Editor’s note: Shani Paluch-Shimon is an Australian-Israeli oncologist working in Tel Aviv. During the Gaza war this past summer, she regularly emailed dispatches she called “war posts” to friends and family around the world. I was a recipient of some of these emails, as we’re acquainted through family friends. The following post was penned in late August, but only emailed last week. It is republished here with the author’s permission.

I wrote this piece towards the end of the war in August and placed it aside. After the tragic events of last week unfolded and the news here was filled with sensationalistic headlines of a new intifada possibly erupting, I remembered the piece. As with my “war-posts,” this piece of writing can be shared. My intention is by no means political—my intention is to share my experience of living in a complicated reality.

*

Spring 2004. I was a second year oncology resident. An impatient yet familiar knock sounded on my office door. My good friend and colleague burst in before I had time to even acknowledge the knock. She was nearly breathless, eyes gleaming with tears, excitement in her voice: “You won’t believe what just happened! A young beautiful Palestinian woman entered my office. She spoke perfect English. She has advanced breast cancer and is clearly in terrible pain. She entered my office alone and I asked her, ‘Who has come with you—are you here alone?’ And you won’t believe what she answered me! ‘I am not here alone, I am here with my God.'”

And so I was introduced to Fatma Bargouth—a 26-year-old Muslim Palestinian from Gaza, who touched the souls of all whom she met. When I first met Fatma her breast cancer was already incurable. She would travel as needed and whenever possible (and it was not always possible) from Gaza, through the Erez checkpoint, to our oncology department at Sheba Medical Centre. Oncology patients are often treated by several doctors, but in Fatma’s case it was different—each physician that encountered her was not willing to relinquish their role in her care and so it came to be that she was treated by a team.

During one particular hospitalization we sat and talked, sometimes for hours. I was 28, she was 26, and we spoke about the things that women in their late twenties talk about—life, love and our many dreams for the future. At different hours of the day Fatma would pray. She prayed through song—with a voice which stopped everyone in their tracks. When she prayed there was complete silence on the ward—everyone stopped to listen. One morning, an ultra-Orthodox patient in the neighboring room turned to me and said, “Her prayers are so very beautiful, so incredibly moving.” I looked at her, my mouth wide open—I knew that what she said was true and yet I had not realized how powerful Fatma’s ability to build bridges and touch the souls of people from all walks of life was. In our conversations about life and through listening to her prayers I learned more about belief, faith and spirituality than I had been taught by any rabbi in the religious seminary I had attended when I was 18.

In mid-2004, Fatma was scheduled to receive further treatment in our department. We eagerly awaited her return from Gaza. It was a time of unrest, of horrific terrorist attacks on checkpoints and within Israel, on civilian targets. Reports started arriving of a young woman, a cancer patient, stuck at the Erez checkpoint—unable to enter Israel because of an across-board tightening of the checkpoints, because of the volatile security situation. She was refusing to return to Gaza because her pain medications were running out and she desperately needed to reach us—in keeping with the medical philosophy across many Middle-Eastern countries, the local Gazan medical teams gave oncology patients limited access to opioid pain medication. Many individuals and organizations were involved in trying to ensure her safe passage, but to no avail.

One morning, two of our doctors decided to drive out to the Erez checkpoint to help. One doctor—a stereotypical single, left-wing, “Tel-Avivit.” The other—a religious woman, married with children, often referred to by the patients as “the settler doctor” (though in fact she was not a settler, only appearing so in her head-covering and dress code). Two women, who neither inside nor outside the walls of the hospital would have ever sat together for a coffee. Yet here they were on a united mission. So was Fatma’s magic—she built bridges between people, between cultures, between religions.

Fatma died from advanced breast cancer late in 2004.

Upon marking my first decade in Israel, I shared the story of my move to Israel and the impact that it had on me with my colleagues. I retold the story of Fatma Bargouth—for me, she represented everything that was both beautiful and ugly about my country. All those in the room who had been involved in her care cried. One colleague turned and asked me “It has been so many years—how did you remember her?” to which I responded, “How could anyone forget her?”

Fatma—it is ten years since we met, ten years since we parted. Did you know that I would still think of you? Did you realize that you taught me one of my most significant lessons on spirituality and humanity? Did you dare to dream that you would leave such a long-lasting imprint on people’s souls?

