I have lost my voice

In February, I did a course on Warm Data with systems thinker Nora Bateson. After I was doxed in the Australian media as part of a Jewish Creatives WhatsApp group, I needed a new way of thinking about the world. There, I learned about double binds and understood why I had lost my voice after  October 7. What is happening is more complex than any single narrative or point of view.

I keep trying to find a balance to grieve for all the innocents caught up in this war and assumed like-minded folk would do the same. But I have felt betrayed by many alongside whom I’ve fought in other struggles.

I have let go of people to protect my heart and spirit, including teachers, political allies and some close friends who have never uttered a peep about genocides in other places, but are suddenly vocal, expert and certain about what is happening in the Middle East. They have never condemned Hamas or called for the release of hostages. I will never forgive women’s organisations for their silence and denials of the sexual violence of that dark day.

I don’t know if Israel’s response was the right one – warm data has taught me that a direct corrective only creates unintended adverse consequences in the “system”. I fear those unleashed by Israel’s retaliation.

I am desperate to understand why Jews are such easy universal targets of hatred and how a terrorist organisation has won the popularity contest so that students all over the world wear keffiyehs and pull down kidnapped posters.

I now recognise and can name the demonisation of Zionism and the double standard Israel is subjected to as a pernicious form of “woke” antisemitism that I will never ignore or excuse again. I understand why we honour righteous gentiles and have found some amongst my non-Jewish friends.

A wise friend in the US (an African American human rights activist and political commentator) reminded me: “We need you calm and centred in the wisdom and strength of the Jewish people, especially the wisdom and strength of Jewish women.” (He also suggested I remove all social media apps from my phone).

I hold onto the words of Ettie Hillesum, a young Dutch woman who died in the concentration camps who wrote that amidst the suffering around her, she wanted to be “the thinking heart of the barracks”.

After October 7, I bought my first Magen David necklace and hostage tag which I wear every day.

I grieve and pray every day for the hostages to come home, the end of this war, and relief and peace for everyone. Rachel Goldberg Polin is our role model. She represents the best of us. I look into her face and if I had a single wish, I’d beg God to reverse it all, and bring Hersch home to her, tired and dirty after a music festival in the desert instead of maimed and tortured with a bullet to the back of his head.