Today marks one year since Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s southern border and carried out attacks on both military and civilian targets. Over 1,000 people died that day, including 364 civilians who were attending a music festival. Hamas took around 250 Israeli citizens and soldiers as hostages that day.
Just hours later, the Israeli Defense Forces launched counter attacks. The war continues today and has recently spread into Lebanon, a move which prompted Iranian missile strikes on Israel.
The scale and force of Israel’s retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks have been sources of controversy throughout the conflict. In August, the Gaza Health Ministry estimated over 40,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israeli strikes over the last year.
This grim anniversary falls right between two of the holiest holidays on the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah, which was last week, and Yom Kippur, which begins Friday.
For thoughts on how the timing of all this is affecting one Jewish community, Rabbi David Young of Congregation Beth Israel in Austin joined Texas Standard. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: This war has been a very divisive issue. We saw huge protests on college campuses earlier this year. We know that one synagogue obviously can never represent the sentiment of all Jews. But have you seen that division over the war at Congregation Beth Israel?
Rabbi David Young: Absolutely. We are not a monolith. No Jewish community can be a monolith.
So just like there are differences among Christians and Muslims and all other religions, there are lots of differences in our community. Some people remain strongly Zionist. And some people have kind of given up on Israel, and some are in the middle. We’re calling ourselves “reluctant Zionists.”
Some of the themes of these holidays are forgiveness and repairing relationships. How does this ongoing conflict affect how you approach that aspect of these holidays?
It’s such a great question, and it is something we struggle with constantly.
And the concept of repentance, what we call in Hebrew tshuva, which is related to the word that means “turning,” where you turn away from bad habits and turn towards the person you imagine yourself as… While Yom Kippur is the biggest day of the year where we focus on this, we actually do have in our daily prayers the opportunity to make tshuva to offer repentance for our actions.
And I always say it is much more important to think about how you behave from Yom Kippur to Rosh Hashanah than it is to think about how you behave from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.
I understand you lived in Israel for a time and visited with Palestinian communities while you were there. How does that experience affect your perception of this conflict?
Well, to give a little bit more background, that happened during the Second Intifada. So this was a time when Israel was being attacked daily by suicide bombers, and bombs would be going off in random places all the time.
We met with this Palestinian community, and we were a little bit standoffish at first. A teenage girl looked at my friend and me, and said, “Why do you hate us without even knowing us?” And I looked at her and I said, “That is a really good question, and I think what I hate is what your people are doing to my people.” And she replied, “That’s not my people, that’s the government.”
As a young person in my twenties being taught by an even younger person in her teens, it was a powerful moment for me to realize that what everyone in this situation wants is for it to end and to just go to work, make a living, raise a family and be at peace with one another.
There have been widespread reports of increases in both anti-Muslim and antisemitic incidents in the U.S. since the war began. Have people in your community experienced antisemitism over the past year?
I’ve heard stories of people expressing antisemitism in various ways, and I’ve also heard people that I communicate with regularly expressing anti-Muslim sentiment. And I am lucky enough to have the kind of relationship where I can correct people when they express anti-Muslim sentiment. I can tell them Muslims are our siblings. But I don’t have that relationship with people who express antisemitism.
So, I would just hope that everyone would reach out and tell people it’s wrong. And reach out to the Jewish community and say, “we’d like to get to know you.” Getting to know a community is much harder than hating, but it’s something that is important to do. If you want to get to know any group of people, you have to reach out.
