Some reflections on the Simchat Torah Massacre from my own vantage point here in Israel

On a beautiful Thursday during the middle days of Sukkot, my family took a day trip to the Golan Heights. We visited a newly developed national park called Sussita, which contains the ruins of the ancient Graeco-Roman city Hippos. It was also the site of a daring defeat of Syrian troops by ordinary residents of the nearby Kibbutz Ein Gev in Israel’s War of Independence. The site’s vivid explanatory movie had my older children mesmerized, but afterwards they started to ask questions. Are there still enemy soldiers waiting in those hilltops? Could it happen again? Could ordinary people have to fight like that to save their homes and their families? I answered, of course, by reassuring them: we live in different times today. It’s true there are people who wish to harm us but we live in a strong country with many layers of protection between children like you and those enemies. We admire the heroes of the past, but we’re grateful that we don’t have to live in such dramatic times.

On Simchat Torah two days later that reassuring narrative would collapse, and we entered a new reality, or perhaps returned to a very old one…

The full essay can be found in Mosaic Magazine as part of their excellent Gaza War symposium.