I see the fear in my wife’s eyes when I tell her what I want to do, and I get it. I really get it.  As much as Israelis joke about them, because that’s what we do, these ballistic missiles with cluster warheads aimed at civilian populations are not a laughing matter. And wandering around Area C in the Northern Jordan Valley — isn’t that also dangerous? Can’t you be attacked by a terrorist at any moment?

And the craziest thing about the moment in which we’re living is that, as completely true as both of those concerns are, I know that the most likely risk I’m taking with this trip, and it is very real, is being attacked by other Jews who won’t like the sight of a Jew, certainly one with a kippah on his head, going to visit and seek to offer some measure of solace to the families of Khirbet Humsa that they are intent on expelling. But despite this fear, and even more so, because of it, I felt the obligation to go, to see it with my own eyes, and to apologize for what happened. Because if there’s something I fear even more than all of the above, it’s what we are becoming.

Yes, yes, “we.” And yes, apologize. No, I didn’t do it, I don’t support it, I don’t know who did it. But if a pogrom occurs — and it occurred, and at this point we can’t even say this is something unusual because these types of things (albeit generally of a less extremely brutal nature) are happening all the time. And if it’s not being effectively handled by the government and the authorities that should be taking care of it — and it’s not. And especially if there is a real possibility that that is not only the result of a lack of ability, or even a lack of will, but actually the silent endorsement of these actions – and there is… well then, this is on all of us. The guilt, and the responsibility to act.

The government’s failure begins with the signs.

There is this theory of “broken windows” out there that says — if you see higher crime rates in neighborhoods with broken windows, that’s not because those make it technically simpler for thieves to break into houses, but because they act as a signal that says — no one cares about this here. That signal acts as a powerful permission for people who might not otherwise break the law, because after all, what is the law if no one really cares about it? On Route 90, on the way to Humsa, I start to see the broken windows, in the form of road sign after road sign on which the legally required Arabic writing had been graffitied over. A person sees this and says to themselves: if no one cares to fix the signs to ensure that Arabic isn’t erased, they won’t care when people start actively trying to erase the Arabs that live here. And that’s exactly what’s been happening. It started with road signs, and continues with pogroms.

I get to Humsa with the help of my holy friends, Rabba Ruti Baidaich and Tzvika Novick, who were, along with me, a part of the community of hunger strikers for the hostages, Ruti as someone who fasted for half a year, and Tzvika as a supporter and partner who would travel hours every week (from his home in Tzurit, next to Gilon) to be with us.  Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, one of the heads of the nearby Yeshiva, Maale Gilboa, joins us well.

I asked many, many rabbis to join me on this visit. It is a day of fasting and introspection for both Muslims and Jews. For Muslims, it is the end of Ramadan. For Jews, it is the day before Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of a new month, a day known as Yom Kippur Katan, when some have the custom to fast to repent for the sins of the past month. The special liturgy for the day makes it clear that these are not only personal sins, but also collective ones. The pogrom of Humsa is one of a dizzying number of extreme acts of violence that have happened this month in Judea and Samaria, especially under the cover of the fog of war against Iran, so I feel that this is an especially auspicious day to make this visit. Only Rav Yehuda answered my call—but for anyone who feels they missed out, don’t worry. We also believe that every day is a good day to repent and make amends…

The first thing that strikes me as we travel for a good 15 minutes on bumpy dirt paths — you can’t even call them roads — to get to the place of the attack is: it would take a really wild imagination, or the paranoia of someone with a pathological sense of his own weakness to look at these Bedouin communities and see a threat to the State of Israel. Each one amounts to a few families with a few shanties and a herd of sheep, little more, in open areas in a wide open land. I’m reminded of Cain and Abel, who fought over land even when each of them had half the earth. There’s enough room for us all here, except for people who don’t believe there’s ever enough room for anyone but themselves.

We get to where the attack takes place, and I immediately see the fear in their eyes at the sight of a car approaching, especially one with men in it with kippot on their heads. Some people jump to comparisons to Germany, and some people get very upset about that. My father’s family came to the United States from Russia, along with millions of other Jews, in the wake of the constant pogroms that were taking place at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, so I’ll skip the 1930s and go there. I imagine this is exactly how Jews felt whenever a group of their antisemitic neighbors would approach them. A feeling of complete helplessness in the face of people who had permission to appear whenever they wanted, attack, abuse, kill, with the impunity that comes with absolute confidence in their immunity.

