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@softunspokenlongings
Shiri. Ariel. Kfir.
your spirits will be held in our hearts, honored in art, in words, in blessed memory, and in the history of the Jewish people. you will be in every orange sunset. we will never forget you.
artists’ sources: 1, 2, 3, 4
🧡🧡🧡
(art sources: 1, 2)
Happy Birthday, Hersh z”l. your spirit will be a part of the Jewish people forever.
Editorial note: This article was originally published in October 2023. We are republishing it following the news that Hersh Goldberg-Polin a
Editorial note: This article was originally published in October 2023. We are republishing it following the news that Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages were killed by Hamas.
I don’t really know how to write this story, but it starts at Myahn’s house.
Myahn invited me for Shabbat dinner; we were attending the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies at the time, and the other guests were all Pardesniks. I don’t remember much about the day, not the weather, not the date, nor do I remember which of my friends comprised the other guests, to be honest with you. But I remember what Myahn’s apartment felt like, the entryway cramped with as many guests as she could muster, the kitchen filled with her savta’s recipes and her roommate’s baked goods. I remember the warmth of being with my friends at Shabbat dinner.
And I remember Hersh GP.
Myahn’s apartment was being leased to her, furnished by a family connected to the Pardes faculty. That’s how so many apartments work in our parts of Jerusalem – Jews come from all parts of the world to study Torah at Pardes for a year or two or three, and they find furnished apartments filled with other families’ sefarim (Jewish religious books) and become a temporary resident of an ever-changing home. These apartments link generations of yeshiva students who pass the keys to one another, who share beds and kosher kitchen utensils, torchbearers of Shabbat meals and Torah study.
That’s how I found Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s bentscher, a small booklet that contains Kiddush, Birkat HaMazon (Grace After Meals) and various songs we sing on Shabbat. Bentscher culture is real, and it is amazing. I’ve seen thousands of bentschers in my day, for weddings, brises, mitzvahs both bar and bat, and for the most part, they’re exactly the same.
Hersh’s was unique. It was made to celebrate his bar mitzvah and customized more than any bentscher I have ever seen. Serendipitously, it was handed to me, and I remember smiling – the front cover had water imagery, and his bar mitzvah portion was Parshat Noach (as in, Noah’s ark). Clever. And then I opened it, and fell in love with the Goldberg-Polin family. The front and back inside covers contained song parodies, written by Hersh’s Safta Leah and Bubbie Marcy. Each page was filled with pictures of Hersh and his family, all lanky and smiling.
I think I interrupted whatever conversation my friends were having to show them the bentscher, in particular the wonderful parody of “Edelweiss” written by Safta Leah. We immediately sang it together.
Hersh G P Hersh G P
Jon and Rachel they bore you
Fun and bright
Sheer delight
This is why we adore you.
Interest in sports and with sharp retorts
Reads and learns most daily
Hersh GP
We agree
Now a perfect Israeli.
I don’t think I can really describe how weirdly obsessed we (OK, mostly I) were with Hersh. We sang his other songs (to the tunes of “The Marines’ Hymn,” “Old MacDonald” and “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean,” all certified bops). The small WhatsApp group we made to coordinate who would bring what to dinner, and what time we would eat, and all the other minutia of a Shabbat meal, was soon renamed “Hersh GP Fan club.” We were so enthralled by this guy and his bar mitzvah bentscher, without ever having met him.
After Shabbat, I posted about Hersh on my Instagram story. One of my followers saw it and sent it to Hersh, because all Jews know each other. Myahn also had mutual friends with him, and got his number and told him about my story. He replied, saying he’d always wanted to be famous. He sent me a selfie of him with his safta, saying he’d tried explaining to her that I loved her songs and posted them for thousands of people to see. She replied, “Doesn’t she have anything better to be doing with her time?”
It was an honor and privilege to be roasted by Safta Leah.
Hersh sent me pictures of his sisters’ bentschers and the personalized songs his grandmothers had written, based on “Chad Gadya,” “Oh My Darlin’ Clementine,” “Doe A Deer,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Bicycle Built for Two” and “I Have A Little Dreidel.” Soon after, a different friend randomly found Hersh’s parents’ wedding bentscher in another Jerusalem apartment. We’d sing Hersh’s “Edelweis” cover from time to time, a running in-joke for the Shabbat meal participants. We joked that we wanted Myahn to marry Hersh so Safta Leah and Bubbie Marcy would write her songs, too. I had custody of Hersh’s bentscher for my remaining time in Jerusalem, and I’d use it most weeks. It was such good, silly fun.
