This time of year is the third Anniversary of when I realized my mother as I knew her was gone and she was admitted to a geriatric psych unit in the hospital. It is also the anniversary of October 7th. I was so grateful in some ways that my mother was too ill to be aware of current events as I know that day would have upset her. But moving forward there is not a doubt in my mind that my mother, despite her loyalty and commitment to Judaism would stand on the side of humanity and joined in spirit with those organizations like “If Not Now”. I don’t know how she would react to those who still believe that the Genocide is righteous, including my father and my brother’s family. For she was at her core a believer in people and despite being laughably judgmental about people who were heavy or those who did not take care of their appearances she was someone who loved others regardless of their tribe or religion or sexuality and who others loved. When a second cousin of mine transitioned from male to female my mother did not think twice about inviting her to have dinner with my father, her and my family with school age kids. She would often talk about how proud she was of her Rabbi for being one of the few Rabbis to visit Aids Patients in the 80s. She had a marvelous way of connecting with people across nationalities and cultures. It sometimes drove me bonkers as I sometimes felt she paid more attention to others than she did me. I like to believe that my mother would choose humanity over tribalism and would agree with me that the racist apartheid Israeli government has committed crimes against humanity that will haunt the Jewish people for decades going forward. I was talking with my father the other day. I actually brought up an interesting assignment our son had given his class about a statistics debate between a Jewish Professor at UPenn and an Israeli Professor of Mathematics about whether the statistics being provided about deaths early on in the Gaza war were fake or not. The debate was about the math the Upenn professor used that claimed that data showed a bias indicating the deaths had to be faked. The Israeli Professor wrote a rebuttal pointing out the flaws in the math used by the UPenn professor. Today the overall consensus among mathematicians and statisticians is that the math the UPenn Professor’s used to claim the deaths had to be fake did not hold up. But our son gave the students the articles and asked his students to do their own analysis. My father who admittedly is 92 and who I do not expect to have a lot of cognitive flexibility became adamant about the deaths being faked. I tried to explain to him that the assignment was not about the deaths being faked but about whether the math used to claim they had to be fake held up. I can’t quite explain it but when I got off the phone with my father I was shaking. Shaking because to not see the horror and genocide and to continue to believe that Israel is the righteous one is equivalent in my opinion to Sandra Huller’s character in “Zone of Interest”
I was thinking today about how crazy it was that the summer before I had read Isabella Hamas’s wonderful book “Enter Ghost” and had an awakening of sorts about the struggles in the Middle East. And then shortly after that read Naomi Klein’s wonderful book Doppleganger where she described her own awakening about the problem with Israel and Zionism. As somebody who also grew up in an observant Jewish home her journey resonated with me. Crazy to think my husband was reading her chapter on Israel the morning of October 7th when he got phone notifications about the attack.
On the positive side next week is also Grandson Luke’s birthday. Since my wrist has healed I have been immersed in craft over art. It is like my hands were desperate to do all the things they couldn’t do last winter…such as knit and embroider and fold origami and are now making up for lost time. In my enthusiasm I decided I was going to sew and then felt a Stellated Dodecahedron for Luke. It took forever….so many edges. But when it was done I was so excited to felt it and have this wool version of my origami modulars. Well in eagerness to felt it I threw it in the washing machine and when it came out rather than being a stellated sculpture it was a round BLOB. I have to say this totally ruined my weekend. I was sooooo grumpy as a result of this. I am sure Luke, age 3, will still love it. He will probably love that I got “Creepy Carrot” and “Creepy Underpants” out of the library for him more…LOL.