They know that if someone calls the police or the army, they won’t come. And if they come, they will arrest the Arabs, not the Jews. And when they come after the fact, they will make noises that they’re investigating, but nothing will really happen. I saw in their eyes what it feels like to know that, in this place, your blood is hefker, worthless, ownerless. There is no one to protect you, and no way to protect yourself. While most Russian Jews went elsewhere, the early waves of the First and Second Aliya were made up of Jews who took this feeling with them to Israel (then Palestinians), with the dream of building a home where we would not feel this way. Is this part of that dream? Is this what we came here for? To erase our own feelings of helplessness by forcing them onto someone else?

They are afraid of me and of Rav Yehuda because we are men with kippot on our heads. For them, a man with a kippa on his head means cruel abuse and destruction. I can’t argue with that feeling of theirs, because they have the scars to prove it. Literally, all I can do is to decide whether this is the image of the religious Jew that I am happy with, or not. Is this the New Jew that is meant to grow in Israel? Those who committed these atrocities, and those who support them, will answer with an enthusiastic, Yes! Let them see a Jew and be afraid. They take pride in it. This is what Jewish Power is all about.  But I believe the exact opposite is true. Since the Exodus and even before, Judaism has been a protest against the abuse of power and the worship of power, has been the idea that our power is tested and expressed by how we treat the powerless. What compelled me to come to Humsa was to give people a chance to meet a different Jew with a kippa, one who smiles and is not afraid to apologize and to express shame at the awful things that were done to them by people who look just like me.

The pogrom happened a week ago. It was committed by about 40 Jewish terrorists. That combination of words makes me sick to my stomach, but we must not deny that that is what they are, because this is precisely their goal: to terrorize. They attacked in the middle of the night. One of the men who was attacked — the effects still show clearly in his left eye — shows us the plastic ties that are still scattered on the ground that were used to tie him. He shows us how he was beaten and kicked. Shows us because he doesn’t know Hebrew and we don’t know Arabic, but also because what was done is beyond words.

And then, with motions of his hands and the look in his eyes, he tells us something so awful that I hesitate to write it. And people told me, don’t write it, because it is so barbaric, that people will refuse to believe it, they’ll say he made it up, they’ll say he’s lying. But I swear to you, if you would have been there with me, you too would know that he wasn’t lying. Because what was most awful of all in what he said, is that he didn’t tell us as if this was something unbelievable, cruelty beyond any kind of logical, normal thinking. For him, it wasn’t exceptional. For him, it made sense as just one more awful thing that these awful people did to him and his family.

He motions to his private parts and tells us that they also tied him there with the plastic tie. Tied and tightened.

And at this point, all words lose their meaning. We came to say we’re sorry, that we’re ashamed, that this isn’t Jewish. But what can you say when you hear something like that?

There really is nothing more to be said. There is so much more to be done. Because it simply cannot be that in our Jewish state, this kind of evil is allowed to continue without consequences, is allowed to succeed in achieving its goals of terror and expulsion. And even as I write the words, I know that they’re a lie because what simply cannot be — is. It has already happened to multiple communities, who have packed up their belongings and left because of the constant attacks of Jewish terrorists.

And it seems that the reason that this attack was so much more brutal and cruel was simply because these families, thus far, have not given in and have not left, and the terrorists are bent on expelling them, and are sure that no one will stop them and no one can stop them. And so far, they’re right. The police don’t find them, the army doesn’t stop them. Want to imagine what the authorities taking this seriously would look like? Think for a few moments what the reaction would be if this were an attack of Arabs against Jews.

And so it is left to us, any citizen that doesn’t want to be complicit in this cruelty, to decide whether we are willing to stand by and to let them win, to let them define what it means to be a Jewish people and a Jewish state. What would it look like for us to take this seriously? Think about the massive protests against the reform and on behalf of the hostages now dedicated to this issue. That would be a fine place to start.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)