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Devra Ariel originally from Kansas City, a veteren olah of more than 19 years and a technical writer, lives in Ma'aleh Adumim with her husband Gidon and their five children. She is the co-founder of the Ma'aleh Adumim Mishmeret Shmirat Halashon (Pure Speech Society). She and Gidon are the founders of http://www.holycityprayer.com.
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By Devra Ariel
October 30, 2006
A friend posited recently that the response of some of the population to the events of the summer of 5765 (2005) are out of proportion. I understood her to be saying this:
The Holocaust (and other events when Jews were murdered on a massive scale) was a national trauma because people were killed. The people of Gush Katif and the northern Shomron only had to move.
It's true, she'll agree, that this "only had to move" was traumatic for THEM. But it's not traumatic for us as a nation because the people of Gush Katif and the northern Shomron are still alive. Let's keep some proportion people!
Also, in her opinion, the majority of the nation simply was not traumatized, so you can't call it a "national" trauma.
I'm a person who tries to be agreeable. But I just cannot agree with her that the events of the summer of 5765 should not be traumatic to those not directly affected.
What is Trauma?
I believe that trauma is subjective. It's an experience that differs from person to person, and in degree. We can see that even in the experience of the people who lost their homes last summer. I know one guy at work who used to live in Northern Gaza. He got resettled quickly. He's working, he has a home. I don't know about his kids, but he doesn't seem unduly traumatized. At least from the outside, it just seems like a relocation. That can be tough, but trauma? Don't think so. Is he representative of most of the people? I also don't think so. But I think there is a continuum.
I don't think that anyone has the right or even the ability to say to another person, "Hey! You shouldn't be upset about that! That's not painful!" At best, one can help a person work through their pain. But you cannot deny the pain.
However, sometimes people DO have inappropriate reactions to events and have to learn to react appropriately. It's often a matter of maturity. For a small child a popsicle that falls in the dirt is a world-shaking event at that moment. So perhaps she is correct in saying that people should be led to recognize that, yes, the expulsions (or disengagement, or whatever you want to call it) was a Bad Thing, but not such a bad thing. So let's look at some other aspects.
What are We Talking About Here?
I think the first thing that she is missing, is that we are not talking about individuals here. We are talking about whole communities, and groups of communities. We are not talking about a few homes being demolished to make way for a new bypass. Whole, healthy, vibrant, cohesive communities were destroyed. Some or all of these communities may manage to stay together and become healthy and viable once again. Only time will tell. But the bloc of communities that was Gush Katif is no more. The new communities simple will not have the same super-communal and inter-communal relationships. The beauty and uniqueness of the Gush Katif bloc is gone. That's why the events of the summer of 5765 are more than "just a move".
Other Expulsions in Jewish History
If we look at the litany of Bad Things that have happened to the Jews, we find them to be full of massacres. But there are other events that we carry with us as, yes, national traumas. For example, the expulsion of Jews from Spain is a separate trauma, distinct from the Spanish Inquisition. It is mourned distinctly from the Inquisition.
For that matter, the focus of mourning for the first exile after the destruction of the first Temple is primarily on the exile and not on the war that preceded it. While there is no question that many people died in the war and destruction at that time, when we look at the kinot and the documentation of that exile we see great emphasis on how terrible it was that the people had to leave the holy land.
Jews were expelled from England. Jews were expelled from countless places, sometimes more than once. Sometimes after a massacre, sometimes to avoid one. But it is clear that the expulsion of a community of Jews from the place it called home were traumatic, and traumatic to ALL Jews, not just the people who "had to move".
Nevertheless, these past expulsions were ALL the Jews from a given place. In this case it was a small percentage of the nation, so maybe we still cannot call it a national trauma.
Majority rules?
How can she know that most of the nation (or even the country) wasn't traumatized? I think that anyone who watched TV last summer was moved by the searing images of what was going on. Maybe the degree of trauma differs from person to person, but when faced with the events and the aftermath I think there is real pain from most people.
Furthermore, what does majority have to do with anything? Did the majority of Jews in the world cry out in pain and anguish when the news of what the Germans were doing began to trickle in? How many Jews didn't know, or chose not to know? How many Jews alive today care or even know about the events of the 1930s and 40s? Is there a simple majority of Jews today who relate to the Holocaust and are moved by it? I wonder.
Who against Whom?
Another aspect that makes the summer of 5765 different and traumatic is the soldiers. When in history have Jews ever acted against Jews? This alone makes the forced removal of people from their homes traumatic. That Jewish soldiers, wearing the symbols of the nation of Israel, took people from their homes against their will, was a traumatic event! How many people said, "For this we created a Jewish state? For this we have an army? An army is supposed to be working against our enemies, not against ourselves!" The sheer numbers, the massive organization, the planning, the psychological preparation the soldiers received (which some would call brainwashing) created a machine.
And the machine, to a certain extent FAILED. Some of the most powerful images of last summer are of soldiers crying as they carried out their orders, and being comforted by the very people they were expelling. What is the state of the army today? How many suicides have there been (many)? How much post-traumatic stress disorder? It is clear that the army as an institution was shaken, and badly, by its participation in last summer's events. This has a national impact. Further, how many young people cannot bring themselves to be part of the army? How many parents today are anguished by the choice that their children face, when it was obvious to them when they were young people?
There are Things Worse than Death
The main point that my friend makes is that no one was murdered. First of all, murder does not have to mean physical death. Our sages teach that embarrassing someone in public is tantamount to murder! Furthermore, taking people and forcing them to start over from nothing or next-to-nothing, taking everything familiar from them, forcing the public to support them, are aggressive acts even if they are not physically violent. Even the people who left "willingly" are STILL suffering today. The numbers are documented elsewhere, but the amount of mental illness among the young and the old, the physical illness that can be traced to stress, all of this is an open wound on Israeli society. This is a trauma because it is not over. These people cannot be ignored! Their pain is our pain because we are all responsible for one another. We rally around anyone in distress. Look at how we are rallying around the refugees from the current war.
The events of the summer of 5765 have far-reaching implications. Some of us are still living the summer of 5765. We have been strongly impacted by the summer of 5765 and that fact implies deep feeling. The hurt is there, it's strong, and it's legitimate. To say that it was not a national trauma is to quibble about semantics. To say that the reaction of people is too strong, is out of proportion, is to deny the right of people to experience emotion and to deliberate hide from the lessons of history, and the implications for the future.
In sum, what I'd like to say to my friend is, while you might think that reactions are out of proportion, you'd better be confident that when the bulldozers come to knock down your home in Ma'aleh Adumim you will not look back and say, "I should have, I could have, I would have, if I had only known." Because to relegate the trauma only to the people who lost everything is to repudiate "kol Yisrael areivim ze la'ze" ["all Jewish people are responsible for each other"] and to open the door to a continuation of the trauma until it lands on our doorstep, and we join those who are clearly traumatized by it all.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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