In these difficult days, as I lie at night anxious and worried, between sleep and wake-fullness, I wonder and hope if maybe you could visit us in a dream. I invite you, I beg of you, to visit in a dream—to whisper your secret to us. Maybe if we knew your secret, your craft of building bridges, we could overcome the seemingly unbridgeable abyss between our people and better days would come.

Shani Paluch-Shimon is an oncologist working in Tel Aviv.

(Image: Shutterstock)

The post The Story of Fatma Bargouth appeared first on Jewcy.

Dear Selena,

I’m writing to you on behalf of two 12-year-old girls living in Southern Israel who were upset by something you posted to Instagram a few weeks ago—a post which expressed sympathy for the people of Gaza, but also provided a space for your followers to condemn and delegitimize the State of Israel in the comments.

I met Noa and Yarden* in Southern Israel while I was doing some reporting for a few stories about religion and conflict in that region. This may be a bold statement, but they’re your biggest fans—seriously, your biggest fans. “Selena Gomez,” cried Yarden. “I love her! I love her music!”

And then you let them down. You hurt them. You prayed for Gaza, but not Israel, taking sides in a conflict that is not your own. By doing that, you isolated some fans.

Selena, Noa and Yarden have something to say. They love you. They idolize you. That’s why they want to say this—because they’re worried that their idol hates them simply because they’re Israeli. I wanted to relay their message to you. The remainder of this letter is based on my conversation with them.

“Everything you say about the Arab-Israeli conflict is wrong. It’s so much more complicated than anyone not living here can imagine,” Yarden said. “Even the people in central and northern Israel don’t understand it they way we do. So, Selena, why did you say what you did?”

“To you, Rihanna, and anyone else who has anything ill to say about us and our people,” Noa added, “come visit us, spend a day in our life and see what it’s like.”

Israelis, like all Middle Easterners, are known for their generosity and hospitality. “We’d be more than happy to host you for however long,” Yarden said. “You can even stay with me or Noa—we have safe rooms, bomb shelters, in our houses. We have to, given the number of rockets that are fired at us daily.”

Noa and Yarden live in Israel on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, a small village of 500 people two kilometers from the Gaza border. They’re the last Israeli residents before the border crossing between Israel and Gaza. On any given day, they are pummeled with rockets. On a good day they have two warning sirens—in Hebrew they’re called tzeva adom. On a bad day they can have as many as fifteen.

“From the time the sirens signaling the rockets sound, we have 15 seconds—just 15 seconds—to run for safety,” Noa explained, with a twinge of lingering fear in her voice. “Usually, the Iron Dome intercepts the rockets before they can harm us. When that happens, everything shakes from the booms—my house shakes, our whole neighborhood shakes. And in turn, we all shake. It’s terrifying. There is nowhere to hide.”

“We live in our shelters now,” she continued. “They still shake, a lot, but when shrapnel falls from the intercepted rockets, at least it can’t hit us. We hardly ever leave our shelters.”

At that moment, I must interject, the girls and I heard a bone-rattling boom—a boom that you feel in your core. I jumped, but the two girls just looked at me and said, “don’t be afraid. That is us bombing Gaza—it’s not here. Nothing will hurt us from that boom.” A few moments later, a plume of light grey smoke appeared through the trees in the distance. “Gaza is close to here,” Noa said. “Very close,” Yarden added.

“We”—meaning the Israeli Defense Force—”don’t bomb to hurt,” they felt the need to tell me. “We bomb to defend. In Gaza the terrorists bomb because they want to terrorize us—and they do!”

“I remember on the first day of the war, oh, what a trauma we experienced,” Yarden recalled. “Noa and I were on the beach very close to here. We were enjoying ourselves, swimming, you know, because it was hot. And then, all of a sudden, we hear a siren. As daughters of the south, we knew what that meant. We had 15 seconds to find shelter. But we were in an open space with nowhere to go. We saw the rockets approaching overhead. It was terrifying! With nowhere to hide, we did the next best thing: we dropped on our stomachs and covered our heads, lest shrapnel from an intercepted rocket fall on us.”

8 seconds.

