Considering Empathy As a Response to Tragedy

When I started reading the news out of Israel on Saturday, I felt literally nauseous. The scale of the human tragedy was immediately apparent. And the details, especially from the music festival which was ambushed, hit very close to home. How many music festivals have I enjoyed? How many times have I been dancing at 6 AM, delirious from a transcendent night with friends? The cognitive dissonance of some of the happiest memories of my life, ending in terror, was sickening. But my second wave of queasiness was for another reason. I knew what was about to happen on social media.?

Today I have seen so many people typing out “Free Palestine!” in response to posts about the tragedy in Israel. My assumption is that you are a good person, with the best of intentions, and you are grieving injustice. We are one in that feeling.

I hope we can also agree on this: There is nothing just or equitable about bombing a music festival and then waiting by the exits with automatic weapons, and gunning down 260 innocent music fans as they run scared. That is not the answer to anything. When your response in this specific moment, to innocents and children being killed, taken for hostage, or presumed dead is “Free Palestine,” how can that be read as anything other than a justification of Hamas’ terrorism and murder? You say “because I believe innocents have been killed elsewhere, it is ok that it happens here.” But it is never, was never ok for innocents to be killed. Anywhere.?

Today, in response to the attacks on Israel, we have the mass bloodshed of innocents on both sides of this Israeli-Palestinian dispute. This post is not about the politics or history of Israel and Palestine. If I’ve learned anything in 30+ years of reading and thinking about this issue, it’s that the more I learn, the more complicated and intractable core issues seem to become. There is always seemingly another justification, another act of violence or oppression that precedes any potential starting point for conflict.

The nature of social media is to treat everything like a sporting event: choose sides and rally for your team to win. But the world is not so black and white. We boil thousands of years of violent antisemitic history into a TikTok-length narrative at great peril to others, and great insult to our own intelligence. The same is true if we try to turn the displacement and oppression of Palestinians during the creation of a Jewish state into a slogan.?

As a Jew and, generally, a Leftist, I have never bought into any notion that Israel should not be accountable for its own violence against innocents. I hope you might understand: for politically progressive American Jews, the issue of Israel is incredibly complex, and very painful, especially in moments like these. For myself and many of my friends, to be Jewish is not to blindly support every policy that Israel enacts, and certainly not to support the means by which those policies are sometimes enforced. I am left to separate my Jewish identity and the personal reality of my Jewish brothers and sisters being slaughtered, my Jewish friends in real pain, from Israeli politics, rhetoric and behavior that I often disagree with. That’s my personal truth. I share it only so you know that there are a broad range of views on Israel from within the Jewish community.?

In the past I have raised my voice in empathy and even outrage at unjust violence, regardless of the perpetrator. Because as a Jew I was raised to believe that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. As a Jew, I was raised to understand the perils of groupthink and narrative when it comes to politics and society. I try every day to live that. And I try every day to be more empathetic. More focused on people, and less on politics. Because ultimately, the people I see, touch and affect are my most powerful politics.

Today I, like most of your Jewish friends, neighbors and coworkers, have personal connections to this tragedy. Most Jews I know, know at least a few people who live in Israel. And if not, they almost certainly care about people who care about others who do. My heart today is with the innocents and the families of the innocents directly affected, wherever and whoever they may be. And my heart today is with those who feel the pain of this loss.

The most impactful thing we can do in the face of most tragedy is to increase empathy in the world by being empathetic to our community. My posts on social media likely won’t change your views on millennia of violent antisemitism. My posts won’t convince any intelligent, scrutinous person how they should feel about this conflict. But maybe, just maybe, what I share on social media will help someone in my actual community feel heard or seen. Or that their ideas, even if I disagree with them, come from a person I recognize has value, and feelings. We build a better, kinder world, perhaps one more capable of dealing with violent conundrums, one choice at a time.

I think that’s the best I can do today.?

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Our initial thoughts on this matter, as published in the issue of Full Rate No Cap that we sent on Sunday can be read here, or below.