisis would be the shattering that would lead to resolution, that Palestinians and Israelis would realize the status quo is not sustainable and the all-or-nothing aspirations on both sides are not attainable.

But from where I sit now, it seems the opposite has occurred. The leadership on both sides seems determined to use this historical moment to either destroy the other or destroy us all, rather than find a way for us all to live here together in peace.

That does not mean we who believe in a different vision are giving up. It means the road ahead is longer than we had expected, and the stakes are higher. Personally, for me this year has meant having to make my political activism even more of a top priority than it already was. It has meant putting aside other projects, interests and responsibilities in reaction to the urgency of the moment.

After the elections but before the war, I was already demonstrating against this government every Saturday night, in addition to my peace work and Palestinian-Jewish partnership-building activism. Now, since the war began, I am out protesting a few times a week, even canceling or missing other meetings to do so. And my partnership-building and peace work continues, even though to some, peace seems far off if not impossible.

Both the Zionist narrative and the Palestinian nationalist narrative are each only part of the story.

This Mishnah in Pirkei Avot 2:16 has helped keep me focused on the work instead: “It is not up to you to complete the work, but you are also not free to stop doing it.”

This has also been a confusing year, unsettling my feeling of belonging with the progressive left. The speed and ease with which so many on the left jumped to praise Hamas and condemn Israel on Oct. 7 were stunning and eye-opening. My activism on this issue has consistently maintained that both the Zionist narrative and the Palestinian nationalist narrative are each only part of the story. Favoring one over the other, or accepting one but not the other, will only perpetuate the cycle of violence.

It has been challenging to keep my center. When in more right-wing or even centrist Jewish circles, I have played the role of reminding people of Palestinian humanity, and while in left-wing circles, even Jewish, I have had to remind people of Jewish humanity. The demonizing on both sides is unsettling. But it has reminded me of where I stand, of my special ability to understand both sides and see the bigger picture. It has not been easy to maintain that position, but it is my truth. My ability to sympathize with both “sides” is my superpower.

Living in Israel has at least put me in a position where I can criticize and demonstrate against my government without feeling I am feeding anti-Jewish tropes and encouraging Jew-hatred. I am grateful for that. But if this extremist government is not ousted in the next elections, the future here looks grim.

But would leaving be the morally responsible thing to do? Most others, Palestinians and Jews, do not have dual citizenship. If I abandon ship, that will help me, but will it help others? “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” (Pirkei Avot 1:14) Finding the right balance is the challenge.

Meanwhile, this is where I am — here now, in the present. As Etty Hillesum, who was murdered in Auschwitz at age 29 and kept a profound diary during her final few years — wrote, “Wherever you happen to find yourself, be there with your whole heart.” Here in Israel-Palestine in 2024 is where I happen to find myself. It is not an easy place to be, but I am trying to be here with my whole heart.

About seven years ago, on Sukkot, I was praying in my backyard sukkah with my lulav and etrog, looking at the view of olive orchards and the Arab village across the valley, where I have dear friends. I felt exactly where I needed to be, full of gratitude and purpose. Later, I shared this experience with my spiritual director/companion. She invited me to hold onto that feeling and remember it, as I might need to recall it later in harder times. I now know what she meant.

The future I had imagined for myself and my family now feels unpredictable and uncertain.

Since I was a child, I have been preparing myself for this time. Holocaust consciousness has been a part of my psyche since I first became aware of that history. I read Holocaust literature voraciously as a child, and I still do. Etty’s diary came to my attention in a synchronistic way only about 15 years ago, and it was transformative for me.

I was terrified of war, still am. I dreaded the disruption it would cause in my life, the decisions I would have to make, the death and devastation I would face and experience. I wondered how I would react when put in that situation. Would I be in denial? Would I shirk responsibility? Would I be unable to cope? Would I lose my moral compass?

I am grateful that none of my immediate family or friends has been killed in this war, and that I am still living in my home when hundreds of thousands of others (some who are friends and family of mine) have been displaced both here and near Gaza. Nevertheless, my life has been altered. Things that once felt vital feel less so now. And the future I had imagined for myself and my family now feels unpredictable and uncertain.

My second novel came out last summer; my plan was to be promoting it this year, but, alas, we plan, and God laughs. Although in this case, I think God was crying. As soon as Hamas attacked, I knew my life would never be the same. But contrary to how I imagined myself reacting, I did not fight that but rather surrendered to it. This has been some of my greatest spiritual work —learning to surrender to what is and cannot be changed instead of trying to fight it and cause myself suffering in the process. This was always my practice, but now I feel especially tested.

I am 55 years old and live with a genetic degenerative muscular disease. I imagined my years ahead with more writing and introspection, a slower pace and the majority of my seven children nearby. Now, they seriously discuss leaving the country. I feel tremendous grief around what has been lost. But, also, relief that I have been present with my whole heart.

I will close with another mantra that has accompanied and strengthened me this past year, the Serenity Prayer:

God, give me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I bless us all with those abilities as we face the challenges yet to come.