By Michael Golden
About 5:30 this morning, instead of throwing on a ball cap and heading to my neighborhood coffee shop, as is my Sunday ritual, I took a shower. Somehow I thought it might wash off a few of the sickness particles I’m feeling. I am well aware that bar soap applied to the skin does not cleanse one’s insides, but I gave it a try anyway…
• Today was the day I was going to send out an article about the 1-Year Anniversary of JEWDICIOUS, celebrating our incredibly dedicated writers, our growth, and our joy.
Instead, I woke up texting with my friend Joanna Landau in Tel Aviv about the discovery of six more dead hostages at the hands of Hamas. Just as I went to bed texting with her about it. Just as we were texting about it when I woke up at in the middle of the night. Just as…
• Today was the day that Joanna was set to try her best to enjoy the gold medal event for Paralympic rower Moran Samuel, who just made Israeli history by winning its first gold in the sport. Joanna’s family established the rowing center in memory of her brother 25 years ago, because, “if he couldn’t stand on the podium one day for Israel, someone else would.”
(Video at top shows Moran Samuel being honored in Paris, singing “Hatikvah.” Also, Israel’s male rower came in fourth and the mixed doubles team shocked the Olympics by winning Bronze.)
Instead, Joanna will do her best to celebrate the achievement with the weight of six more dead countrymen on her mind, as will everyone at the event. There’s no true mental escape from terrorists when the terrorists continue to hold your people captive. That’s the point of terrorism.
• If we look back, today was the day in 1967 when Israel first received an answer from the Arab League about Israel’s offer to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria. The League said: “No to peace, no to recognition, no to negotiations.” And so Israel was forced once again to keep fighting for — and winning — its survival.
A decade later, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat chucked the “eliminate Jews from the map” mentality, showing leadership instead by consummating a peace deal with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The two men shared the Nobel Peace Prize for it and the two countries have largely been cooperative neighbors for the last 45 years.
But today the organization that controls Gaza and still holds 97 of the 251 hostages that they kidnapped on October 7 after killing 1,200, Hamas, continues to loudly and proudly play the song of committing genocide. Its intention — to eliminate all Jews from the earth — is right there in its original charter. And 36 years later, Hamas is as committed as ever to extinguishing all Jews. Even in the days right after October 7, its leader promised more attacks.
• Today also happens to be the date in 1938 when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini canceled the civil rights of Italian Jews. Soon afterwards, the Leggi razziali (Racial Laws) were introduced. Jews were no longer allowed to marry non-Jews, serve in the armed forces or employ non-Jews. The Leggi razziali also canceled Jews’ rights to public education. Jewish livelihoods, and entire families, were wiped out as a result.
Flash forward again to present day, 85 years and a half a dozen wars later, Israel today is the sovereign State of the Jewish people. Israelis have changed the world for the better in countless ways, including inventing things that even her attackers use every day — quite often in lifesaving ways. We like this. Because we love life…
• Today was not a day that I expected to be writing these words. I had planned a day of sharing and celebrating with colleagues who’ve become friends. Friends who’ve become family.
Instead, today I find myself feeling sick, like millions of other Jews — and millions of other people — who understand that peace, like any negotiation, takes two willing partners. If one is engaged in the proactive process of killing the other, it is literally impossible to come to an agreement that might serve both parties. In life. In this life.
Today, it’s hard to find words. For any of us. Words don’t do it. Frankly, words haven’t done it for quite a while. Yet thoughts and words are what we have. Instead of mine, the best I have to share with our faithful JEWDICIOUS community are those of my friend Cindy Sher, Executive Editor of JUF Chicago Magazine. She wrote them two weeks ago, yet they are no less true this morning upon hearing the latest brutal news:
“What the antisemites of the world don’t get is that Jewish grit is stronger than our enemies’ hate. We’re still in the middle of the chapter that started that horrible day in October. but what we already know is that the Jewish response to October 7 has been a case of anti fragility. The Jews didn’t cower at the enormity of the challenges before us. In fact, we came back better, stronger, more connected, and more determined than we were on October 6.”
Precisely.
Today we are sick. All over the world. But I will still celebrate today’s milestone for JEWDICIOUS, in my own way special way. And Joanna will celebrate her brother and the gold medalist she has supported for years, in her own special way. And Jews the world over will do the same, at some moment today, in their own special way. Even if it’s just a few seconds, within the hours of torturous mourning, where just a glimmer of hope for the future creeps in. Just a flash.
Jews will do this because we cannot help it. We know of no other way. Brutal and unnecessary pain will continue to fuel our eternal engine to not only survive, but thrive.
It is the very essence of who we are.
MICHAEL GOLDEN is the Editor-in-Chief of JEWDICIOUS.
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