Swedlow Central

Grateful to My Great Grandparents

Today is the Sunday after a week post the October 7th massacre of Israelis (Jews and non-Jews) by Hamas and we are in the middle of so much pain that we cannot comprehend all that happened and is happening. The world is on edge because of this and the Ukrainian war. Anybody really paying attention to all of this is hurting for all those Jewish lives lost and the lives of Palestinians who are in the middle now that Israel is going in to get Hamas. I can’t imagine what sheer horror the Israelis went through seeing their loved ones get tortured or set on fire or raped or beheaded (is this really true – nobody seems to know) slaughtered or or all of the above. And, what state are the hostages in? Are they being tortured, too? Killed in front of their families? What about those little babies and toddlers being handled by the terrorists while others were killing their parents in the kibbutz? What will they do with them? What about the Palestinians? They are dying, too. This is outrageous!

We are safe here in San Francisco and America…for how long? I am grateful to my great grandparents who had the foresight to get the hell out of Belarus or Ukraine or wherever they were to come to America. They were courageous and smart to leave. Being here, my family escaped the horrors of the Holocaust and now have avoided the tragedy going on now.

But, are we really safe and is the world safe? The Ukrainian situation is putting us on the knife of total destruction. The situation in the Middle East is also putting us on the knife of total destruction. What about flying? They don’t seem to care about death.

There is so much hatred everywhere. So many protests in the streets calling for Death to Israel and Kill All the Jews. So many Jews are angry, but we’re deeply confused because we generally don’t want to support Palestinian deaths, too, so we’re angry and suffering about that, as well. Nobody believes us. All they see is what the military is doing. Netanyahu has really blundered.

I was always taught that we need to find a way to live with the Palestinians in peace.