[ad_1]
Content Warnings: Heavy and traumatic subject matters will be discussed without graphic details including *genocide, ancestral trauma, war*
Position of the Author: I am a U.S. born therapist practicing in Houston, TX. I come from many different ancestries, most of which stem from the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Part of the mix includes Jewish ancestry.
Fellow Jewish ancestral folks, especially in the United States, I am urging all of us to not look away from Gaza right now, and demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire. We don’t have to agree on the history of Zionism, nor the status of Israeli statehood. I am asking all of us, no matter where we stand, to take a decisive and unwavering stance against the torture, abuse, and unquestionable genocide of Gazans.
The numbers are there, the images are there. I don’t have to needlessly repeat the traumatizing graphics of families and children. I am not asking you to remove empathy or advocacy for the the still-detained Israelis. I am not here to debate about Hamas. What I am asking of all of us right now is to access our most righteous selves.
Associations to the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Nazi Holocaust of the 1930’s-1940’s) can be provocative, that is certain. They are even asked to be avoided. But I am going to “go there” right now:
Our trauma cannot be healed by the trauma of another People. That is, fundamentally, not how healing works. Trauma is a human condition that we all have a duty to heal – remembering Ireland of 1860, South Africa, Rawanda, Dachau, as well as the ongoing genocides in Congo, Sudan, and too many more devastations to name. The commonality of all of these traumatic events is bound by one simple thread: the surviving world of today looks back in horror and bewilderment at the complicity of the societies that created these atrocities.
I don’t mean to lay this at the feet of Diasporic Jews alone; God knows there are bigger and more powerful forces that must urgently and immediately put a stop to the mass civilian killings. That being said, I believe we as a community have a unique potential to create meaningful, impactful change with our hearts and our voices.
In Love and Solidarity.
For ways to get involved: 6 ways you can support Palestinians in Gaza
[ad_2]
