There are no winners in war!
On 7th October 2023, the morning of Simchat Torah, I was safe and sound at my flat in North London, when a friend called and said, “you need to watch the news. I hope you and your family are okay and I’m so sorry”.
They stayed on the phone whilst I watched the shocking news, lost my breath, with my heart beating ten to the dozen. I thanked G-d as I thought about my late grandpa Dave a holocaust survivor, and my grandmas, and was so grateful they were no longer here to see what I bore witness to; to what we all saw.
As the death toll increased in Israel, peace ravers at Nova festival murdered, the horrors of the rape of women, babies cooked in ovens and burnt in fire pits and whole families murdered. I felt guilty for wishing that my dad - a second-generation holocaust survivor - was not here witnessing what we all were seeing. I got off the phone and lay on the lounge floor, tried to ground myself as I had the strong sensation of the rug being pulled from under me. I tried to pay attention to my intergenerational trauma of antisemitism that had started to rise the surface and what my responses were to the trauma that I was witnessing.
Peter Fonagy (1999) presents a model of the transmission of trauma based on attachment theory; he used this as way of looking at how trauma can be transmitted within a family of a Holocaust survivor.
His findings state: “The disorganisation of early attachment creates a potential for the child to experience these representations as part of concrete reality rather than psychic reality. The risks persist for the child of the survivor, whether manifest pathology was evident in the parent or not and may account for the apparent “transmission” of specific memories and related affect across three generations” (P.97, 1999).
Hamas and all of us knew that Israel would retaliate, and it would not be good for any of us; Arabs, Christians, Israelis, Jews, Palestinians living in Gaza or Israel. I did the usual thing and checked with family friends that are like my extended family, close friends and colleagues in Israel that they were safe and okay. I had no words and could only send love and prayers. These gestures did not feel enough and, like most of us, I felt completely powerless to the unfolding events. I held in mind that ‘there are no winners in war’.
Over the next few days, I got some heartening messages from colleagues, friends and unexpected supportive messages from old and current clients, though I reminded them that this was not their role to check that I was okay. Then as soon as Israel did what we all knew would happen, I got radio silence, my Facebook friend list went down not by one or two people, but by the dozen daily. Suddenly as a Jew living in the diaspora (outside Israel), I realised consciously or unconsciously I was positioned as the ‘perpetrator’.
A new type of antisemitism
Suddenly for colleagues and clients I was ‘the problem’. I had clients saying they did not feel safe to return, requesting that we have a break due to what is happening between Israel and Gaza, and one client stating: ‘my values had changed for them’. If the value was being Jewish, then it was not my values that were the problem. For most Jewish people and me, Israel and being Jewish outside Israel is very meshed in life cycle events, in Jewish observance and ritual - that is why it is seen as antisemitic by Jewish people to speak against Israel. Suddenly me being Jewish was unquestionably the problem, not the positioning of me as the perpetrator, not Hamas’s genocide attack on 7th October and no accountability for the underlying antisemitism in some of these responses. The therapy room began feeling like an extension of the United Nations. The war had entered my therapy room and ‘there are no winners in war’.
I attempted to keep my therapy room as safe and separate from the external stresses as possible. The therapy room is always a microcosm of what is happening in the wider world. The language used in the therapy room changed. It challenged all I knew about intersectionality and about working transculturally. Any therapy training I had done did not prepare me for these conversations. Just as I would challenge biphobia, homophobic, racist, sexist and transphobic language in the therapy room, I attempted to do the same around the language used around Israel and Gaza.
I soon learnt that the same rules do not apply. Israel is always held to a higher standard and there is always a silence around other atrocities happening in the wider world but a heightening of vocal anger around Israel. Some black and brown people’s lives matter, and some don’t. Whilst the war continues between Russia and Ukraine the world had become silent. Whilst 500,000 Muslims were killed in Syria there was and is an ongoing uncomfortable silence about real acts of genocide and war. As a client from Syrian decent said in session: ‘Some black and brown lives matter and some JUST DON’T. And what hurts them the most was that most white people had taken it on themselves to decide which lives matter and which don’t”.
“The White saviour complex, also known as White saviourism, is an ideology that a White person acts upon from a position of superiority to rescue a BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, or person of colour, community or person”.