Two Shabbats ago, Hersh was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the festival and taken into Gaza.
I say this abruptly because the shock is what it felt like when I came across Hersh’s picture on my Twitter feed. It’s how I felt as more details have been released about Hersh’s kidnapping, and his extensive injuries. It’s how I feel now, every time I think about Hersh. Until now, this whole story was just a goofy anecdote from my group of friends at Pardes. Now that image of a silly bar mitzvah kid is shattered, and I shudder to think of where he is now.
I’ve never met Hersh GP in person, but the news that he was one of the festival-goers took the wind out of me. Because I know him. I know, thanks to the songs, that he only used to eat Wacky Mac and schnitzel. He likes the White Sox and the Chicago Bulls. As I write this, I cry. I think of his family, whose pictures I looked at so often, the grandmothers who so lovingly wrote these odes to their grandson. I think of his friends, and his parents’ friends, and his sisters and everyone who knows him, waiting in agony for any news they may receive.
And then I remember that the Goldberg-Polins are one of over a hundred families currently feeling like this. And of thousands of families that are in pain.
Their pain feels immeasurable. This pain feels astronomical.
I don’t have a novel message about this conflict, nothing new to add to the outpouring of grief and fear that so many people are feeling right now. But this week’s Torah portion is Parashat Noach – the 10th anniversary of Hersh’s bar mitzvah.
I think maybe that when Noah was on his ark, he couldn’t imagine seeing dry land again after being in the storm for so long. The ebb and flow of the water – unsettled, unforgiving and so vastly deep – became his new normal so quickly. But, as we know, a rainbow was just around the corner. A dove was close by.
I don’t think any of us can imagine rainbows right now, nor do we particularly want to.
All I can think about is my family and friends caught up in the conflict, about the victims of horrendous terror that we cannot begin to imagine, about families waiting to be reunited with their loved ones.
All I can think about is Hersh Goldberg-Polin. All I can do is pray for Hersh GP.
I saved this article months ago. It touched my heart deeply and was so illustrative of the connection we felt to Hersh, to his family, to the hostages, to each other, through all of this. The intention in my mind was to post it when he came home. I was so sure he’d come home.
And then a month ago that hope was shattered forever, and we all endured the heartbreak of knowing he, and the five beautiful people held captive with him, were never going to have the joyous reunions we’d dreamed of for them. I considered sharing it then, when we got the news, but the grief was such a raw thing. When I learned his birthday was only a few days before the first yahrzeit of the October 7th pogrom, I decided to save it for his memory on this day. Yesterday, I learned his Hebrew birthday this year falls on 10/7. They just recovered his blanket from the Nova Festival, drifting all this time in the lost and found.
May his light, and the light of Eden, Carmel, Almog, Ori, and Alex, of all the other hostages who have lost their lives, and all the souls taken on that dark Shabbat, continue to illuminate this world with the courage to make change and the hope for peace. May we remember them in goodness and love. May we hold onto the resilience of his mother Rachel’s words: stay strong. survive. May this new year usher in better days.
May the 101 remaining hostages return soon. bring them home.
He was everyone's Hersh.
He was everyone’s Hersh.
Hersh’s charismatic smile let you know he was, as his mother Rachel described, a “happy-go-lucky, laid back, good humored, respectful and curious person.” He was, as the death announcement put it, “a child of light, love and peace.” People were drawn to the story of a young man who loved soccer and music, had a passion for geography and travel, who had just gone to six music festivals in Europe over the span of nine weeks.
And then came October 7th. Hersh’s last messages to his family, at 8:11 AM on October 7th, were “I love you” and “I’m sorry.”
Hamas kidnapped 251 hostages that day. But a statistic doesn’t ignite the same passion as an actual person; and through Hersh, the world connected to all of the hostages. Heads of state spoke about Hersh. At the Democratic National convention many in the crowd openly wept for Hersh, and chanted “bring them home.” His image was posted everywhere; “Bring Hersh Home” was graffitied on walls and printed on posters. Tehillim groups prayed for Hersh, and a Sefer Torah was written in his merit.
And after Hamas murdered Hersh, millions of people cried; and they cried for all of the hostages, including [those] who remain in captivity.
Hersh’s story is one of love. His parents Rachel and Jon Goldberg Polin advocated for him 24/7. Despite their overwhelming pain, what Rachel called “our planet of beyond pain, our planet of no sleep, our planet of despair, our planet of tears,” they found the superhuman strength to advocate every single day, to remind the world how many days it was since Hersh was held captive. Rachel and Jon traveled everywhere to do everything and anything possible to bring him home.