7 seconds.

6 seconds.

5 seconds.

“And then two loud booms. Everything shook. The Iron Dome had saved us. We were safe. But with rockets being targeted at our homes, could we ever be truly safe?”

“Between me and my classmates who live in villages like Zikim, Carmia, and Sderot, all over Southern Israel,” Noa said, “rockets are aimed at us all the time. Without end.”

“But we live in the South of Israel,” Yarden added. “We’re used to this way of life already. We were born into this. It’s our life.”

Noa’s family has lived in Yad Mordechai since the kibbutz was founded in 1936. They came here to escape anti-Semitism in Europe. They built the kibbutz up with their own hands. They defended it from Egyptian invaders in 1948—there were only fifty kibbutzniks with twenty outdated guns between them, facing hundreds of trained Egyptian soldiers. But the kibbutzniks, Noa’s family, persevered. They then lived in peace with their Arab neighbors in Gaza. Sure, there were tensions and flare-ups, but for the most part they lived in peace. And then just after Noa and Yarden were born, the rockets started.

“At this point, I’m not scared of the sirens anymore,” Noa stated plainly.”I’m scared of the booms, but not even so much. I’m really more scared of the terrorists who are shooting them.”

“Why can’t we just live in peace?” asked Yarden. “We hope the kids in Gaza are good and safe,” she said. “We don’t wish this kind of trauma on anyone. I’m sad that everyone dies. We can’t live like this. Let’s just be neighbors in peace.”

“That’s all we want here,” Noa said. “Peace.”

I’m paraphrasing now, but the girls wanted you to know that you’re still one of their heroes. Look at everything you’ve overcome in your life! But you hurt them. They just want you to understand before you isolate them, before you dismiss them and their families as bad people.

So, will you take them up on their offer and visit? Will you see their life and cheer them up?

On behalf of your fans in Israel,

Rachel

*The girls’ names have been changed.

Related: In Lieu of Tel Aviv Concert, Neil Young Donates to Budding Israeli & Palestinian Musicians

(Image: Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com)

The post An Open Letter to Selena Gomez, From Two 12-Year-Old Fans in Southern Israel appeared first on Jewcy.

Kids, gather ’round for another exciting installment of “War, What is It Good For?” Episode two: Soliciting celebrities’ opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Specifically, Joan Rivers.

Last week, the legendary comedian delivered an impassioned defense of Israel to TMZ, which was gleefully disseminated by supporters and critics of Israel alike. (“Joan Rivers — GOES OFF on Epic Israel/Palestine Rant,” read TMZ’s headline. I was half-hoping firecrackers were going to fly out of her bouffant. Sadly, no dice.)

“Let me just tell you,” Rivers began, planting her feet on the ground outside LAX, where the film crew had accosted her. “If New Jersey were firing rockets into New York, we would wipe them out… You can not throw rockets and not expect people to defend themselves.” She said BBC and CNN “should be ashamed of themselves” for their unbalanced coverage of the conflict, and then, when asked about Selena Gomez’s ‘Pray for Gaza’ Instagram pic, she questioned the 22-year-old singer’s ability to spell the word ‘Palestinian.’

The video clearly struck a chord with TV producers the world over, because Israel’s channel 10 sought Rivers out for a more in-depth interview today. When asked what the country could do to improve its PR campaign—and why celebrities like Gomez and Rihanna were expressing their support for Gaza on social media—she offered the following analysis: “They see pictures of children and they go crazy. I think Israel should start showing pictures of dead puppies, and they’ll go boo hoo.”

The interview concluded with a riff on ‘Gotta Have It, Make It Stop,’ the hot-or-not segment from Rivers’ celebrity style show, Fashion Police.

“I think we should make it [the conflict] stop, and I think I know how to make it stop,” she opined. “I think every Palestinian should get a nose job, because once somebody’s had a nose job, they won’t fight because they’re scared the new nose will get broken. I think we should send over every great Jewish plastic surgeon doctor, fix their noses, and there’ll be peace in the Middle East.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is open to comments. Be my guest.

Related: Russell Brand Rips Into Sean Hannity For Bullying Guest on Gaza Conflict

Image: YouTube

The post Joan Rivers: Nose Jobs Are the Key to Peace in the Middle East appeared first on Jewcy.