I have been brought up to hold compassion for all human beings, I understand that it is difficult to watch death toll numbers increase in times of war. I understand that none of this feels like justice. I feel that pain too, but we do have to question our own sense of being white saviours. If we look at what is happening between Israel and Gaza as isolated incidents and when rioting about this injustice. If we don’t speak up about the plans leading up to and acts that Hamas did on 7th October 2023 and that the Hezbollah throughout this have been sending rockets into Israel, then who are they rioting for is the question. We have right wing leaders in power, both here and there, who have lacked compassion and humanity, which does not help to de-escalate or resolve things.
As Viktor Frankl said in his book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”
I continue to be appalled by organisations that have remained silent about what happened on 7th October 2023 and just focus on what is happening to the people in Gaza. When talking about injustice and oppression, you cannot also only sight Israel as the oppressor as Hamas does not offer free speech or give their own people equal rights. None of us post Second World War in the Western world know what it is like to live their daily lives under terror. The irony is that Pro-Palestine community action groups are also ‘pink washing’ as you cannot be LGBTQ+ safely in Gaza or in much of the Middle East and that has nothing to do with Israel - that is to do with the Palestinian Authorities. Conflating Jews in the diaspora with the actions of the Israeli government against Hamas is the new type of antisemitism I am discussing.
What about the apartheid and colonization?
I am very open to having a conversation about colonization but if the starting point of this conversation is not seeing the Mizrachi black and brown Jews that exist and have a right to exist on their native soil then this conversation is not starting in a culturally sensitive and open-hearted position.
I want to say there are good and bad Jews, there are good and bad Israelis, there are good and bad Palestinians. There is Hamas and Hezbollah, and both are terrorist organisations not freedom fighters. Reclaiming chants like ‘from the river to the sea’ - the original battle cry of Hamas - is saying that one day people could reclaim Mein Kampf or the Nazi swastika symbol and other forms of hate. For me it is legitimising a form of hate against a particular racial group. The 7th October 2023 events and the response to it has, I believe, brought out a new form of antisemitism that may have always been there. Like it or not, Israel shall and will continue to exist. The rise of antisemitism in the wider world has more profoundly demonstrated to me why Israel must exist.
I worry about the erasure that is happening of my community’s Jewish history, and the positioning of colonization seems to erase the fact that in my and Mizrachi Jews (Jews that originate from Israel and the Middle East) DNA our genetic and historic roots would take us back to Israel being our native land. You also now have many generations that are indigenous to Israel, so where would you like that population to go, exactly? From my lived experience there is no apartheid in Israel; you cannot compare Israel to Africa, that does a disservice to people that have lived through an actual apartheid and genocide in many other countries.
Professional Training and Support Systems
I would like to attend further training in my specialist areas. In the current environment I don’t feel safe to do so, because I don’t feel confident in how facilitators will keep the space inclusive and safe for all trainees and has put some things on hold for now.
I attempted to speak to my membership professional body around antisemitism and antisemitic hate crime that I also experienced at this time. I am surprised that with the quantity of hate crime and safeguarding cases that have happened in the last twenty years, and especially now - that my professional body and professional insurance company have no guidance or proper support. I made sure I moved to a Jewish queer supervisor who has some intersections in common and this allows me to feel safe to separate the personal from the professional, still feel challenged in my work, and reflect and be open to look at my blind spots.
Where do I stand?
At the core of where I stand is that I want a two-state solution, and I want there to be justice, peace and no more violence on both sides. I want a long-term plan for the Gazan citizens that offers them equal rights and access to medical and social care, for all innocent women, men, children and LGBT community members caught in the crossfire. I don’t believe that all community in Gaza want Hamas or the ongoing hostility and war. The power that are in charge there don’t allow those people to speak out without risking their lives. There is a dark cloud we are all still living under with what happened on 7th October 2023 and the ongoing terror and violence, increased antisemitism and islamophobia it has brought.
Most of all I want more critical analysis of what is happening in and to the world. I want open-hearted and minded conversations, but people are hurting and are in pain, so those conversations need to come when the violence has ended - when people’s trauma has had time to not be in fight and flight, and we can start hearing and seeing each other’s pain. I continue to believe that there are no winners in war. I hope for the end of the violence and peace one day soon. For now, all I can do is hope and pray.
Queers Against Antisemitism is a San Francisco movement of queer activists who have pledged to take a stand against antisemitism. With anti-Jewish hate rising globally, this community has realized the importance of speaking out and standing with the Jewish community. Thank you.
! Take the pledge and learn more at: https://queersagainstantisemitism.org/