Most of all they told the world how much they loved Hersh, and got the world to love Hersh as well. Even at the funeral, with an otherworldly expression of spiritual strength, Rachel declared that “I am so grateful to God, and I want to do hakarat hatov (offer gratitude) and thank God right now, for giving me this magnificent present of my Hersh…. For 23 years I was privileged to have this most stunning treasure, to be Hersh’s Mama. I’ll take it and say thank you. I just wish it had been for longer.”
The Rambam says that when you truly love someone “you will recount their praises and call on other people to love them.” And that is what Rachel and Jon did.
Love has its limits. At Hersh’s funeral, the speakers apologized to him for being unable to bring him home; sadly, this immense outpouring of love could not accomplish what everyone desperately wanted. But the Song of Songs says “love is as strong as death.” Jon declared at the end of his eulogy that Hersh’s memory “can begin a revolution.” And without question that is what love can do.
Love is belittled because it is bewildering. It is immaterial, a force that ought to be reckoned with but cannot be measured. Charles Darwin wondered whether altruism would disprove his theory of natural selection; to sacrifice oneself for others contradicts a theory based on a single-minded pursuit of survival. (A person of faith grappling with the same question would see the traces of a divine love tucked away in the DNA of the universe.) From a political standpoint, love is the frail runner up to raw power. Machiavelli wrote that “it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.” In a world about survival and strength, love is seen as the veneer that covers up far uglier forces.
Judaism sees love as the very center of the universe. There are commandments to love God and to love all of humanity, both one’s neighbor and the stranger. Hillel explained that the entire Torah can be reduced to the commandment of loving others; one first experiences the divine in interpersonal connections, and only from there does the rest of the Torah become comprehensible.
The world begins with love; the Book of Psalms (89:3) says “the world was created in kindness.” Rav Saadia Gaon and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto see love as God’s very motivation in creating the universe. Love becomes the spiritual blueprint for all of existence.
The very human love we have for others reflects this larger divine love. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook offers a fascinating perspective on Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, a biblical book written in the style of a love song. In the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva already reinterprets Shir HaShirim as a metaphor of the love between man and God; ordinary love songs don’t belong in a holy text. Rabbi Kook offers a fascinating reinterpretation of Rabbi Akiva, and explains that the ordinary love songs in Shir HaShirim are actually a small-scale reflection of the greater love between man and God; and that is because our “ordinary” loves are not ordinary at all. All loves lead one to the divine.
It’s difficult to talk about love at a time of war. Love sometimes requires one to go into battle to protect one’s family, reluctantly but resolutely. But that is not at all the goal; Isaiah dreamt of a world where the swords are beaten into plowshares. War is our nightmare; the dream is peace, of each person sitting contentedly under their own vine and own fig tree.
And that is the love we continue to search for, an otherworldly force that will transform history. Rachel explained that Hersh had a unique ability to bring people together that he had “befriended… German (soccer) fans over the years when they visited Jerusalem to watch their team play soccer. Together they painted a peace mural with both Arab and Jewish residents near our home in Jerusalem…” One prays for the day when this will be more than a mural.
Judaism proudly asserts the power of love. Machiavelli’s approach is tempting; sometimes all that matters is pure strength. But the mistake is that brute force works for a generation or two, until there’s a crisis. Then the fear disappears, and the ruler is deposed. Power is as finite as those who wield it, grasped tightly by princes whose lives are short and temporary.
To survive for a generation or two, one needs power; to survive for millennia, one needs love. And that is the story of Jewish history. Jews are a people who never quit because they had a passion for God, Torah and the Jewish people. The love Jews around the world had for Hersh (who was named for a great-uncle who perished in the Holocaust) is part of this same never-ending story. The Jewish people are living proof that love can outlast power.
The day of Hersh’s funeral, several posts on social media reported about children being named Hersh in the memory of Hersh Goldberg Polin z”l. These were not relatives or even acquaintances of the family. Just ordinary Jews who cared, and wanted Hersh’s legacy to continue onward. They were naming their children after a man they loved but never knew.
They were sharing Rachel and Jon’s remarkable love for Hersh with their own family.
And in doing so, they were starting a revolution of love once again.
May Hersh’s memory be a blessing, and a revolution.
though this is from September, I had never read it until last night, and I think we need it this week.
It is not the silence itself that is earth-shattering. It is the discretion to be silent about this, but not of other’s suffering.
I thought I had felt all the disappointment there was to feel since October 7. That the indifference of strangers to Jewish lives could no longer surprise me. That well-meaning people choosing to highlight Palestinian suffering and ignore Israelis’ followed a predictable path that I had got used to.
