The past week has been the most brutal week for Jews since October 7th.
In fact, it has felt like October 7th all over again.
How is that possible?
Six people died, not 1,200.
It’s hard to explain to anyone who didn’t spend 330 days praying for those six people, seeing them in dreams, staring at their faces on posters, watching their tireless families advocate for their return, protesting for them, writing to congresspeople for them, spreading their images, crying for them.
Some people, in fact, find the scale of Jewish grief over these individuals to be “problematic.”
For instance, a friend of mine received the following message from a non-Jewish acquaintance:
“It’s so sad,” he wrote, “but think of all the funerals in Gaza. Until Israelis shed as many tears for the other side as they do for their own, this conflict will never end.”
So now “Jewish tears” are the reason for the conflict?
Not the terror group that kidnapped these six kids from a party, held them captive for eleven months, executed them and then abandoned them in a tunnel?
This offensive insinuation is part a longstanding antisemitic tradition of problematizing Jewish grief.
It is why the Nova exhibit is protested and why Jews are regularly accused of manipulating the memory of the Holocaust to control and oppress others.
This man’s view of things manages to be both saccharine and cruel at the same time, a Hallmark card message about love and unity that conceals an intent to condemn and insult.
It’s also delusional.
Jews will always feel a special concern for Jews.
Palestinians, for that matter, will will always feel a special concern for Palestinians.
This is what it means to be part of a people.
It does not mean that one life is more valuable than the other.
It does not mean that one tragedy is more tragic than the other.
It does not mean that we mustn’t open our hearts to the unspeakable grief that this war has wrought on all the peoples of this region.
Of course we must.
It simply means that some tragedies are our own.
My friend wrote back to her acquaintance saying that it’s insensitive to criticize how people grieve.
He retorted, “Did you actually know them? Or do you just feel like you do? If you didn’t actually know them, you’re not really in mourning. You’re choosing to be in mourning.”
And so it turns out that his problem isn’t really that Jews don’t shed enough tears for the Palestinians.
His problem is that Jews shed too many for other Jews.
He sees it as performative and undeserved.
But our flaw is not that we cared too much for the hostages, but too little.
We failed to rescue Hersh, Carmel, Alex, Ori, Eden, and Almog, and we will never forgive ourselves.
We didn’t pray hard enough.
We didn’t scream loud enough.
We didn’t bring them home.
And now all we are left with are our tears.