You'll hear a generic story. The same friend told me that he is an excellent singer and musician, and since then everyone has told me the same thing, all the artists who volunteer to perform in front of the evacuees and displaced communities from the conflict communities in the south and north. This description shakes me time and time again, and it goes like this:
It can be in a hotel in Eilat, Netanya, the Dead Sea or Shfayim. In the front row sit a few older people and hardly raise their heads. An hour and a half of performance, and their gaze is stuck on the floor. You can't ignore it. Only towards the end of the show does something seem to rise a little. You begin to see eyes. Slowly.
Then, after the applause and thanks to the artists and staff who came voluntarily, they arrive, the very ones whose gazes were the most subdued, and ask "if you can hug." How could you not hug.
Those hugs are long, long. Without those pats on the back, which say come on, let go. Hugs at the end of which something important and precious will always be said. Hanan Yuval, for example, told me about such a hug with one of Bari's veterans, who told him at the end something like, "They burned down my house, they burned down my life. But in that hour and a half, of music and lyrics, I rose a little above it all. And I want to tell you: It's going to be fine. It's going to be really good."
Artists don't like to talk too much about the importance of their art. They prefer to just create it. To write. Play. Draw. Sing. All the talk about the role of artists in difficult times is burdensome and burdensome, and it seems that most artists will be happy to avoid them. But there is something about this moment when the man, or woman, of the first rank, who has barely raised his head, approaches the artist who folds his equipment - which is itself an artistic moment. After all, he didn't just go to confess. He also sought to encourage and ensure that it would be good. It is precisely he, who burned down his house and harmed his loved ones and his community, and probably also the basic assumptions of his life, who assures the singer that he is convinced that there is a point in raising his head. I don't know about you, I find it wonderful.
And I find it appropriate to make two points in this regard:
1. Since the outbreak of the war, several professional and gnarled security personnel, tough Shoshuists in a variety of sunglasses, have approached me and told me that on days like these, the role of word people is no less important than the General Staff Patrol.
2. The simple fact is that many of the artists who run from hotel to hotel, and volunteer without account, suffered a severe blow to their livelihoods months before October. The Ministry of Culture announced at the time that it was closing the body that connects the cultural departments in the periphery with artists, subsidizing some of the costs and allowing all this activity to operate. Why? No one explained.
What will happen in the future? What do we do with all work orders that are canceled and deleted months from the calendar? When will Zionist Israel begin to relate to the stage, library and studio, as ultra-Orthodox Israel treats the beit midrash and yeshiva? Will only the handful of artists who can fill Caesarea succeed in living in Israel?
To all this, not a single respectful answer was given. Now it is easy to be smart and flattering and say that artists and art are the commando unit of the Israeli spirit, and they are the ones who raise our heads and gaze. It is really very beautiful, and almost exciting. Because when the cannons thunder, the muses work voluntarily. The question is where all this insight goes, when the weapons of war return to the SWAT units and routine grows again.
• • •
"Back straight!! With her head held high!!" - these are the words a newly bereaved mother chose to address the flag-bearing crowd waiting outside her home on Monday. "Be proud. Straighten your back. Ben loved you all, and he was very proud to serve as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces."
It was a breathtaking moment. Everyone straightened up slightly. You don't argue with a bereaved mother who knows how a son would like to say goodbye. Funerals of young people are always a terrible thing, but here was something terribly majestic. In front of us was a mother with whom none of us would have changed. On the other hand, until two months ago, none of us imagined that there were such heroines among us.
Sarit Zussman is a friend, and she's a partner, and she's usually a very talented and entertaining woman. But there is usually no more. Not here. "Back straight," she continued to urge everyone. Almost with a reprimand. Determined and precise. Later, in her eulogy, she called on the Israeli leadership to learn something from the people who elected her. If these young people manage to put themselves aside and give their all for the State of Israel, then maybe the leaders will also begin to adopt something of this approach?
It was a terrible and bitter Monday, but not for a single moment sane or low.
• • •
Alongside what straightens our backs and raises our heads, we must address what does the opposite. Which threatens to bend and lower everything. A particularly toxic kind of political discourse has taken over in recent years. Part of us has been completely occupied by Him. Everything becomes political, and the political becomes sectoral. A stuffy atmosphere of "us or our troubles". If you are not with me then you are a traitor. If you disagree with me, even on a hint, there is no point in listening to one word of yours.
There is no doubt that the need for belonging is one of the strongest forces acting on the psyche. And in a situation in which the political position defines identity, and identity paints a political picture of the world, it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to choose a camp, to devote oneself to the great tribal embrace, to paint everything black and white, and to indulge in the delight of the chorus of Nazism towards the opposite camp.
We cooked this shameful pharmacy in our kitchen, and we also have to eat it. So it's true that on October 7, many of us came to our senses and put behind much of the damn mentality we had cultivated. But every day we can gather enough clear examples that many more are completely on October 6.
Minister Dudi Amsalem (Archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
It is impossible to talk about the tragedy of the death of Yuval Doron Castleman, z"l, or about the families of the abductees, without immediately slipping into politics. Minister Dudi Amsalem, who recently disappeared a bit, returned to grabbing headlines this week, with words indicating a complete disconnection from what this nation has been going through over the past two months. In homes, on battlefields, in volunteer war rooms. He still thinks that saying "leftists" is enough to mark an "X" and earn applause. And about Nissim Vaturi I really don't know what to say anymore.
The two have proven throughout their careers that there is one thing they do at a level that is well above average. They know how to insult. They aim low and hit below the belt, and even if cursing ability is not considered a basic consumer product, an Olympic sport or a natural treasure, there is no doubt that they do so wholeheartedly and skillfully.
In recent months, there has been an impression that everyone is giving what he has for the common good. Those who can fight, and those who know how to cook, cook. Singing singers, and drivers bouncing to every corner of the country. Bar Mitzvah children from Australia and Canada, for example, donated all their gifts to children from Nir Oz or Kfar Gaza, who lost their homes in the Gaza Strip.
And I naively thought that we would get to see Amsalem and Vaturi contribute their talents and insult the enemy a little. Aim low, but towards Sinwar. Giving under the belt - only Haniya's. But where? They continue to squabble with their imaginary leftist, deep and deep on October 6.
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