But of course, I was wrong.
Yesterday, the image of Shiri Bibas clutching her two young children as terrorists tore them from their home was joined in our hearts by another horrifying sight.
Confronted with the sight of four coffins, two of which contained the bodies of Kfir and Ariel paraded on a Hamas stage in Gaza surrounded by masked terrorists, some of whom had even bought their children, I thought to myself, this has to be the moment where people wake up.
I watched in complete horror as this spectacle was being televised to the world, and the only people talking about it online were Jewish.
I don’t know any Jew since October 7, who has not felt paralysed with grief and rage about how little Jewish lives matter, particularly in the spaces of people who claim to care about injustice.
I looked online for the response from normally extremely vocal human rights charities. There was nothing from Save the Children UK about the boastful parading of dead Jewish babies, zero from UNICEF UK about the spectacle of evil.
Amnesty International could not even trouble themselves to focus on the direct and deliberate targeting of Jewish children without invoking false equivalence and bothsidesing on a day that we mourned two babies whose only crime was being Jewish.
No one, bar us, marches for our right to life. No one chants for our freedom, not even when our children are forcibly removed from their homes by murderous rapists and held underground for over a year, no campuses are taken over by spoilt students refusing to study, so devoted to our lived experience that they can't bring themselves to eat, and no one takes part in collective mourning, not even for the murder of our babies.
I do not know if the silence from people who have shared information about the desperate plight of children in Gaza interspersed with holiday pictures is deliberate. I do not know what conversations happen internally if at all. I know most of them will have no idea what it feels like to see your community degraded and dehumanised online and in the streets every week by thousands of people across the globe who claim to be moral and decent.
It is not the silence itself that is earth-shattering. It is the discretion to be silent about this, but not of others suffering. It is deliberate, it is considered.
The same people who were convinced Elon Musk is a raving Nazi and were so keen to educate their 201 followers about why his salute was antisemitic, have nothing to say about Hamas kidnapping and murdering Jewish children in cold blood.
More silence when the depravity goes further and forensic testing on the corpses returned by Hamas revealed they were covered in propaganda material and that Shiri is not even the fourth body returned. And nothing when it was revealed that the boys were killed in captivity.
But then if the image of a mother and her children in coffins while the monsters responsible for their death towered over them is not enough to shake the souls of ordinary people into saying something, then what is?
And so here we are again. Another moment in this barbaric timeline of terror and psychological torture where Jews are screaming into a void with mostly each other for company.
Our agony is for the families who have become our own. Shiri was every Jewish mother, her babies were our own. Oded Lifschitz was our peace-loving grandpa. How are generations of Israelis watching this expected to cling on to his unwavering commitment to peace and coexistence.
Meanwhile we have lived, slept and breathed their stories. We have witnessed their families' tireless efforts to get the world to notice their humanity and we have watched ordinary people destroy their posters with a latte in hand.
I will never understand why the image of a terrified mother clutching her babies flanked by frenzied gunmen in plain clothes did not inspire global movements to demand their immediate release. Perhaps if they had we might not be here now.
You will hear Jewish people talk about how October 7 changed everything for them. I fight daily not to let a whirlwind of pain consume me.
I do not want my world to shrink but we are constantly confronting the reality that people are indifferent to our violent murder at best, or defensive of it at worst.
Of course there are friends and allies outside our community who do care, they acknowledge the pain we are feeling, and we cling to them with dear life but they are few.
It feels trite to talk about the people who have spoken out for us and how important they are, because well, only a psychopath doesn’t care about a 9-month-old baby ripped from their bed and murdered by terrorists.
“But Hamas said they were killed in Israeli air strikes” I can see the apologists typing now. And honestly, I pity them.
How devoid of human decency do you have to be to hold anyone other than the murderous terrorist who stole them responsible?
[two notes: 1. I loathe Elon, but the non-Jewish people who were mad about Elon were lecturing us that we weren’t mad enough or performing enough for their satisfaction, and have NOTHING to say about murdered Jewish children. they do not care about antisemitism nor Jewish lives, they are hypocrites.
2. anyone who claims Ariel and Kfir were killed by an airstrike rather than murdered in cold blood by their captors is a vile liar and should be called on their moral bankruptcy, every single time.]
Will literally anybody at all see those murdered kids' faces and start speaking up. Everyone in my life tries to tell me the whole world doesn't hate us, that the "silent majority" is with us. But what fucking use is a silent majority? If literally nothing at all whatsoever can get them to stop being silent?
