I don’t believe in them, but right now I need them. I need miracles.
The other day I said that my heart is like shattered glass now. The human heart is incredibly large and equally fragile. The bigger the heart, the bigger the breakage. I don’t know how much more I personally can withstand losing and I’m finding these to be the hardest days of my life, which is odd, given I saw it coming. It matters not that I saw it coming.
These are the hardest days filled with shock and dismay and anger and erasure and ignorance and hatred and atrocities and attacks and terror, and yet hope. Hope for an end, for a future, for a past that’s lost. I want to go back, but I can’t go back. You can’t go back. You can’t have what once was. You have to accept reality, as unforgiving and as stark as it may be. If only we could all go back. Afraid not.
It is 2023 and the reality is that Jewish defiance comes at a life-altering cost. Jewish displays of pride and identity, Jewish ideas and resistance result in loss. What was warm turns bitterly cold. What was fruitful dries up. What was safe becomes treacherous. What was clear becomes murky. What was love becomes strange. What was true becomes uncertain. And it is in everything and everywhere and everyone, and it is too much to hold at once without losing the one thing none of us can afford to lose - our minds.
I’ve come close to losing that too. When the threads of normality begin to fray and break, and connections crackle and fade, and the seams of who you are no longer find reflection in the people left to stare back at you, it’s incredibly difficult to hold onto your sanity. When the people you depend on cannot be found, where do you go? You know, I always thought I was very independent, and I am. Incredibly self-sufficient. Incredibly solitary. Incredibly internal. But even the most independent of souls require an external world to remain somewhat consistent in order to feel whole. Or maybe just grounded. To feel rooted. That’s it. Roots. What are roots?
Maybe that’s why they call us rootless. We have to always be ready to be torn from the earth that binds us. We are bound to no place and no people, except ourselves; our own tribe and our one and only nation of Israel.
Sometimes the brain flickers away from these existential thoughts back to the rolodex of horrors that present themselves on a daily basis, and it is not my desire to unpack the never-ending list of antisemitic things that happen every 24 hours, but it is my duty, it seems. Just since I last posted, there have been so many unbelievable things that have to be believed – and digested and fought.
The controversy around university presidents and calls for Jewish genocide continues, reignited further by an abysmal call by Saturday Night Live to make the matter its opening skit on this weekend’s show (because apparently Jewish genocide is funny?) Meanwhile hours prior in LA, on Saturday, a Jewish couple were attacked on the way to synagogue, beaten with a belt, and images of a man’s bloodied shirt were shared.
Also on Saturday in Albany, a synagogue was hit up by a shooter, who didn’t manage to target any people, thank G-d. In New Jersey, another synagogue was vandalized.
Again in LA, on the Wilshire corridor (below), hundreds of Pro-Palestine supporters flooded the streets on Shabbat, further vandalizing Jewish buildings, and disturbing a menorah lighting.
In London, a Jewish woman was beaten unconscious by two teenage girls, while passers-by did nothing. Also in London, more protests took place this weekend, and the police are currently trying to find a person holding a sign calling for the FINAL SOLUTION. Oh and the most famous popstar in the world - Taylor Swift - has now been photographed at an event to support a “Gaza charity”, ie sending money to Hamas, alongside her best friends Selena Gomez and Cara Delevigne. More amazing press for terrorists under the auspices of aiding a humanitarian crisis. The people who need the charity do not see the money. Meanwhile, Taylor et al said nothing about the hostages. Or the rapes. Nothing. Feminism, yeh?
So there’s all that stuff, and then the other stuff that just keeps going on in the background. The media bias that has become insanely normalized. The Wall Street Journal just yesterday published a puff piece profile on Yahya Sinwar. How.
The blood libel graffiti on everyone’s doorstep. The kidnapped posters constantly being ripped down and defaced. The fact there are still so many hostages in captivity, including so many young Jewish girls.
The ongoing daily attacks. The sheer idiocy of world leaders – and other Jews!
For real, Doug?
It’s just too much. What did this New York menorah ever do to anyone?
So I’m praying now. Not just for Israel, but for all of us. I’m praying that we can stay sane and somehow find purpose, solace, compassion, dare I say love, in a world that is framing us as crazy while we’re hunted down every second of our lives.
Do you believe in miracles?
Eve, you have shown so much strength and resilience in these past horrific weeks, and I have often wondered how you are managing to hold it together. It is too much, too too much. Please let us know here what we can do, from afar, to support you - apart from subscribing to your Substack. Can we send you a care package? Can we write you poems? Can we invite you to come stay with us in Sydney for a few weeks to get some sun and swim in the ocean? Just say the word. You have so many of us who want to thank you for being the witness, the voice, the warrior at the forefront of this fight. Just know that we are all falling apart. Crying in the dark. Feeling like the hope has gone from our shitty world. To be the conscience of humanity, the sentinel species, is a heavy load. Please make sure you are taking care of yourself. TELL US what we can do to support you. I think of you with so much love and gratitude on a daily basis. It doesn't make a difference to you, but you make a difference to all of us. Thank you.
We don’t need miracles Eve
We need consistent, unfailing, uncompromising outrage and the strength to keep fighting back against the naysayers, the compromisers, the ignorant.You are not alone in your despondency nor in your need for clarification as to how those you trusted have shown their true souls. There are many who share this and will grow stronger for it. You are not alone.