Am Yisrael Chai

Amidst death, the people of Israel live

Itay and Omer were to be married last Friday. They had planned it down to the last detail. But then the plans changed.

When Itay was called up, he thought he might celebrate alone with his fellow soldiers near the Gaza strip, saving the wedding for later. Instead, a commander invited him to invite Omer, if she was willing.

She took his call on her way to a military funeral. Her answer was unhesitating: “I shouted ‘yes’ to him!”

Read the full heartwarming story here. When I saw their picture, a few lines came to mind from Fiddler On the Roof:

God would like us to be joyful

Even when our hearts lie panting on the floor

How much more should we be joyful

When there’s really something to be joyful for?

The song, “L’Chaim (To Life),” is a boisterous marriage toast, or more precisely a marriage agreement toast, in context made tragicomic because the expected wedding never actually takes place. (The would-be bride doesn’t love the would-be groom and ultimately marries her true sweetheart instead.) It was always one of my favorite numbers when I watched the movie on repeat as a child. Only later did I really pause to hear the lyrics and realize they were not merely boisterous, not merely joyful. I would call them “bittersweet,” except “bitter” seems the wrong word. There’s no bitterness here. Only that wry, distinctly Jewish acceptance of how things have been, how things will always be. Before each repeat of the title, there’s a little sharp stab. “It takes a wedding to make us say ‘Let’s live another day.’” “May all your futures be pleasant ones, not like our present ones.” “Life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us.” And still, “Drink l’chaim, to life!”

On Arab television, a Hamas leader was recently explaining the difference between Israel and Hamas. It’s very simple: “The Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs.”

This has been haunting me. It comes back to me now as I look at Itay and Omer. It comes back as I watch this clip from a base concert for IDF soldiers. “Don’t be afraid,” the musician sings while the soldiers dance, “Our father is protecting us.” Or this clip of soldiers singing and leaping for joy around a Sefer Torah, preserved from one of the communities where families were massacred. Above their heads, the Iron Dome destroys incoming rockets, making the dark sky pulse with fire.

Look at these, and then look at this clip of a crowd in Gaza, mostly fighting-age men, gathered to shout their response to Israel’s order that all civilians evacuate south: “We prefer to die.” As they march down the street, they all start chanting “Allahu akbar!” I say mostly fighting-age men, because there are a few young boys too. Some of them look no older than 7 or 8. One looks like a preschooler. They run along with their fathers and brothers, pumping their small fists, flashing the “V” sign.

I’m starting to read a book called Son of Hamas, by the oldest son of one of the organization’s founders, who defected and became a spy for Israel. Over a period of several years, during which a British missionary converted him to Christianity, he realized that he had been raised in a death cult. Eventually, his father disowned him, and he found asylum in the United States, where he regularly speaks about radical Islam. Recently, he was back on TV to explain what Hamas is feeding to little boys like he once was. “In the mosques, Hamas taught us that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology, we wouldn’t be able to build an Islamic state.”

As we’ve seen, that innocent blood includes the blood of their own people, who have always been used as human shields. A clip has been circulating with the claim that the Israeli air force struck an escape convoy of civilians following IDF orders to move south. Further analysis appears to show clearly that the explosion was actually caused by a Hamas-planted bomb. This is consistent with other reports that Hamas has set up blockades, turned back cars, and bombarded Gazans with warnings to ignore the Israelis and stay put. Meanwhile, the Israelis ingeniously managed to hack Arab TV itself with one of its many warnings.

Here some might point to Israeli tactics like the siege cutting Gazans off from food, water, medicine, and power (as I write, partly lifted now, at least for water). I’m hesitant to say a lot about this until I’ve gathered enough thoughts for a separate post on how to apply a just war ethic here. For now, I’ll just say that while it’s not illegitimate to debate and question something like the siege, it has to be acknowledged before the debate begins that we are still looking at a fundamental clash of paradigms—a clash between one society ordered towards life and another society ordered towards death. Someone made a cartoon of an Israeli soldier and a terrorist aiming at each other. The Israeli is crouched in front of a baby carriage, the terrorist behind one. This is more than a cartoon. It’s the simple reality.

I’m still thinking about an eyewitness account from a woman who survived the Saturday attacks. In the course of her hair-raising rescue, she told the soldiers around her to leave her behind and keep moving as they came under fire. “What are you talking about?” one of them said. “This is why we’re here.”

A young reader of mine with way too much morbid curiosity and free time has been browsing through Hamas Telegram clips, going chronologically from the first attacks up to the present day. I’m taking his word for it, but he reports that the general mood has run the gamut from bloody chest-thumping to self-pity and copium, as these depraved young souls realize they’re not going to win the war they started.

In all of it, there is nothing like the IDF soldiers dancing around the Sefer Torah. There is nothing like the wedding of Omer and Itay. Why? Because in a culture of death, there is nothing that gives joy except death. There is nothing to celebrate except death.

But in the end, Omer says it best: “Life simply triumphs—even in moments like these.”