Babies were murdered and your peers excuse it and celebrate the organization that killed them and held a party as they handed over their corpses. And this "silent majority" won't even reblog a post about it, on the off chance that they get blocked by their violently antisemitic tumblr mutuals on a completely anonymous microblogging website. If that is the extent of the moral backbone of the "silent majority," what fucking use is it? People can bring up every excuse in the world for not taking this or that action or not talking about this or that particular thing, but the fact of the matter is that if you literally never push back against bigotry in any situation at all no matter how low the stakes are, you are completely indistinguishable from a bigot and what's "in your heart" is less than worthless.
What's inside only matters because of what it makes you do. Anything else is a fantasy we tell ourselves to hide from the reality of who we really are.
the brutality is incomparable. i don’t want to even acknowledge the details just released. this was done not by hamas, but by palestinian civilians. they strangled BABIES to death and threw rocks at them to stimulate an air strike. no trigger warnings. you don’t get that privilege. you all must read this and absorb this barbarity, for yarden bibas — for shiri, who is still missing. read it and understand the evil israel and the jewish people are up against.
doesn’t make me feel better but correction.
as clarified above, apparently this was perpetrated by a splinter terrorist group (on CNN, they were described as “worse” than Hamas, and reports seem to indicate that Hamas was not happy the Bibas’ treatment went this way because they wanted to use them alive for better negotiating leverage. instead, they kept their bodies as bargaining chips).
their father wants us to raise our voices. it’s the least we can do after all he has suffered, so he knows somehow he’s not enduring this alone, though none of us can ever understand his pain.
for Shiri, who must come home.
for Ariel and Kfir, because they never even had the chance to speak up for themselves, or in Kfir’s case, to speak at all.
we’re so, so sorry, sweet boys.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from your local ghost girl. I hope you’re all having a bright and beautiful day filled with joy and good things, I hope you are safe and cherished, I hope you have strength in your spirits and light in your hearts. I hope the year to come brings you blessings. I may not be here often anymore, but I think of you all always and love you very dearly. 🎄💗💗💗🎁
I’ll have a blue Christmas without you… 💙❄️⚡️
@arianatheangel-girl honey!!! I meant to post this a couple of days ago and hadn’t had the chance to be on here, but as it turned out I didn’t get him open until today, so it was perfect timing. 💖 thank you so very much, he’s ADORABLE and you have no idea how much this brightened up the holidays. hugging you so tight from afar right now.
look at the cute ornament which came in the mail perfectly on time for the last night of Chanukah!!! my boy my boy
@swiftieblackbeard thank you so much my darling, I love him and this gave me a true spot of joy - I was just talking to my mom about the light he’s brought to me through everything this year, I do deeply continue to believe that artists and music, and the love/meaning/comfort we discover in them, finds us when we most need it, and there’s such grace in each time that’s happened. Elvis knew exactly when I needed him. and I love you dearly too.
also thank you to @joons, @thebohemianbelle, @arthurwilde, @ab4eva for your kind replies on my last post, I love you very much and I’m having a hard time responding to things properly right now, but I need you to know you are true friends and blessings in this world. it has always meant more than can be said, but especially does in these times. 💗💗💗
my mom is very ill - she had to go in for a CT scan this week (and next week she has to have another one, with contrast). she's been struggling with a combination of some severe symptoms, and she put off dealing with this because of what happened first with her arm in october, but she waited longer than she should have. they found that not only does she have kidney stones and a progression of her CKD, but she also has a mass on her liver and another mass, with atrophy, on her left kidney. they're not sure what they are. they could be cysts and they could be cancer. her kidneys have been bad for years, but it's escalated from bad to unbearable pain, so we knew something else had to be going on. she actually did go in for help in august (she was starting to feel really sick in may), but they couldn't even get her into a urologist until november, so that didn't help with the time of it all worsening.
her arm still isn't even healed. at least it's less painful though. if the results of these scans come back with a severe diagnosis, she doesn't want to treat it. we can't afford to regardless. I am trying not to process what that will mean for us yet.
we've also been dealing with the upstairs flooding our hall bathroom (which is where the shower is) regularly for the past three weeks, the HOA sent out a plumber not quite two weeks ago, but whatever he did didn't fix it because it happened again. we have to set up a hose connected to the pipe and a plastic tub to prevent water from going everywhere. everything is just ongoing hell atm.
I also don't think I can ever explain or articulate the sheer level of trauma the past two months have caused emotionally and mentally due to global impact, and for me specifically due to my circumstances, the internet.
