I just returned 24 hours ago, so I’m still processing the complicated feelings and spirit of Israel that I’m encountering. I’ll have more to say about the national trauma (literally; as well as the people who are trying to heal it) in the days to come.
But below is a collection of images of Israel from the past 24 hours, especially the graffiti of Tel Aviv, that tell a story about the national pain, anguish, and resilience of the extraordinary nation, the Jewish people. Last year the graffiti was all about the fight for democracy against Israel’s internal demagogues; today it’s about the shared destiny of the nation.
Upon arrival at Ben Gurion airport, on the long ramp from the gate to passport control, we are confronted with the faces of every hostage that remains captive in Gaza - not one is forgotten - courtesy of Bring Them Home Now-The Hostages and Missing Families Forum:
To each one, people have added personalized inscriptions of love and hope. No one is a statistic or a number. Hersh Goldberg-Polin: we are thinking of YOU, and want YOU to come home now! The numbers that have been added to the poster represent the number of days he has been held hostage.
Their faces, and the message BRING THEM HOME, is everywhere. This is one people, one family - and when part of the people is in pain, the whole people feels it:
This image pops up on the ATM before you withdraw cash.
And so it goes, throughout Tel Aviv - on billboards, placards, and on the sides of skyscrapers:
”Bring the kids back home”
“Release them from their hell!” Seen on the streets of Tel Aviv in different forms.
“Free the Bibas family / Bring them home now!” The Hamas terrorists kidnapped the family of four: 34 year-old mother Shiri, 35 year-old father Yarden, 4 year-old Ariel, and 9 MONTH OLD Kfir; Shiri’s parents were massacred in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the same day. Hamas and every sycophant in the west who justifies the terror has the family’s blood on their hands.
On the side of a Tel Aviv highrise: One People, One [Shared] Fate
In this most progressive of cities, there is a spirit of defiance against the hypocrisies of the world that have come out into the open since the war began. For instance, all those who consider rape a war crime, always and forever—except, it seems, when the victims are Jews. So here are two powerful images asking: where have the UN women’s forums and everyone else been as Hamas’s sexual assaults have been documented over and over, including by the perpetrators themselves?:
But below are the ones that I’ve found most powerful - and haunting. These are images from the walls of one of the train stations in downtown Tel Aviv. Each sticker is about one of the victims: who they are, who’s missing them at home, and so on. If they are a hostage, there’s a call to bring them back to the circle of family life. And if they’re dead - massacred on Oct. or killed in the line of duty - each is a howl of pain that they will not be forgotten, by their loved ones or by their people.
Actually, it’s astonishing how many of these contain a message of optimism, or love, or hope; epitaphs that represent the love the each of these individuals brought into the world:
What a country this is! From the Midrash:
.וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י [מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ]…מלמד שהם כגוף אחד ונפש אחת…לקה אחד מהן כולן מרגישין…
You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6).
This teaches that they, Israel, are like a single body and a single soul…
And if one of them is stricken, all of them feel pain.
More to come in the days ahead…