The same red blood

A difficult week to be Jewish. Some thoughts...

Due to the sensitive nature of this situation, I had planned to make this post for paid-subscribers only – but, for now, I will leave this open for everyone. Sending love to all.

Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

There is a woman who has looked after my 23-month-old son at least once a week for over a year. Other than family, she is the most significant person in his life; a constant in his world, who has helped my son learn that he can feel safe and nurtured, even if his parents are at work. At times, he will pine for her company, squealing with delight when she arrives. It is love – requited love – unquestionably. And, together, we have all become friends, often chatting around the kitchen table about things like food or gardening while the children eat dinner or play.

This woman is a devout Muslim from Turkey who wears a headscarf. A detail that feels relevant to mention right now because my husband and I – and our two children – are Jewish. At a time when people seek to validate terror, when social media deems ‘sides’ more important than lives, when everything feels so divisive and awful and brutal and heartbreaking – when the bigger picture of the world is so horrendously bleak – I find it essential to hold on to love and hope and the essence of what makes us human and united. 

Yesterday was the first time she and I had seen each other since Hamas’s massacre at the weekend and the retaliation of Israel. As I opened the door, our greetings to each other felt weighted – heavy with concern; perhaps some tension on my part, too. After all, for nearly a week, I’ve been processing painful news while also bracing myself against those who say the deaths of Jews are justified. It has been a lot. 

She and I walked into the living room, sat down, spoke at the same time expressing our sadness and shock. She said how sorry she was, I said I’m so sorry too. And with tears in our eyes, we talked of the children caught in the crossfire, the inhumanity of war, of innocent families – both Palestinian and Israeli – just wanting to live, paying the price for the vengeances of men and dogmatic ideologies.

As we spoke, my son ran towards her, danced about, giggled, did his usual thing. 

And I thought of the pictures I have seen this week. 

Of babies in body bags; of toddlers pulled from rubble.

Images too unbearable to think about. And yet, impossible to forget.

I am not a geo-political expert. I will probably not write about this issue here again. And my feelings on this escalation of violence will be to a large degree informed by my Jewishness, my version of it anyway. I am not especially religious, I am politically left-wing, but my Jewish identity is inextricable from who I am. My culture and heritage, its songs and stories and survival, woven into my being. 

I have written about antisemitism before: for my Substack here and also for Vogue. This conflict is close to home. I believe that Hamas has committed brutal and inexcusable atrocities, and that it knew Israel’s defence would be inevitable – and yet I also cannot sit comfortably with a retaliation that reduces a city to bricks, taking countless innocent lives with it.