I read a piece where the author said, "I’ll be honest. I feel like shattered glass. I don’t know how to collect the pieces of me that have broken in this time...I don’t know how much more I personally can withstand losing and I’m finding these to be the hardest days of my life... I want to go back, but I can’t go back. You can’t go back. You can’t have what once was. You have to accept reality, as unforgiving and as stark as it may be. If only we could all go back. Afraid not...What was warm turns bitterly cold. What was fruitful dries up. What was safe becomes treacherous. What was clear becomes murky. What was love becomes strange. What was true becomes uncertain. And it is in everything and everywhere and everyone, and it is too much to hold at once without losing the one thing none of us can afford to lose - our minds...I’m praying that we can stay sane and somehow find purpose, solace, compassion, dare I say love, in a world that is framing us as crazy while we’re hunted down every second of our lives."
you don't understand. there's a post describing the loss of community as "cataclysmic." it isn't hyperbolic, it's accurate. (there's another post which someone tagged: "#i know the internet has ruined the word gaslighting #but that’s exactly what it is #goyim have gaslit jews on such a massive scale i literally cannot trust my perception of reality #prev>>> #i am constantly anxious and terrified #it’s everywhere from everyone both irl and online #i feel like i’m sleep walking into a gas chamber #and idk what to do about it other than scream into the void #like i honestly cannot describe my level of terror #but also i keep doubting myself thinking i’m being alarmist or overreacting." to put it plainly, our fear is ceaseless, and then we're actively shamed and, yes, gaslit over it. read this one too.) there is not a Jewish person I have seen in existence who is unaffected by this. I've followed so many Jewish creators on IG just to give quiet support because they are barraged daily by the most vile things, and hardly anyone from the outside is checking in on them, asking if they need anything. it can't be our 0.2% against the world, despite how beautiful that solidarity has become. no one is asking if we're okay (we're not). even if we're fortunate enough that our lives are untouched directly. our world has changed.
I cannot come onto this website without feeling a sense of panic, I've lost count of how many mutuals I blocked on my former main, and there are more still I need to clear out that I haven't had the ability to deal with. a couple of weeks ago - and honestly, this was...the last straw and a real breaking point for me - this website saw fit to desecrate the shema. I already wrote about its presence in my life, and then I had to see this website frequented by people who would DARE to violate its meaning. we are not only being inundated with hatred and vitriol, we are not only being gaslit, we are not only being accused and shamed because of our ethnicity, culture, and religion, we are watching people lie and try to rewrite foundational, real history and truths and core tenets. you dirty and twist our terms, our meanings, our sacred things without hesitation. I'd BEG for everyone to fucking learn something, but I know learning would make absolutely zero difference because education doesn't matter ("it depends on the context," after all, even if you're calling for our deaths and destruction), understanding doesn't matter, this is driven by hatred, feeding off of it, finding any way to cause harm. the level of evil being perpetuated is beyond comprehension. this website will never be the safe or happy place it was for me again. perhaps that's my own fault, that I was naive enough to believe it was that to begin with. (edit: this is very apt and timely and unsettling.)
I don't think you can understand the feeling of losing faith in the very fabric of things you believed in societally and socially, the institutions, the organizations, the ideals, the politics, the spaces, the human beings. it goes from a macro level of principles to the micro of "friends" you personally interacted with. I have not known how to withstand this level of soul shattering heartache, of the trust being decimated this wholly. in the midst of this, to bear witness, I have read accounts of abhorrent atrocities that shouldn't even be fathomable in the mind, meanwhile keeping tabs on the violent incidents and rhetoric happening daily. I don't know how to disengage from it because awareness feels like a shield. I don't know how to tell you the way it's changed me as a person. I am not who I was mere months ago.
the only solace I find is that this has given me a stronger sense of identity and pride, a strength in responding to things that would doubtless have driven me to tears before, and a newfound centered self-respect.
this particular blog was created out of an anxiety response, a need to flee. and it's not been comforting like I needed it to be. so, back at the end of november, I decided to take my url - which I loved very, very dearly and wanted to keep safe - and save it elsewhere, for a time after I'd rested, when I wasn't as traumatized, as angry and grief-stricken, as panicked. it didn't seem fair to have it here, I wanted it guarded. I took my icon, my header, my pretty pink color scheme, and copied it all over. it was all fine. I logged out. and for some unknown reason, some glitch, some mean little twist of fate, tumblr terminated the account. absolutely no idea why, maybe there was a problem with the e-mail address I'd just set up for it? I contacted support, but of course this site is running on fumes, thus I have heard nothing. my url got evaporated along with it, and I can't reclaim it because it says it's "taken" even though it doesn't exist. I don't know. I don't know if this was a sign from the universe telling me not to bother. that it isn't worth it. there's no real fandom engagement I want to participate in anymore (I'll be honest, I currently can't stomach certain people/artists/things that once were favorites, for various reasons, in ways which may not be recoverable, and there were aspects of fandom already difficult to navigate, but there's an added horror now: I can't engage with anyone, can't reblog a post or follow someone, without feeling the need to comb through their blog to see if they're safe or not. if they'd cheer or ignore or deny harm done to me or not. it's a continual buzz of anxiety, no one is okay to interact with at face value). I was going to lean into pretty aesthetics, classic films and music, my vintage loves (as those never let me down) in a new place, for peace of mind, serenity, escape. alas. if I can't get my url restored, trying again probably won't happen.