Whatever your politics, Sean Hannity’s bullying of Palestinian-American political analyst Yousef Munayyer on The Sean Hannity Show on Thursday night was simply outrageous. Hannity’s behavior towards a guest he invited onto his show—which included finger-jabbing, shouting, and interrupting Munayyer to such an extent that Munayyer couldn’t utter a single complete sentence—was unconscionable and rude.

But to the relief of polite people the world over, Hannity’s despicable behavior caught the attention of a crusading celebrity. Intellectual bad-boy Russell Brand jumped into the fray yesterday to call out the Fox anchor’s treatment of his guest, posting a point-by-point video response to the segment on YouTube. It’s sort of like a director’s cut, with clips of Brand commentary spliced into the original footage of Hannity’s “interview.”

At one point, Hannity asks Munayyer over and over if he thinks Hamas is a terrorist organization. When Munayyer attempts to answer, Hannity cuts him off: “Is Hamas—what part of this can’t you get through your thick head?” Cut to Brand laughing. “That’s really rude!” He says, cracking up. Back to Hannity: “Is Hamas a terrorist organization? Yes or no?” Munayyer, for his part, stays remarkably calm.

“Sean’s not a solution-based guy,” Brand says, heaving a deep sigh. Rather than looking for insightful commentary and ways to arrive at peace, “Sean’s thinking, ‘We want conflict. What things can I say to exacerbate conflict?'” And, later: “Not that it’s not bad that Israel has to deal with terrorist attacks. Of course it is. But what are we looking for? A solution? Or just a verdict on who’s bad? Because that’s not going to get us anywhere.”

Testify, Brother Brand. And keep up the media manners watchdog. I’m a big fan.

Image: YouTube

Related: Joan Rivers: Nose Jobs Are the Key to Peace in the Middle East

The post Russell Brand Rips Into Sean Hannity For Bullying Guest on Gaza Conflict appeared first on Jewcy.

Remember that bonkers and frankly dubious story about the Jewish doctor, Lisa Rosenberg, who got kicked off a JetBlue flight a couple of weeks ago for getting into a verbal altercation with a Palestinian passenger about the conflict in Gaza? Well, buckle your seat belts dear readers, because there is some CRAY CRAY turbulence up ahead. Turns out the alleged “Palestinian” passenger is actually Jewish—and she’s Menachem Begin’s third cousin.

The New York Post reports that the unnamed passenger revealed her the truth of her identity (uh, minus her name) “in a confessional phone call to Rosenberg’s office last week.” Oh, to have been a fly on that wall. She is from Brooklyn—Brooklyn!—which, as we all know, is the main source of the world’s self-righteous political pontificating. (It’s OK you guys, I can say that because I’m a Jewish political pontificator from Brooklyn.)

“I told you at the time I was Palestinian because I wanted you to stop your rant. If I said I was Jewish, you wouldn’t have stopped,” the woman told Rosenberg, who recorded the conversation. “I shouldn’t have said it, but I did.”

The woman also denied calling Rosenberg a “Zionist pig,” as the outraged doctor later told ­reporters. “I’m more Zionist than you’ll ever be,” she told Rosenberg. “My third cousin was ­Menachem Begin.”

She told The Post, “Like most people, I wish Israel and Palestine could find a way to coexist peacefully.”

New York Post, you may now drop your mic and exit the stage. We have hit peak mishegas.

The post Record Scratch: “Palestinian” Woman From JetBlue Altercation is Jewish appeared first on Jewcy.

Like most other young academics, I’m always agonizing about tenure and job security. “Peace? Who wants peace?” I often jokingly respond when people ask me for my opinion about the Arab-Israeli conflict. “As a professor of Israel Studies, instability is good for my career!” Unfortunately, thanks to recent weeks of war and crisis, it seems like my employment prospects are bright. The line between the personal and professional is liminal in this so-called Holy Land.

