This week, when MK Almog Cohen (Refuah Shlomo, Amen) hurled the immortal phrase "You have no mandate for pain" at the families of the abductees, and redefined what sensitivity and responsibility of an elected official are, none of us was really surprised.
Even on the very same day, when Minister Orit Struk published a convoluted tweet that tried to claim that the headquarters of the families of the abductees is in fact a left-wing political body, and that it – note the graceful image – kidnapped the families and their pain, even then it is hard to say honestly that any of us, the families of the abductees, were amazed.
We were not surprised, because for many weeks this incredible thing has been developing and sizzling around the struggle to return the abductees. Here is an evil hint, where the accusation is open. All this is emanating, alas for us, from the national-religious right – neither Haredim nor Shas! - And the general direction of the claims is also quite consistent, including the "brilliance" that God punished those who do not believe in Him on October 7 (Yinon Magal, who apparently had not heard of the Meron disaster).
• • •
I grew up in Bnei Akiva and studied in its institutions. I have always been proud to be part of the national-religious camp. Lately, it hasn't been easy.
I've already mentioned this. About a month ago, the father of one of the abductees, a man wearing a kippah, sat in the studios of Channel 14 and drew a line that accompanies us to this day. He said he did not join the families' headquarters because "we had intelligence that the headquarters was the Kaplan Force." See, hear and not believe.
The headquarters of the families was not a support group or a members' club, but the earliest way in which vital information began to accumulate. At the time, the state did not enter the event. And when it became clear that there was no point in waiting for someone from "above", a volunteer war room was established. Torn with worry, people came to give names and details, and volunteers (leftists and rightists, do we still need to say it out loud?) sat, gathered, accumulated, built computerized tools and cross-checked information. The photos of the abductees, informational videos, food and trips abroad are all funded out of the volunteers' pockets. One shekel does not come from the state. This is the much-maligned headquarters, and without it - who knows when it would have become clear how many missing and abductees we have at all.
The claim that "the headquarters is the Kaplan force" left us in shock. Who is the bastard who put into the minds of some terrified parents that what is happening there, in the depths of pain for hundreds of families, is merely a political game and a continuation of the protest?
That man, Zvika Mor, announced that he loved his son no less than anyone else, but was willing to make the sacrifice. Slowly and moderately, he read from Maimonides' halachic book what was required of a soldier in a war mitzvah. It is a superior text about the demand that the warrior put his life aside, to sacrifice. None of the studio occupants bothered him, and no one politely remarked that the only problem with Maimonides' wonderful text was that it was irrelevant here. Here we are talking about children and babies snatched from their beds, not about fighters. About entire families, remnants of communities, and about the elderly and girls and citizens, about whom Maimonides wrote other laws in general. They are called "redemption of captives," and this, we learned in first grade, is a supreme mitzvah for which Yom Kippur is violated.
But in the religious-political camp, the discussion went and left the realm of prisoner redemption toward talk of war and victory. As if the families of the abductees don't want us to win, as if our children aren't in the army, and as if there is even victory without returning the abductees. And so long ago we have not heard of "whoever saves one soul, as if he saved a whole world," or the Shulchan Aruch's assertion that "every moment that is late to redeem the captives, where it is possible to redeem early, as if spilling blood."
Not. What we keep hearing is an endless recitation of conclusions from the Gilad Shalit deal, a recitation that has apparently become an obsession in some circles. Otherwise, it is not entirely clear why he is being pulled out now, when nothing resembles the case of Shalit. The crucial point of dissimilarity is the fact that the remains of entire communities are currently being kidnapped in Gaza. The remnants of the settlement in an entire line of defense of the State of Israel, abandoned by its leaders.
Those who try to color us politically, to create conflict between us, or to obscure the fact that the welfare of the abductees is the common good and not the individual, are doing something that will not be done and will not be forgiven. Not only in terms of tact and Derech Eretz, but in terms of our core values, as Israelis and Jews. Here is another sentence from this week: "The interest of the families of the abductees is contrary to the interest of the State of Israel." Before every evil claim, we are smeared with words of love, some as convincing as Minister Ben-Gvir's forced embrace. But at the end of the etiquette stage, we are presented as "them!"
Perhaps this is an attempt to shirk responsibility on the part of those whose lawlessness occurred on their watch, but the really sad thing is how stuck these speakers are still on 6 October. Bc. How miserable, they are still among the tribes and sectors they themselves have nurtured. In that convenient place, where they can name names, generalize, alienate and renounce.
What is religious about it? What is national? What's wrong with not standing up for your brother who hasn't lived their lives for a month and a half? Just worry and anxiety. Those who have not yet made time for themselves to mourn the dead. Because at least I don't know a single family of abductees who aren't also bereaved families from that terrible massacre. How can we not be ashamed at all to talk about the "families of the abductees," as if it were the private business of several families? How can it be, we wondered, that from morning to evening all the rabbis of Religious Zionism do not stand up and say the words we have said: Every single day a person must see himself as if his children are kidnapped in Gaza. As if the empty beds that have been too tidy, for a month and a half, are the beds of his children and loved ones.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, or in the middle of the night on Tuesday, however you like, the ministers of Religious Zionism changed their minds, voting like heroes in opposition to the position they have led all along. In doing so, they saved not only their honor, but the honor of an important camp whose original role, as well as its motto, "All of Israel are responsible for each other," cannot be changed to "Mine is mine, and yours is yours." A motto that the Sages twisted their noses on: "Some say this is the measure of Sodom."
• • •
Something personal, with your permission. It's no secret that the two of us, who will live and I, love to make a market in Mahane Yehuda. The market is life, and we have respect for what comes to our table. We want to meet the groceries, exchange a look with them and even feel the steal, before we go all the way with them and tie our fate with them.
I will admit and I will not be ashamed (well, maybe a little) that even just pushing a cart in the supermarket is an occupation that we sometimes manage to enjoy. More than once, and this is already a rolling padija, we even go on a romantic outing together in the supermarket. Ask the guy who sits at the exit, signs the receipt and laughs at us every time.
Alongside that, there are things we order online, and they just arrive somehow. Eggs, for example. For several years now, on Friday mornings, a carton of fresh eggs has been waiting by the newspapers, behind the door. Payment goes through the device, and no one asks how exactly it works.
But since the Simchat Torah War, something has changed. He knocks on the door, the man with the eggs. The one I've never seen before. And we exchange our gaze and ask the new "how are you," which is a truly new "how are you." Worried and soft and looking into the eyes, like no one here has looked anyone in the eye for years.
For the past two weeks I've been waiting for the knock of the egg man, who is a righteous Israeli, and on the way to the door I hum "I am the Eggman" from the Beatles song like an idiot, and ask myself how I'm really doing.
And while it's pretty much the smallest story I've ever told, I think it says quite a bit about who we want to be the day after, and who we're already starting to be. The kind of Israelis who look in the eye, who don't run away from the look and the responsibility.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us