so anyway. that's it. I am tired. spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, to the bone and heart, after my entire adult life spent in the throes of chronic fatigue and life-destroying illness, small stresses and strange catastrophes and sorrowful losses, times when I thought I'd die from it all, I never knew I could be quite this exhausted.
we're nearing the end of Chanukah. do you know what Chanukah actually celebrates? do you know about the battle, about the desecration and rededication of the temple? it's about survival and defiance. it's about light that should not exist still miraculously persisting to burn. it was always considered a "minor" holiday, only made more prominent by assimilation and its winter date. someone I've come to admire greatly said in a live, as he lit the candles, that we can't think of it as minor anymore, that is, in fact, essential. because the miracle that happened there, in Jerusalem, 2000 years ago, now is the miracle of the fact that we still exist and live and illuminate such depths of darkness with our ever-present light. viktor frankl wrote: what is to give light must endure burning. I've thought of that often lately. we will outlive them. maybe I won't, but we, as a people, will. "the miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light - in a little cruse - lasted as long as they say, but that the courage...lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit."
I don't know what the next step is. can all the words in all the books help me to face what lies ahead?
the thing I have been wrestling with relentlessly is the heartbreak of discovering that my entire worldview and political identity was built on a lie of intersectional solidarity. i know that this solidarity was always aspirational in many ways, and that we all fell short in reality. but to learn that the movement I have spent my entire adult life supporting doesn’t just “fall short” when it comes to jews, but that we are explicitly and insidiously excluded from the circle of progressive moral concern has been devastating. I literally don’t know where to go from here. but I know it has brought me into contact with the unbroken line of my people going back to sinai. we are still here.
#i keep thinking about the essay i read by ilan benjamin. daniel pearl's cousin #who has lived so much more life and seen so much more and experienced so much more than i have (but who hasn't?) #(my isolation and frozen state at a much younger age is assuredly part of what has added to this shock and naivete for me) #anyway he listed the allyship he's worked for and believed in and the heartbreak he has willingly forgiven #and the humanity and rights for which he stands. and then he said #“when you killed my idealism i had no forgiveness left” #it's silly but it's lived like a splinter in my head and keeps (bizarrely) making me think of that scene from moulin rouge #when he says: thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love. #the thing that makes that tragic isn't his misplaced anger at her but rather the shattering of his idealism. he is in many ways an innocent #an artist who believes in truth and beauty and freedom and above all things love. who suddenly understands that's not how the world works#love can't save you. you can work so hard and try and be so compassionate and forgiving #eventually you have to see how the world is built and your idealism is not real and is not enough #that's what the past weeks taught me. because of the jubilation and justification and hatred and reveling in the pain everywhere #and disguising that as righteous. and pretending it's helping people who deserve help (it isn't. it won't) #and knifing people who have done absolutely nothing in the heart simply for being who and what they are#spreading screeds from another era as if we've been transported through time. and not caring what it does to friends or anyone suffering#and not caring that it's making things more dangerous and volatile because you don't really love the side you claim to support#as much as you hate the other. that's unforgivable. thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love#i don't know what to do. there's nothing i can do
the referenced essay:
After terrorists killed my cousin Daniel Pearl, my family called for peace. But after the worldwide celebration of our people’s slaughter, m
hi followers <3 curious after the reblogged discussions yesterday:
Have you experienced antisemitism on your dash or directly, from mutuals/people you followed specifically through fandom, since October 7th?