I’m writing from Jerusalem, where I’ve left the library for the classroom of lived experience this summer. I arrived for a few months of research on my book only days into the national drama of the kidnapping of three teenagers in the West Bank (at a hitchhiking post I myself have stood at, no less), later found murdered by rogue terrorists from Hebron. Later that week, while running errands in the center of town, I was quite shaken when I unintentionally found myself in the midst of a mob protest by radical right-wing Israelis screaming “Kahane was right,” and “Arabs are sons of bitches,” as they ran past me toward a fast-food restaurant looking for a Palestinian employee to lynch.

A few days later, a splinter group seemingly inspired by these riots brutally tortured and immolated Muhammed al-Kheidr, an innocent teenager from East Jerusalem. As Israelis and Palestinians began to reckon with these dual tragedies, the Hamas rocket campaign and corresponding Israeli retaliatory bombings of Gaza started in earnest, with the conversation soon shifting from searching our souls to searching for the nearest bomb shelter. There has been no refuge for the tumult in our collective consciousness over the past month. (On the bright side, I did get to meet all my new neighbors without proper underwear, as the first rocket siren caught me in the shower with less than a minute to throw on a sundress and seek shelter.)

Last week, Israel initiated a ground invasion to uncertain ends. So much for that relaxing summer sabbatical on the beach and sipping cappuccinos in the Old City, I thought to myself. Here we go again.

Every day I turn on my laptop to more bad news. How have we not hit bottom, I wonder, how can it possibly be getting worse? I’ve probably read every major book written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past few decades—I skimmed them all for my doctoral exams so you don’t have to!—and feel that scholarship has failed us completely. How can I feel so ill-equipped respond to the current crisis, when understanding the Israel-Palestinian conflict is my day job?

Perhaps because years of reading, researching, writing, and thinking about the conflict have deprived me of simple, easy dichotomies: good vs. evil, Israel vs. Palestine, winners vs. losers, peace vs. war, past vs. future. How I long to luxuriate in the realm of intellectual, emotional, and moral certitude! I sometimes wish for a world of black and white, when all I see is complexity in shades of grey.

Despite this—or perhaps because of it—I feel an obligation to explain, to dialogue, to argue, to share my expertise, for whatever it’s worth. With campuses empty on summer vacation, I’ve traded lecture halls for social media, which has become my classroom, my battlefield (since I am privileged not to have to experience the real one), and even my (Jewish) cross to bear. Whether it’s fighting open-heartedly with a Gazan friend on Facebook, trading quips on Twitter, or writing blog posts, I feel compelled to contribute my knowledge and continue the conversation.  I sometimes feel like I should receive danger pay in this business: moderating between right-wingers and left-wingers, challenging conventional dogma, trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) to bring new voices and keep old faces involved in a discussion can be emotionally taxing and ego-bruising. But I see my job as much as a calling as a career, so tuning out isn’t really a choice.

Engaging in a “war” online, however,  prompts big questions. How can academics best contribute to public debate in times of crisis?  Switching my scholar’s tweed cap for my pundit hat blurs the boundary between the personal and the professional, the private and the political. Online discourse is a challenge to “that noble dream” of academic objectivity, but it’s also some of the most important work a historian can do these days. I do not hide my proud affiliation as a liberal Zionist, but my primary agenda is to bring my knowledge and historical perspective to contemporary issues, helping to put them in context.  Mostly, I try to mediate between multiple narratives. I doubt I’ll be winning a Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon. Truth be told, it can sometimes feel futile—when earnest efforts at engagement, analysis, and dialogue devolve into name-calling and uncritical ranting; when you just can’t get people to see eye-to-eye late at night on Facebook. It’s intellectually and emotionally exhausting work — I don’t blame many of my colleagues for giving up, taking a break, or avoiding this work entirely, since not every academic feels it is part of their job description.  Sometimes, I feel like tuning out and going back to writing that obscure book or journal article that only four people in the universe will read, including my Mom.

But in those few moments when people—especially those who are perhaps not involved or ideologically committed—plead with you to proceed, to continue the authentic multi-dimensional discussion, or even to begin to redefine what Israel and Zionism mean to our generation, how can I give up? Online engagement is one important component of that precious opportunity to be a Jewish and Zionist leader—it’s a mission I won’t pass up.

