The Year as a Day
Shana tova + a reflection
In Genesis, Jacob spends seven years working for Laban to win Laban’s daughter, Rachel, as a bride. He’s so happy to do it, that for him the years go by as “k’yamim achadim.” “Yamim” means “days,” but “echad,” which means “one,” is in the unusual plural form. Literally, the years went by as “ones days.” Grammatically, this doesn’t make sense. But poetry doesn’t have to make grammatical sense. Poetically, the years went by as if they were just one day.
This is how I feel about the past almost 365 days. The past Jewish year has been one long day. We have spent a year awaiting something happy to happen, something to change, maybe for some seismic shift in global affairs, some redemption from this awful war. Yet it feels like we are still caught with one foot in a snare, constantly pulled down into madness.
October 7th is this coming Monday, and hostages of unknown life status are still imprisoned in Gaza. Schools in the greater Seattle area are going to see walkouts in support of Hamas, likely organized by outside members, and they will still not know what to do about it. Most outrageous, an event on October 9th held by Samidoun Seattle featuring Ramzy Baroud will seek “to gain a deeper understanding of the Al-Aqsa flood operation on October 7 of 2023 and bust myths and understand the facts.” Samidoun is banned in Germany because it’s too closely connected to terrorist organizations, and Baroud is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by freed hostage Almog Meir Jan, who was allegedly held hostage for nine months in the home of a journalist working for Baroud’s Olympia-based Palestine Chronicle.
Flood PNW, yet another new organization (more likely, a new front for the same intellectual terrorists who have been here all along), asks locals to “Join us and our fighting organizations as we come together to honor the sacrifices of our heroic martyrs and uplift the victory of Al-Aqsa Flood.” They have teach-ins scheduled and a “mass mob day” booked for October 13th. They also have links to articles and resources, like a document put out by the Hamas Media Office and hosted on the Palestine Chronicle website, called “Our Narrative.” This revisionist history text assures readers that “Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters…if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently [sic] and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces.”
Tell this to the woman who watched her grandmother get stabbed to death in her home when the morally committed fighters “accidentally” livestreamed it from her own phone.
Is it October 2024 or 2023? Has anything changed?
After Jacob is done working for Rachel, Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his eldest daughter, Leah. Jacob is outraged. Laban is conciliatory: he can marry Rachel, too, as long as he works for Laban another seven years. Jacob’s reply is not recorded. I imagine he had no words.
How long will we allow ourselves to be deceived? How long will we have our history and experiences weaponized against us, while we sit with our mouths open, void of words to counter such insanity?
This week, I started to imagine what a new Middle East could look like. A Lebanon, Syria, and Iran free of radicalism. Education, trade, partnerships with Israel. So many people want this, but we don’t hear much from them. Their stories do not make into the mainstream press.
I want to share a sentiment from an Iranian Muslim friend, Behrooz, who I interviewed last October. (Last October! Was it not yesterday?) We spoke last night about Iran’s dramatic and largely inconsequential missile attack on Israel.
He shared this thought for publication, attributed to Iranian-Canadian activist Nazanin Afshin Jam:
Dear World, the missiles launched today on Israel is solely the choice of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian people don’t want this attack. The Iranian people want to be freed from this regime that has kept them hostage for 45 years. The Iranian people want friendship, peace and allyship with Israelis. Iranians and Israelis are both victims of the same enemy. Praying for the safety and security of both Israelis and Iranians at this very tense moment.
I will leave the year on this note.
Here’s a bit of a review of the last year of local stories. Thank you for your readership and support. Shana tova. May we only know happy occasions in the year to come.
Emily
Truer words were never spoken. It is how we are all feeling. Thank you for keeping our community up-to-date on the latest developments in Seattle. Truth, or the lack of it, is at the heart of everything we are experiencing. Failure to acknowledge the truth about our people, the State of Israel, the enemies we face, and what is happening in the Mideast (and why) is creating a dangerous irreality and confusion that is expertly exploited by those who seek to destroy us. What the world does not understand is that such delusions are not without consequences. The only thing we can do in response is to speak the truth courageously and often. We have to, so that sanity can someday reign, and the healing can begin.
FYI:
Washington, D.C., Oct. 1, 2024: A new federal complaint filed by The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law alleges that anti-Semitism was allowed to run rampant at the University of Washington (UW) because the administration has repeatedly failed to adequately respond despite having been put on notice.
Shana tova!