Someone reminded me this morning of the words of Elie Wiesel.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
I am not indifferent. I will never be indifferent.
I am not ready to talk extensively about this period of time because I'm inside of it and because I'd be doing so with one hand tied behind my back. I cannot talk freely in this moment. But for the sake of sharing some pressing thoughts, I'd like to remind you of something real. I am a person. I'm not an avatar, or a mere voice, or a slogan, or a label, or a totem in a vacuum. I am someone whose words you have familiarity with, whose story you know chapters and pieces of, but who is more than the letters on a page. I have a life. I have obligations. I have family; blood and chosen. I have moral conscience and I have duties. I have stresses that keep me awake at night. I have a feeling in my throat and in the pit of my stomach, and I have an unstoppable unfiltered guttural urge to share. I always have. Silence has never been my path. Hiding has never been my mode of existing. Doing things by halves – not me. I am ferociously proud of who I am and what I stand for, and I am irrefutably proud of the people in my life. I wear my multitudes with dignity, and I am not afraid of losing dead weight for publicly aligning myself with anything or anyone I believe in. Believe it or not, the cost is worth it to me. Because I know who I am.
I have a heart that beats, and facets of my own world that helps it do so. I have an integrity that makes me a proud Zionist and that makes me a whole cavalcade of other things; it makes me a truthsayer, it makes me a provocateur, it makes me a loyal as hell human being to those I value in my life; to those who love me unconditionally and to whom I reciprocate that love; to the people who protect me in the dark when nobody else will or does; to the ones who see me cry, who see me afraid, who will drive thru the night to bring me to a place of refuge and safety. To the people who know me. Who really know me.
You might have read things about me recently, or become caught up in the sensationalism and the circus of a very serious matter that's being broadcast to the world, and you might think that you know or understand a fragment of what's occurring in that, and you might have come to conclusions about me – a person you've never met, or spent extensive time with – and you may have prematurely decreed a judgment over a woman who has yet to even give her side of events, because you're prone to conspiracy or hearsay and gossip, or because you're addicted to mainstream noise, or because you're of the opinion that you know what happened between two people in the privacy of their own space and that you know it better. Perhaps you're unwilling to sacrifice the relationship you have with someone on your silver screen who has existed there with scissors for hands for several decades. Perhaps it’s simply that you see celebrities as fair game and you think you have a right to own them – to own all of them.
Let me tell you something. You don't own them.
You don't own your public figures. You don't own your leaders. You don't get to have a monopoly on someone just because they represent something to you. You don't get to dictate their life choices. You don't get to tell them what they should care about or how they should vote. You don't get to define how they spend their days, or where they rest their heads. You don't get to cut off their oxygen supply and suffocate them if they don't serve you 24/7. You don't get to put a glass cage over someone you thought you loved because you need to keep them in your possession for fear of losing them. If someone means something to you and you to them, they will come back to you – you shouldn't have to clip their wings. You don't get to be privy to the intricate details of a person's life just because they're publicly renowned.
Who has that ever served, by the way?
Here's some reassurance for those of you who'd like it. Despite the backstabbing I've incurred over the past month from many people in our community, I will come back to this community, and I will come back to you. I am in this forever. I made that very clear. I have never wavered from the fight, not in the darkest, most personally treacherous moments for me, but that doesn't mean that I don't have to use my weapons elsewhere. That doesn't mean that I don't help in other battles. I wouldn't be me if I abandoned another person in their hour of need. Maybe you can't understand that because you can't see past your own ego and your uninformed opinions and your own hubris and self-aggrandizement. Maybe you don’t share the same type of bonds with people in your life. I don’t know. I don’t know you.
I believe that any relationship and any community worth its weight in salt can endure different seasons. Some seasons require prioritizing one thing over another. Aren't we a community? Don't we stick together for each other? Can't we divvy up the duties we have to keep ourselves in this marathon of a war in order to safeguard each other's energy? Who are we as a people if we will so wilfully abandon each other, and so readily fail to even try to understand each other's universes? What kind of a Jewish people is a Jewish people who can't stick together through our differences? Aren't we a discursive, curious, opinionated people able to respect one another's views and choices? Aren't we not a monolith?
I am heartbroken. Heartbroken that a community so well-versed in isolation, so accustomed to the pain of mass disinformation and the audacity of a world so ready to believe the propaganda and out-and-out lies of a more popular, more powerful, more opportunistic self-proclaimed victim, would be so quick to judge a scenario that hasn't even fully played out yet. The lack of empathy and the single-mindedness astounds me, and it makes me question why you chose me as a leader. Why did you ask me to publicly take this on for you, if you spit in my face the first chance you get to discredit me? Why did you goad me to continue to be louder and fiercer and more vulnerable to attack if you were willing to be just as violent in your attack of me over something else? You have no dog in this other fight. You have no skin in this other game. I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to let me breathe.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
I'm alive in so many more ways than you know, and you do not have the power to kill a part of me, or make me indifferent. Do not ask me to be something I'm not for you. Do not dehumanize me.
Shavua tov.
Eve you are ridiculous. This is not about Johnny Depp being a celebrity, or whatever scissors hands you are going on about. Never watched any of his movies to start with, furthermore it could have been the neighbour down the street; a victim is a victim, and an abuser is an abuser. We have listened to Amber side for 6 years! When she came out we immediately believed her, ‘because women support women’. But the truth is, our movement, our sweat and tears was instrumentalised consciously or unconsciously by someone who suffers from mental illness, is in denial, and wanted vengeance. She went on and on how she did not want any of the money her ‘abuser’ had given her and that she had donated it all (verbatim) split between charities. Now apparently she had pledged, but pledged and donated are not synonymous and the pledge was never signed. That lie was unrequited and honestly speaking, evil. She abused a man for years and then accused him of abuse, knowing that as a woman no one would believe the actual victim who was a man.
This whole situation is disgusting, Johnny might have said some fucked up things, but who hasn’t; I definitely have in life but that is not evidence of me being an abuser. She lied under oath in the U.K. for which she definitely will be persecuted, she also has abused previous partners and honestly the list goes on and on. If you are truly her friend, guide her and get her to get help.
And, now directly to you. I will say that, you were not compassionate when you doctored an old Instagram post to make it seem as though a witness had been communicating on socials contrary to court orders. You purposely got a key witness dismissed but now you want what? Fairness? Understanding? Because the world has finally seen the type of people you and Amber really are? This isn’t a joke, this is a case of domestic violence, where the victim suffered even the loss of a limb and got MRSA twice as a result. But, you are here doctoring Instagram post and publishing articles asking for understanding? Where is YOUR empathy? WHERE IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING? I honestly don’t have anything more to say, I hope you get prosecuted for your disgusting actions in court and I’m happy you and Amber have been exposed for the disgusting, vile and sorry to say borderline inhuman actions towards people.
So basically, no I don’t feel sorry for you, but from today onwards I do feel indifferent.
100 percent. You’ve got supporters out here. Keep doing what you’re doing.