Mostly, being a historian in a time of crisis is a heart-breaking business, especially when one becomes a historical witness to the profound lack of empathy on both sides of the conflict. Dehumanization is our worst enemy. How we can ever have peace without acknowledging the “other” as a person; without acknowledging the basic truth that they are human beings with human rights? How can we co-exist without compassion in the present? Perhaps it would be useful to reinvent the role of historian as a kind of ‘empatharian,’ one who teaches others how to empathize with the lived past, so that we can be encouraged to contemplate our future together.

Unfortunately, professors don’t have all the answers about how to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. But the most important thing is to ask the right questions. Since I began teaching in England, I am often reminded of Shylock’s speech in The Merchant of Venice: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

If we can continue to remind ourselves that both Israelis and Palestinians are people deserving of human rights—and also capable of acts of vengeance—historical empathy may lead us one step closer to an enduring peace.

Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn is the University Research Lecturer/Sidney Brichto fellow in Israel Studies at the University of Oxford (UK), where she’s working on a forthcoming book (from Harvard University Press) entitled “City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement Since 1967.” Her twitter handle is @SaraHirschhorn1. 

Image: Sukharevskyy Dmytro (nevodka) / Shutterstock.com

The post Debating the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Demands Empathy, Not Just History appeared first on Jewcy.

RollingStone.com reports that Neil Young has cancelled his Tel Aviv concert, scheduled for July 17, due to the escalating conflict in Gaza and Israel. With rockets being intercepted daily above Tel Aviv, and 30,00 fans expected to show up to Hayarkon Park for the gig, the security risk was simply too great.

“It is with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we must cancel our one and only Israeli concert due to tensions which have rendered the event unsafe at this time,” said a representative for Young. “We’ll miss the opportunity to play for our fans and look forward to playing in Israel and Palestine in peace.”

But, happily, there’s a small silver lining to the disappointing news: Young has pledged to donate money to two organizations that foster musical collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian youth—the Louise & Tillie Alpert Youth Music Center of Israel (AKA Beit Alpert), and Heartbeat.

According to The Times of Israel, Beit Alpert “serves as the home to music ensembles of children from all over Jerusalem, including the Arab Youth Band and the Ensemble for Jewish & Arab Youth.” Hearbeat, which was founded in 2007 with funding from Fulbright and MTV, runs programs supporting about 100 youth musicians from across Israel and the West Bank. Their programs are scholarship-based, “ensuring equal access to all.”

Neil Young, you’ve got a Heart of Gold.

(Image: DFree / Shutterstock.com)

The post In Lieu of Tel Aviv Concert, Neil Young Donates to Budding Israeli & Palestinian Musicians appeared first on Jewcy.

Four Palestinian boys between the ages of 9 and 11, all cousins, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza beach on Wednesday morning. The Washington Post‘s Israel correspondent William Booth is stationed in a hotel close to the location of the strike, and wrote a graphic eyewitness account of the event:

We saw a small fisherman’s shack on the quay, churning with gray smoke.

Then we saw a gang of kids running from the shack, down the breakwater and onto the sand, hurtling toward al-Deira. A couple of waiters, the cook and a few journalists started waving at them. Run here! Then a second strike landed right behind them.

The staff were yelling, “They’re hurt!”

A half-dozen kids made it to the hotel. A young man also reached safety and fainted. He was bleeding from the abdomen…. Two young terrified kids were bleeding and injured, and they were quickly bandaged on the floor of the terrace, where guests usually eat skewers of grilled chicken, suck on water pipes and watch the sun go down.

Meanwhile, the first Israeli victim of the conflict, Dror Khenin, was buried in the city of Yahud today. Sophia Jones, The Huffington Post‘s Middle East correspondent, posted a picture of the funeral on Instagram with the caption: “Sobbing relatives. Many ppl here to mourn. Meanwhile in Gaza, over 200 people have been killed, mostly civilians. Anger on both sides.”

Amidst this bleak news, it’s worth reading Etgar Keret’s July 14 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, in which he suggests redefining the way we talk about the resolution of the conflict. Instead of calling for peace—a romanticized, “debilitating word”—Keret suggests that Israelis and Palestinians use the term “compromise” instead:

Peace, by definition, is compromise between sides, and in that kind of compromise, each side has to pay a genuine, heavy price, not just in territories or money but also in a true change of worldview.

