{"id":43437,"date":"2024-02-09T01:58:10","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T09:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=43437"},"modified":"2024-02-08T17:54:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T01:54:05","slug":"united-in-grief-and-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2024\/02\/09\/united-in-grief-and-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"United in grief and resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bassem Eid, right,\u00a0 <\/span>addresses those who gathered Feb. 4 for the event United, as fellow speakers Vir\u00e1g Guly\u00e1s, left, and Yuval David listen. <\/i>(photo by Pat Johnson)<\/i><\/p>\n

Yuval David knew 32 people who were murdered on Oct. 7. Among them were 10 friends who gathered to celebrate a birthday and headed to the Nova music festival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll 10 \u2026\u201d he said, struggling to maintain his composure. \u201cNot one made it out of that celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

David was speaking Sunday night at United, one of the largest community gatherings since the events of Oct. 7 and probably since before the pandemic. About 800 people gathered at Temple Sholom, where three diverse speakers brought their perspectives to an audience of Jews and non-Jewish allies.<\/p>\n

The Feb. 4 afternoon event was the brainchild of Megan Laskin, a community leader who organized a similar event last November geared to women, who were asked to bring their non-Jewish friends; hundreds attended. Sunday\u2019s gathering was presented by Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Jewish National Fund of Canada, StandWithUs and Temple Sholom. David, an American actor, filmmaker and activist, who is gay, was joined by Palestinian advocate and media commentator Bassem Eid, and Vir\u00e1g Guly\u00e1s, a Hungarian-born former diplomat who grew up with what she described as typical antisemitic stereotypes and has become a leading voice for the Jewish people and Israel. The audience alternated from rapt silence to thunderous ovations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Oct. 7, David has been thinking about his grandparents, Holocaust survivors who saved others in the camps. His grandfather was known as the \u201cMagic Man\u201d for somehow obtaining desperately necessary medications and helping others out of life-threatening scenarios.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a little child in Israel, I couldn\u2019t walk more than a few steps with them in public without somebody rushing up not only to them but to me, to say, \u2018Do you know who your grandfather is? Do you know who your grandmother is?\u2019 And they would lean down to me and they would say, \u2018If it wasn\u2019t for what your grandparents did, I would not be here today,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAs a little child, holding their hand, walking in the street, I knew that I was walking with heroes. I knew that I was walking in the footsteps that I must walk someday.\u201d<\/p>\n

His grandparents instilled chutzpah in him, he said, for precisely this moment in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was raised to understand what it means to have chutzpah because I was raised to understand what it means to not have chutzpah,\u201d he said. \u201cI was raised to understand what \u2018never again\u2019 actually means.\u201d<\/p>\n

His worldview and his Zionism were reframed by Oct. 7, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was also reframed by Oct. 8,\u201d he said, referring to global reaction to the events of the day before. Not only did he lose friends on Oct. 7 and others who have died in battle during the war, but another friend, who survived the Nova festival, recently committed suicide because she could not live with the memories. Closer to home, in a different way, he says he has lost most of his friends in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also lost two-thirds of my friends in my life in America who revealed themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cRevealed that they were not my true friends, revealed that even though they came to my Shabbat dinners and they came to my film screenings and they were plus-ones at fabulous events, especially if they were gift bags … crickets. Where are they?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some even sent him photographs of themselves protesting against Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese aren\u2019t pro-Palestinian marches,\u201d he said. \u201cWhoever calls them pro-Palestinian marches is a liar. These are pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism, anti-Palestinian, anti-Jewish and anti-democratic events, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be woke,\u201d he said of his years as a progressive activist. \u201cNow I\u2019m awake.\u201d He calls his former allies who condemn Israel and side with Hamas \u201cfauxgressives.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are going to be \u2018pro,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201cthen do something good for the people. If you are pro-Palestinian, help create businesses, help create schools, help refugees \u2013 do something that helps somebody\u2019s life. But, if all of your fake \u2018pro\u2019 activity is to be \u2018anti,\u2019 is attacking, is subjugating, is belittling, then you are a racist bigot. Shame. We must name and shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guly\u00e1s is an academic and former European Union diplomat who devotes much of her time contesting anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives. She spoke of how she confronted the anti-Jewish biases she was raised with in Hungary. She noted that anti-Israel street eruptions began on Oct. 8, before Israel\u2019s military had responded to the pogrom \u2013 worldwide, she said, activists were prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had all the slogans, all the flyers, all the social media posts, all the hashtags ready,\u201d she said. On the other hand, most Canadians and others in the West do not subscribe to the hatred and anti-Israel vehemence seen on the streets, yet remain silent.<\/p>\n

Would large numbers of people have reacted as street activists and social media keyboard warriors have if any other sovereign country were invaded by terrorists with the intention to mass murder, she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you\u2019re a psychopath, you wouldn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cBut, somehow, when it comes to Jews and Israel, we remain silent, we look at the other side and with this we normalize Jew-hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eid is a rare Palestinian voice in international media against the defamation of Israel and the corruption and ideology of the Palestinian regimes. He shared a story of a friend who lives in the northern Gaza Strip, who told Eid that Hamas representatives knocked on his door at night. They told him they wanted to pay him $50 a month \u2013 a windfall \u2013 to build tunnels under his home. Eid asked him how he replied to the request.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018My answer was, \u201cPlease try to build four tunnels and give me $200 a month,\u2019\u201d Eid recounted. This is how Hamas exploits the poverty of its people to meet its objectives, he said.<\/p>\n

The high Palestinian death toll, Eid told the audience, is due partly to Hamas officers forcing civilians back into the homes and neighbourhoods the Israel Defence Forces has warned them to evacuate.<\/p>\n

At the expense of millions of dollars in foreign aid, Hamas has built hundreds of kilometres of terror tunnels, he said. \u201cBut, in the meantime, Hamas didn\u2019t build one shelter for their own people.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you ask Hamas why they don\u2019t protect their people, Eid said, they reply that keeping Palestinians safe is the responsibility of the United Nations and the Israelis.<\/p>\n

Eid blamed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has recently been under fire for its employees\u2019 involvement in terrorism, for holding Palestinians hostage for more than 75 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeace is possible between the Israelis and the Palestinians,\u201d said Eid. \u201cBut it is impossible while Hamas is still ruling the Gaza Strip. This is the first thing that we should have to get rid of. The day after the war, the first thing is how to trash UNRWA from Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Temple Sholom\u2019s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz opened the event. Laskin, who conceived the event, spoke of the grief of this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the war goes on and more innocent lives are lost on both sides, it is hard,\u201d she said. \u201cBut let me be clear. We can strongly support Israel and the Jewish people and also express sympathy for the innocent Palestinians who are suffering. They are not mutually exclusive. We are mourning for all innocent lives lost. You can take a side though, and that side is against Hamas.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bassem Eid, right,\u00a0 addresses those who gathered Feb. 4 for the event United, as fellow speakers Vir\u00e1g Guly\u00e1s, left, and Yuval David listen. (photo by Pat Johnson) Yuval David knew 32 people who were murdered on Oct. 7. Among them were 10 friends who gathered to celebrate a birthday and headed to the Nova music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2807,22729,9190,22725,20545,22956,22955],"class_list":["post-43437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-bassem-eid","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-megan-laskin","tag-oct-7","tag-resilience","tag-virag-gulyas","tag-yuval-david"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}