Yes, celebration of and/or justification of 10/7 and/or defense of Hamas
Yes, denial of 10/7
Yes, antisemitic slurs
Yes, antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories
Yes, Holocaust inversion and/or denial and/or dismissal of Jewish lived history
Yes, directly to me (virulent replies or asks, threats, etc)
Yes, multiple/all of the above
No, thankfully. (and what utopia are you in, please tell us?)
if you'd like to reblog this to elaborate what happened or in which fandom(s), you are more than welcome to.
final results on this being 45% multiple/all of these incidents is heartbreaking, but from personal experience unsurprising - I am startled that 26% is for the choice of seeing people justifying/celebrating/defending the horror of 10/7, despite witnessing that with my own eyes, I'm never going to get used to the fact that it's been the reality of the response. I'm almost skeptical of the nos because it's been an unrelenting stream of every variation of this that I know many of us have observed and been crushed and disgusted by, but maybe there are actually some pleasant dashboards out there...
thank you to everyone who responded, and who shared what you've seen in comments and tags. I read everything, and I am so sorry.
you're not alone. our hearts are with you.
I want you all to see this to understand even a sliver of why I'm not using this evil, godforsaken website, not that it's limited to tumblr because it is now the incessant, constant reality everywhere. I'm an "all of the above" statistic on this. you cannot possibly comprehend the despair and the depths of what this is like unless you are entrenched in it and seeing people futilely trying to combat it every day. too many people unaffected can't even recognize what they are seeing, or don't care, or are participating in it. my dash is COVERED in it daily, from mutuals. I got tired of blocking people and prayed maybe some of what I said would get through instead, but it didn't. people literally participating in this were liking my posts? it's almost laughable if it weren't so deeply wounding and concerning. this has been the daily reality for Jewish people trying to exist online (or anywhere) since that horrible day. there is no respite from it. we are battered and broken and angry and devastated. there is no space for our grief except from each other. there is no recognition of our collective humanity. I said this already over there, but I'll say it again - this killed something in my soul. every single person who has perpetuated this or was utterly silent about it (and continues to be. do you think we don't hear the silence too?) has destroyed something irreparably. idealism, trust, hope, safety. it is inescapable, it is violent, it is relentless. everyone else will eventually move on and we'll be trapped in the aftermath of knowing how prevalent this hatred is. that people we considered friends would stab us in the back and supposed allies would cheer harm done to us for the crime of being Jewish. because that's what this is about. none of this rhetoric is about anything but that anymore, not when conspiracy theories are being woven, lies are being perpetuated, victims and atrocities are being denied, and any Jew, no matter their beliefs or political spectrum, is being attacked for existing. we are not the same. we will never be the same. I will never forget or forgive the response from this, from "friends," from strangers, or from the whole world.
things which have occurred over the past few weeks other than the irrevocable heartbreak the fear the shattering of hope and idealism and belonging the unending despair the not sleeping not eating dropping to an extremely low weight strands of hair suddenly turning white in my 30s due to stress of it all:
some of you know my mom has been very ill and had an excruciating reaction to a procedure which led to a serious cancer scare. it took two weeks to get the biopsy results back, and they'd pretty much convinced us to prepare for the worst. when they finally called back, she left me this note:
so that is a massive relief and blessing and we are very, very thankful for it, and grateful to those of you who knew and kept her in your prayers.
received this little felt and cotton haunted friend in the mail, but don't know who she is from!:
reached the Yentl chapter of My Name is Barbra (just ahead of its anniversary on the 18th, though i haven't finished this section yet), and everything about it feels more important and affirming than ever.
there are certain things that once you have no man can take away, no wave can wash away, no wind can blow away.
got our car back after $3600 worth of work, now all we can do is hope it’s fixed and continues to drive.
went with my mom to a follow-up emergency appointment about the awful wound that developed after the treatment on her arm, and they think the reason it reacted so badly and painfully is because she has cancer. apparently the cryotherapy tends to anger/activate those cells and bring them to the surface. they did a biopsy, we’ll know for sure in a couple of weeks and how to proceed with treatment from there. my dad’s been having a rough time with his lately, so praying anything with my mom won’t be too aggressive, but it’s impossible to know yet.
every day i have to see horrific things and people being unmasked ghouls with unleashed hatred on here and it is a terrible place. so. my heart is broken.
this, seemingly like all my other blogs (RIP 💀) was a bit of a failed experiment, i am taking a break for the foreseeable future. it could be short of long. tbh it seems extremely pointless to keep going or even try being here, and at the present moment, i cannot imagine feeling anything but despair if i am on here during the holiday season, and i simply would rather not do that. i need to have the energy to focus on my mom and help her in any way feasible, and my health has been taking extreme turns for the worse all year, i am more physically fragile than i have been in quite a while. the last three weeks have been the most unbearable i have ever spent online and living in this state is unsustainable. idk when/if i will feel like coming back more regularly, considering the atmosphere. my overall engagement and interaction will probably not be the same, it's just what it is. please remember that i tried. i tried so much harder than you realize. take care 💙
