Since Oct. 7, the Jewish and Israeli communities have been reeling from the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. The attack was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists murdered more than a thousand Israeli civilians and brutally raped Israeli women. They took more than 250 hostages, including small children. The trauma continues to this day. A few weeks ago, we learned that Hamas murdered six young hostages, including the Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in a tunnel beneath Rafah.
Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas has resulted in the loss of innocent Palestinian lives and displacement of Israeli and Palestinian civilians. As bombs fall in Israel and Gaza, generating constant fear, here too we are worried for the safety of our family and friends abroad, but also fearful due to the hateful rhetoric being spewed locally.
Rather than coming together to comfort each other in this shared grief, our Camberville community has been awash with divisive rhetoric and hatred, including a rise in antisemitic and anti-Israeli incidents.
For instance, an Israeli family seeking refuge from the war came to Somerville and enrolled their children in Somerville schools. On the first day, someone removed one of the children’s bags from his locker and replaced it with a drawing of a Palestinian flag. The family decided that Somerville was not safe for them and moved.
In another school-related incident, a second grader told his Jewish friend they couldn’t be friends anymore because “his people weren’t friends with Jews.”
In a third, a “Stand with Israel” sign outside the home of a Holocaust survivor was met with a note from a self-identified Nazi who was offended by the “Jew sign.” The note ended with “Heil Hitler.”
Many people in our community are now reluctant to wear or display symbols that may identify them as Jewish or express their connections to Israel due to this rising antisemitism.
These are just some of the antisemitic incidents plaguing our small city. The obscenities mentioned by Somerville for Palestine in a letter (“Somerville for Palestine members seek support, protest to mayor that ‘equity is not a buzzword,’” Aug. 2) must also be condemned. What happened to the Camberville full of signs stating “Hate has no home here?”
Jews and those with connections to Israel in our community have also been accused of being “complicit in genocide” for supporting Zionism: the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Framing the conflict as “genocide” paints those with broader and nuanced perspectives as complicit and worthy only of hate, and is used as a cudgel to silence any discussion or dialogue. The civilian deaths in Gaza are tragic, but they are not genocide. Hamas’ intentional tactics of embedding itself within the Gazan population and fighting from schools and hospitals makes civilian casualties inevitable. The bodies of the six hostages tortured and murdered just hours before they were found had been held in a Hamas tunnel under a children’s yard in Rafah whose walls were decorated with Disney characters. This dichotomy points to the struggle many of us feel with this war.
There is, in truth, very little that anyone in Camberville can do to end the conflict in Gaza. But we can reduce the turmoil here. We can listen more and shout less. We can learn from each other, rather than demonize each other. We can think critically, disagree civilly and even vehemently, without demonizing each other. In the process we can forge a stronger community. Once we get past the slogans, we certainly won’t agree on everything, but we may find that we agree on more than we realize.
As we approach a year of war in Gaza, we all wait anxiously for the release of the hostages, an end to the fighting on all borders, the rebuilding of a Gaza where its citizens can prosper and an ultimate resolution that ensures safety and security for all. Unfortunately, that doesn’t fit well on a bumper sticker.
Emma Lebwohl on behalf of Shalom Somerville
A stronger
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Didn’t read all that but Free Palestine
This letter goes from anti-semitism being bad (very true!) straight to “civilian casualties [are] inevitable.” It’s basically apologetics for mass murder and war crimes.
I am a Jew, and an Israeli citizen, and I for one do not think that we can all get along by supporting war crimes on a truly massive scale. Just like the Hamas has murdered many civilians, so has Israel… but Israel has vastly more weapons, mostly from the US, and so it has murdered far more civilians.
A number of American doctors and other medical volunteers wrote a letter to the US President talking about what they saw there (https://tinyurl.com/gazadoctorsletter). Some quotes:
“Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many. –Dr. Mark Perlmutter, orthopedic and hand surgeon” (Mark Perlmutter is Jewish American; he has personal, longer writeup at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/19/gaza-hospitals-surgeons-00167697)
“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population” (they explain that is include counted casualties, people crushed under buildings and unaccounted for, and death from malnutrition)
“Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea.”
“In Gaza we watched malnourished new mothers feed their underweight newborns infant formula made with poisonous water.”
“…every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest.” (Children being targetted by snipers has been reported by other people as well, see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war)
“Women underwent C-sections without anesthesia, and were given nothing but Tylenol afterwards because no other pain medications were available”
“We met healthcare personnel in Gaza who worked at hospitals that had been raided and destroyed by Israel. Many of these colleagues of ours were taken by Israel during the attacks. They all told us a slightly different version of the same story: in captivity they were barely fed, continuously physically and psychologically abused, and finally dumped naked on the side of a road. Many told us they were subjected to mock executions and other forms of mistreatment and torture.”
I could go on, I recommend reading it if you have a strong stomach.
For another perspective, here is a scholar of genocide, and former Israeli soldier – https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov
—————-
On 10 November 2023, I wrote in the New York Times: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is now taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. […] We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.”
I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions.
Thanks Itamar. And Emma, we can end antisemitism and end this horrible war crime too.
Ceasefire and bring home the hostages. Better yet trade Netanyahu and his cabinet for the hostages.
October 7th was an abomination, but there is no need to exaggerate what happened on either side, it was not over 1000 civilians killed or dozens of babies. In total, IDF says 695 Israeli civilians and 71 foreign nationals, most of those were migrant workers of color from Asia. Haaretz and other Israeli reports say at least 14 of the Israeli civilians including children were killed 10/7 by the IDF and the Hannibal Directive.
Reasonable people can disagree on definitions of genocide, I certainly don’t know if the Gaza war is that or not, though Itamar makes some good points. Reasonable people disagree on even what Zionism means, but let’s please not inflate numbers of deaths on either side.
Let’s end this war with newfound justice and peace for the Israeli and the Palestinian people and peace for our Arab and Israeli neighbors of all faiths and races here in Camberville.
q99–I agree that reasonable people can disagree about the Gaza war. But it is not true that “reasonable people can disagree on what Zionism means”. It is a word with a definition that has been in print for generations. Check any dictionary or other respected reference–it is simply the belief that Israel should exist as a Jewish state.
That does not mean we cannot criticize Israel–there is plenty to criticize. But when some criticize Zionism as an idea, or attempt to redefine the word to focus on the bad behavior of certain Zionists rather than the word’s correct meaning, they are asserting that Israel should not exist at all. That is antisemitic behavior.
Reasonable people should recognize that there is only one reasonable solution–two states, side by side, in peace
Peter- you might be right- I think that some people see “Zionism” it as self determination of Jewish people, which I for one heartily endorse.
Others see it as a violent forced taking of life, land and property and a colonial enterprise to get that self determination, to which I am opposed.
Others see it as “eretz israel,” taking even more land, sometimes even parts of egypt, jordan, syrian and lebanon. Others see it as the 1947 borders. So I really dont know.
I do know everyone between the river and the sea deserves to live in peace and security, and I believe with self determination.
I don’t know which definition is correct.
Well said…
Hamas does not want a two state solution, but rather all of Israel.
A two state solution has been offered so many times and each time the offer was rejected.
Hamas doesn’t even want a ceasefire. Israel has accepted multiple offers do date:
May 31 agreed to a US backed proposal
August 16 – agreed to a US backed proposal
August 19 – accepted US proposal
So what can one do when dealing with a terrorist group that is barbaric and has no interest in helping its own people?
Peace is an elusive goal when only one side wants it.