That’s why the first step might be to stop using the debilitating word “peace,” which has long since taken on transcendental and messianic meanings in both the political left and right wings, and replace it immediately with the word “compromise.” It might be a less rousing word, but at least it reminds us that the solution we are so eager for can’t be found in our prayers to God but in our insistence on a grueling, not always perfect dialogue with the other side.

True, it’s more difficult to write songs about compromise, especially the kind my son and other kids can sing in their angelic voices. And it doesn’t have the same cool look on T-shirts. But in contrast to the lovely word that demands nothing of the person saying it, the word “compromise” insists on the same preconditions from all those who use it: They must first agree to concessions, maybe even more — they must be willing to accept the assumption that beyond the just and absolute truth they believe in, another truth may exist. And in the racist and violent part of the world I live in, that’s nothing to scoff at.

Perhaps that’s the best we can hope for now.

(Image: Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip July 16, 2014. Credit: SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images.)

The post Four Palestinian Children Killed in Airstrike; First Israeli Victim of Conflict Buried appeared first on Jewcy.

American President Barack Obama published an exclusive op-ed in Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Tuesday, affirming America’s financial support for Israel, calling for restraint, and urging Israelis not to abandon the pursuit of peace.

The article, which was originally penned in late June for Haaretz‘s Conference on Peace, was amended to include references to the three kidnapped and murdered Israeli teens, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, as well as 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Hussein Abu Khdeir, who was killed in a brutal vigilante attack on July 2.

“Budgets in Washington are tight, but our commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad,” wrote the President. “The United States is committed to providing more than $3 billion each year to help finance Israel’s security through 2018. Across the board, our unprecedented security cooperation is making Israel safer, and American investments in Israel’s cutting-edge defense systems like the Arrow interceptor system and Iron Dome are saving lives.”

He went on to describe peace as “necessary, just, and possible… because it’s the only way to ensure a secure and democratic future for the Jewish state of Israel… Just as the Israeli people have the right to live in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, the Palestinian people deserve the right to self-determination. Palestinian children have hopes and dreams for their future and deserve to live with the dignity that can only come with a state of their own… All parties must exercise restraint and work together to maintain stability on the ground.”

Read the full piece here.

The post President Barack Obama Affirms U.S. Commitment to Israel, Urges Peace appeared first on Jewcy.

Rachel Fraenkel, mother of murdered Israeli teen Naftali Fraenkel, has offered her condolences to the family of 16-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Abu Khdeir, reports The Times of Israel. Abu Khdeir was kidnapped and murdered by Jewish extremists in Jerusalem on July 2, in a brutal vigilante attack following the murders of Israeli teenagers Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach, and Gilad Shaar in June.

Below is an excerpt from Fraenkel’s statement:

“Even in the abyss of mourning for Gilad, Eyal, and Naftali, it is difficult for me to describe how distressed we are by the outrage committed in Jerusalem–the shedding of innocent blood in defiance of all morality, of the Torah, of the foundation of the lives of our boys and of all of us in this country.

Only the murderers of our sons, along with those who sent them and those who helped them and incited them to murder–and not innocent people–will be brought to justice: by the army, the police, and the judiciary; not by vigilantes. No mother or father should ever have to go through what we are going through, and we share the pain of Mohammed’s parents.”

On Sunday, two Palestinians visited the Fraenkel family at their home in Nof Ayalon, where they are sitting shiva for Naftali. A few hours later Yishai Fraenkel, uncle of Naftali, shared his condolences with the family of Palestinian teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir. “We expressed our deep empathy with their sorrow, from one bereaved family to another bereaved family,” he told Ynet news website, according to The Times of Israel. “We expressed our absolute disgust with what had happened. He accepted our statements, it was important for him to hear it.”

Six Israelis were arrested on Sunday for the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and three have confessed their involvement in the crime. Two Palestinians were identified for the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli teens in June, but are still at large.

Read Rachel Fraenkel’s complete statement here.

(Image: Rachel Fraenkel with Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, via Facebook)

Related: Heartbreaking, Influential Moment: Rachel Fraenkel Says Kaddish For Son Naftali

The post Rachel Fraenkel Offers Condolences to Family of Murdered Palestinian Teen appeared first on Jewcy.