I don’t think a single Jewish parent wants their kid to be in a war. We don’t celebrate martyrdom or death ever. We take no pleasure in having to wage war. The whole country mourns for every soldier that falls.
In Israel when the family of a fallen soldier leave their home for the cemetery, thousands line the route sharing in their mourning. It’s not uncommon for a soldier to have 10,0000 or more people (strangers) who come to mourn the loss of a life. Sadly, we have been to too many of these. Seventy-seven and counting.
We also wish we did not have to have an army with an incredibly large defense budget for the size our population.
We wish we could live in peace. Sadly, the people of the kibbutz communities that were decimated on October 7, were predominantly left-wing, peace activists. The Nova concert was organized by left leaning organizations who dreamed of living side by side with our Palestinian neighbors.
Hamas did not ask if they were pro-Palestinian before killing them. Similarly, during the holocaust, one Jewish grandparent was enough to send you to a gas chamber. It did not matter if you were an avowed atheist.
In Israel, our kids grow up with the palpable responsibility of defending the country and protecting Israel not just for Israelis but for all of world Jewry.
For our kids never again is now.
My daughter and son both choose combat roles in the IDF and I am terrified. But I know that all 9 of Gavin’s grandfather’s siblings who were murdered in the holocausr for the crime of being Jewish, would be proud too.
We all dream of the day that, in the words of Golda Meir, they love their own children more than they hate ours!
We have entered the eight days of Chanukah. Just as we were victorious over the Assyrian-Greeks, our hope is that there will never be no more haters: Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Cossacks, Communists, Nazis, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. We pray for the day that our 18-year-olds don’t have to defend us from the nations that wish to break and annihilate us.