October 7: One Year Later

Or, A Year of Opposite Day

Opposite day is a game we used to play in kindergarten - you pretended everything was the opposite of what it was. It’s a good way to teach kids vocabulary, help them articulate feelings, allow them to use their imagination and have some fun. This last year has felt like that kindergarten game without the fun and without any end in sight, any moment where you could have the comfort of knowing things would get back to normal - before you knew how scary it was out there. In the past year, I might not have learned any new vocabulary, but there is some I’ve been using more (“useful idiot,” “morally bankrupt”), as well as some that antisemites are using far too frequently (“nuance,” “context”) and incorrectly (“occupation,” “colonizer”). I’ve certainly been articulating feelings (mostly of frustration and exasperation) and using my imagination (imagining I am wandering through Rome’s Villa Borghese rather than walking around downtown Toronto surrounded by hipster morons who think wearing a keffiyeh is cool).

For the last year - since October 7th, 2023 - good has been bad, right has been wrong, lies have been treated as true and the truth as propaganda. Leaders you might expect to be in possession of some sort of understanding of history and current affairs have become weasels (Emmanuel Macron just shot to the top of that list, but there are plenty of names to add), while others have surprised us, and pleasantly so (John Fetterman and Javier Milei at the top of that list). The media is always a disappointment, but again, there are exceptions. I was delighted to see Bernard-Henri Lévy this morning being interviewed by Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria asked him about “context” in regards the October 7th attacks and BHL, magnificently and without hesitation, stated that this notion was “b*llsh*t.” It is unlike BHL to be this harsh - Zakaria looked taken aback - which only shows how much all of the madness is getting to him. (I wrote about his newest book here.)

Speaking of disappointing politicians, take a bow, Mayor Olivia Chow. Maybe I was naive, but while I was never a huge supporter of hers, I was not that bothered when she was elected. She struck me as a nice, personable woman, one who would at least know there are things over which it is worth it to lose popularity. Oopsy! Apparently not. She has tried so hard to not take a stand - other than to incorrectly assert that “hate has no place in our city” - that she has de facto, taken one, and it is the wrong one. She has attended virtually every celebration in this city, with the notable exception of the Walk with Israel in June. Attending that walk is not political: it means only that you support Canada’s democratic ally (not their elected officials), and that you support this city’s Jewish community. With the one-year marker of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust upon us, Chow issued a statement about how terrible antisemitism is, followed quickly by a similar comment about Islamophobia. This sort of thing drives me bonkers. Yes, Islamophobia is terrible. But there is no group of people other than Jews who have to share their commemorations, who can never be treated as though their pain belongs to them, without a “what about” or a “but” tacked on to their story. I wish the what-about-ery had surprised me. But it didn’t. (Regular readers know of my experiences at my church. I wrote about it here, also here and here.)

[People attend a demonstration in support of Israel to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. Photo: AP/Markus Schreiber]

That said, the blatant nature of the what-about-ery since October 7th has shocked me - people don’t feel any shame about it. I have also been surprised at how widespread the hate-filled contempt for Israel/Jews is. I knew it was there, but I had hoped it was diminished, when in fact, it was only dormant. Above all, I have been dismayed at the utter lack of empathy for Israelis: the people who tear down hostage posters; the “feminists” who either deny or are silent about the sexual crimes of October 7th (and likely ongoing with the hostages); the people who are willfully ignorant about the stated desires of Hamas, Hezbollah and the regime in Tehran (not to be confused with the Iranian people). As rescued hostage Schlomi Ziv said in a recent interview, “One thing the captivity in Gaza strengthened for me more than anything else was the understanding and knowledge that they do not want peace with us or to live next to us or with us…They always said that the next time they do 7/10, they will not take prisoners, they will kill us all and that we are cockroaches.” It is easy to talk about making peace, but there is only one side in this conflict that wants it, that is willing to negotiate and sacrifice for peace - Israel. I pray this will change but for now, this is the reality that many living comfortably outside of Israel do not want to admit.

I was thinking about the Americans taken hostage in Iran in 1979. I was in high school and we all cared about them. We knew a lot about them and their families. We did not try to mitigate or calibrate their plight. We cheered when they were released. My teachers cheered - not a peep from any of them about “resistance” or any other such nonsense. This does not mean we did not talk about Iran’s history, or the events that lead to the revolution. It means we were being taught to have a functioning moral compass. I’ve always tried to maintain an optimistic, long view of history - the idea that, despite the daily conflicts and setbacks, we are moving in the right direction. Can I still have that faith?

Two links for this sad anniversary: A Survivor’s Last Day, the story of Moshe Ridler, a Holocaust survivor who was murdered on October 7th by Hamas; and After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, the newest book by Brendan O’Neill. Absolute brilliance. Buy it or get it from your library.