They tried to kill you when you were alive. Then they tried to kill you again after you were already dead.
Dear Bubbie*,
It’s been almost eight weeks since you left us. There’s so much I want to update you about but one thing has been gnawing at me:
Your burial.
You passed away during the recent Israel-Hamas kerfuffle. Really more of a defensive war on Israel’s part but of course, that’s not the way the world sees it. They blame us, the Jews.
I’m pretty sure you know all about that.
At the age of 17, your mother commanded you to leave your house and never look back. This was her way of trying to save you from the German death machine. The next time you’d see your parents and four of your siblings again would be in heaven, 80 years later.
The Germans did their best to kill you but you managed to stay alive. You survived Hell on Earth, aka Auschwitz. You had the number A-27134 tattooed on your arm as a living testament to the failure of the Germans to exterminate you and our people.
Sadly, they succeeded way beyond comprehension. But I am eternally thankful that you survived and forever grateful for the family you built after the war.
Who Gets The Blame? It’s Always The Same
When you passed away, Israelis were spending time in sealed rooms, seeking protection against missiles fired by terrorists in Gaza. Israel’s army was doing its best to defend us.
But that’s not how the world saw it. Across Europe and North America, protestors called for Israel’s destruction while chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They called for genocide, for Israel to be judenrein.
Sound familiar, Bubbie?
You lived in Israel during the 1950’s when Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, declared his intention to drive the Jews into the sea. You had to close the curtains and shut the lights so Egyptian planes (and maybe soldiers) would not suspect that you were home. Because if they saw you, you were a target of their bombs.
65 years later and literally nothing has changed.
This time around, the loud protests were accompanied with violence. Stones shattered the windows of synagogues and Jewish owned stores. Mobs pounced on Jews in the street and beat them within an inch of their lives. This was taking place across the U.S. and no one was putting a stop to it.
The Jews were at fault once again and needed to be taught a violent lesson.
Sound familiar, Bubbie?
Like in the 1930’s and 40’s, the voices of opposition were silenced. People were outraged that Jews dared defend themselves. They accused Jews of committing genocide. They demonized us. They cursed us. They beat us.
What hurt most was the weak and cowardly response to the outbreak of antisemitism. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, himself a Jew, couldn’t condemn it outright. I was shocked when he tweeted this. Even though he defines himself as a Progressive, when it came to blatant antisemitism, he joined the #AllLivesMatter movement.
(Good thing Jewish cops weren’t being singled out. Otherwise he might’ve tweeted against it and had to use the #BlueLivesMatter hashtag!)
But none of this is news to you. You spent your teen and young adult years being harassed, beaten, tortured, starved and punished for the high crime of being a Jew.
It may only be 76 years since Auschwitz was liberated but nothing has changed. Because 2,000 years of antisemitism and Jew hating refuse to fade away. It comes back again and again and again.
Which leads me to your funeral.
They Tried To Kill You When You Were Already Dead
Your final request was to be buried in the holy earth of Israel, the land you loved so much. But because of the war, we had no idea if your casket would be put on a plane from the U.S. and flown here.
Even after your plane departed, we had no idea when your funeral would be. Planes were being diverted from Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion, as the army was afraid of Hamas missiles hitting civilian airliners.
Hamas was aiming at the airport to murder as many innocent people as possible.
Your plane was rerouted to Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city. We waited to see if the plane, without passengers but with cargo, would continue to Ben Gurion or not. If not, we had to figure out how to transport your casket to the cemetery, a four-hour drive away.
It was a very long and tense day.
Thankfully, the plane continued to Ben Gurion. We scheduled your funeral for 10:30pm that evening. (Here in Israel we bury at all hours. Jewish law mandates burial should be as close as possible to the person’s death.)
When I arrived at the cemetery at 10pm, the night sky lit up. We could see Iron Dome neutralizing Hamas missiles. We could hear the booms. The ground was literally shaking.
I asked the funeral home director what to do if an air raid siren went off during the funeral. His answer? “Close your ears.”
Soldiers manning the Iron Dome units know if a missile will hit a building or fall in an open area. Split second decisions are made based on this. Towards an open area? Iron Dome will not be activated.
There are no living civilians in a cemetery. If Hamas missiles were on their way to falling in the cemetery, Iron Dome would not stop them. Those missiles would hit their target. And we’d suffer the consequences.
During my eulogy, I could hear the distant booms in the sky. The ground beneath me was shaking. And in my head I thought: “They tried to kill you while you were alive. They’re trying again when you’re already dead.”
Even in death, a Jew cannot be laid to rest in peace.
In life you had to run and escape. In death, your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandson have to.
Or maybe not. Because now, for those of us who live in the Jewish state, we have an army to protect us. We can defend ourselves against our aggressors. (You’d take great pride in knowing that less than a month before your passing, your great grandson was inducted into the Israeli army.)
After we had shoveled dirt over your body and said Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, I joined my kids at the edge of your grave. I told them how proud you were of them, how much you loved them.
We stood there quietly, holding each other. Above us we heard a loud roar. We looked skyward and saw a squadron of Israeli jets headed to destroy Hamas targets in Gaza. The long-running narrative of the Jew as victim had changed. At that moment I thought:
We don’t run anymore. We don’t run.
*Bubbie is the Yiddish term for grandmother.
