all we have done and all we have failed to do

This was originally published as a newsletter for the Center for Jewish Nonviolence community with the subject line "Reflecting on October 7th this Yom Kippur".

I’ve been asked more than a few times in recent weeks how I can possibly have hope right now. As I was reflecting on that question, I watched a CBC TV report about a vigil I helped organize last October in Toronto. Together in Jewish community, we mourned the over one thousand Israelis killed on October 7th and the thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza by that point. We demanded the safe return of the hostages, that Israel end its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, and an end to the occupation.

That night, it filled me with hope that so many people showed up to hold all of that together. When I watched the report recently, I was filled with sadness and despair because we are still making the same demands of leaders around the world. Millions have marched and mourned, but the killing continues in Israel/Palestine and is spreading. World leaders, led by the US, call for calm while simultaneously providing the weapons that fuel this mass destruction and killing.

As October 7th approaches, I have been reflecting on this year of pain and organizing. I have been looking back on all of the grief so many have been enduring, on that day and every day since, and all the work that we have done to gather our movements around the world. Moving masses to call out for a ceasefire and to demand a just, safe, and free future for Palestinians and Israelis.

I have been thinking about Jewish life and pain in our communities everywhere and the resounding call of a growing movement that is demanding a moral reckoning. I have also been thinking about the massive rifts that have grown wider, not only in Jewish communities everywhere, but in our movement communities. 

I have been reflecting on the importance of mourning both Palestinian lives and Jewish lives, while also calling out the real differences between Palestinian and Israeli experiences and the disproportionate violence each faces. I’ve been reflecting on why holding all of that has been so challenging for so many. If we want to build something better, we must be able to mourn each and every life as a whole universe and understand that each person’s pain is excruciating, while acknowledging the massive inequality between Israeli and Palestinian power. I have been reflecting on all we have done and all we have failed to do.

Many of us in this community have friends or family who have been killed, injured, and/or displaced in this escalating war and genocide. Many of us face the continuous pain of knowing hostages and prisoners held in captivity in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank. Many of us mourn with Palestinians who endure the daily violence of occupation, unjust imprisonment, and other injustices of Israeli apartheid. Many of us are witnessing or experiencing escalating anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate.

I feel so much despair, but I’m also making a choice to have hope. As Yom Kippur approaches, I am trying to find a coherent way to reflect on this past year as a member of the Jewish people, in solidarity with Palestinians, and as a human being. We have so much to reckon with and I am trying to step into this day of reflection and repentance with a willingness to engage with both my despair and the hope that I’m trying to nurture.

I know that it takes time to build a movement that can dismantle profitable war machines. I know that at this one year mark since the horrifying violence of October 7th and its aftermath, many of us are also marking decades of organizing against the occupation and apartheid that preceded October 7th by many decades. Despair and exhaustion are understandable, but we have to make the intentional choice to have hope. We may not be winning yet, but our movement is growing and we can win. 

More of us are speaking out, demanding better, taking risks, and finding each other. More of us are taking part in Jewish community life rooted in a vision of a just and peaceful future for Palestinians, Israelis, and everyone. It has felt unbearable at times, but many of us have also been showing up and doing so much powerful organizing on the ground and around the world. The ongoing solidarity presence with partner communities, demonstrations, education, and fundraising that folks have been participating in have all been moving.

In a recent conversation with members of the CJNV community, I was reminded that I am not alone in wrestling with these feelings of despair and hope. I was also reminded that our work is centered on bringing people together in solidarity to face the oppressive reality on the ground in order to challenge it. Those acts of coresistance are rooted in hope and in a vision of collective freedom and safety through solidarity that we carry into our movement spaces around the world.
  
As I reflect on these feelings, I am also preparing to join CJNV activists from around the world in the West Bank for the olive harvest. Considering we will be joining the olive harvest during Sukkot, I’ve been thinking about the process of sowing seeds and harvesting their fruit, and the energy, care, and time that goes into that long and cyclical process. Every day more people are killed, injured, and displaced. It is horrifying and urgent, and hard to fathom that we have been unable to stop it so far. I know that it takes energy, care, and time to gather more people, resources, and power so that we can win a future of life, freedom, justice, and peace in Israel/Palestine. But it is often hard to hold on to that in the midst of so much suffering and pain.

Even amid so much loss, I am finding hope in this growing movement, in you, and in each act we take and in each small win. In the coming days I will be reflecting on the devastating year that was, as I prepare for the years of movement building to come.

 
גמר חתימה טובה
G’mar Chatima Tova 

In solidarity,
Daniel Roth
Executive Director, CJNV