JULIAN RESNICK writes from Israel
The conversations which are almost impossible to have but have them we must.
It is 6 in the morning in a small place called Blowing Rock in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the United States. (Look for it on your maps; it is off the beaten track, and it is beautiful).
In a few hours we will be visiting the home of a famous American industrialist from the beginning of the 20th century, Moses Cone. Yes, you picked it up straight away, but, no, it was not he who changed his name from ‘Kahn’ so it sounded less Jewish; it was his father, a German-Jewish immigrant. Today I will be meeting up with one of my oldest friends who, like me, grew up in Habonim and who, like me, moved to Israel as a young man and who, like me, intended to help build Israel and help change the Jewish world so ‘Kahns’ would remain ‘Kahns’ and not become ‘Cones’.
And we will talk. We love talking. Of course, about children and grandchildren, about the lives we live, but also we will talk about one of the great loves of our lives, Israel. What are the conversations we will have?
I will share stories of the past months, some of which I have already shared with you.
I will tell him of my birthday in Treblinka this year, and remind him of my 13th birthday, which, like his fell around the Six Days War. And of our Aliyah which coincided with the Entebbe Raid and my 22nd birthday.
I will talk about how we are doing – and clarify that this particular ‘we’ does not include him as it refers on this occasion to those of us living in Israel. I will share that I believe that ‘we’ are living with a combination of PTSD (or possibly just trauma, as we have not go to the post-trauma stage yet), a feeling of Moral Injury (a feeling that bad things are happening in our name and that we have to find a way to respond to them and not just become bystanders), and what I choose to call ‘the Israeli Resilience Syndrome’ (that extraordinary ability we have to keep going in the most positive way imaginable).
I will share a poem or two as I love poetry and he went to drama school and we share a love of language. (Go to page 17 of the anthology Shiva, and then to page 21 and read Mom is always right and Kaddish.) You don’t have a copy? Buy one: all the proceeds go to help with the struggle to release our hostages. Here is one of them:
Mom is Always right
Mom said that when I grow up there will be no army
Mom was right.
I haven’t grown up yet and already there was no army.
It wasn’t there when I heard the screaming outside
It wasn’t there when I saw dad so scared and stressed.
It wasn’t there when the door was kicked in.
It wasn’t there when I hid under the bed.
It wasn’t there when we three pushed back on the door of the safe room.
It wasn’t there when time just stood still.
It wasn’t there when they suddenly entered.
It wasn’t there when they tore dad from mom.
Mom said that when I grow up there will be no army.
Mom was right.
Now I only want to tell her that she is always right.
I’ve cried, I’ve screamed, and still she is silent.
Itay Lev
We will talk of the time I put together my first post October 7th group to Israel and the two most difficult conversations I had to have putting them together. My conversation with Amit who survived the Nova Festival and the moment I had to ask him how much he charges for telling his story to a group – I have to build the budget for my groups. And the extraordinary conversation with Yifat, the mother of Ilay Nachman who was murdered at the Nova festival, but only after he had managed to find a way to save a girl he was fleeing with.
We will talk of what it feels like as an Israeli and as a Jew to see the pictures on the front page of Ha’aretz from Gaza, or to read the articles in the NY Times or to watch the reporting on the BBC. Yes, we will talk about this and not just dismiss it out of hand.
I will share with him the conversation my group had with young soldiers, both in my living room on the kibbutz after eating in my home, and in Sarona when we met with an extraordinary young American woman who had made Aliyah, and October 7th had
caught her as a soldier leading a unit
working with drones.
We will talk about the couple I took to the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation who, when the Center realised they were potentially major donors, invited them to have a conversation with the amazing Yarden Leal Yablonka who runs the Center to hear about how those who have worked for peace for so many years are coping with this post-October 7th reality. About nuance, about complexity, in a staff of Jews and Arabs, friends and colleagues filled with love, pain, confusion, frustration, anger, but talking, talking all the time.
These are the conversations we will have later today, in Ashville, North Carolina.
These are the conversations you and I are having right now. ●
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