Echos of Trauma, Seeds of Transformation
Moving Toward Collective Care, Healing, and Action
by Zack Ritter
“All 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are terrorists,” she said as we were eating cookies, standing around the flickering flames at Shabbat services. I was shocked, especially coming from an acquaintance I see every so often at temple. As an educator who deeply believes in the ability of individuals to change, I challenged my Ashkenazi middle aged friend’s words, asking: “All of the 40,000 Gazans killed are terrorists? You can’t be serious. Where are you getting your news from?” She was shocked that I was challenging her. You could tell she had been in her own echo chamber of fear, trauma, and Anti-Arab/Muslim sentiment for a long time.
I was sickened by the lack of humanity and compassion she exhibited, but I tried to appeal to our common humanity: “But we had mass war atrocities committed against us as a people. How then can we justify the actions of the Netanyahu government?” She responded, “Well war is war, it’s terrible, but they want to destroy the state of Israel and kill all the Jews. They teach hate in their schools Zack, plus I don’t even think the 40,000 death toll count is real. I hate Netanyahu, but this is a just war. Plus, the IDF drops warning notes before they drop bombs.”
Seeing that common humanity appeals were not going to work, I tried again to persuade her, this time with Jewish values. “Don’t forget, B’tselem Elohim, we are all made in the image of God, as humans on earth. That we, Jewish folks, were demonized and scapegoated that led to mass killings and a Holocaust of our people.”
Watching her face as I spoke these words, I saw I still wasn’t breaking through to her. Frustrated, I ended the conversation, saying, “I care about you as a person, but you are wrong and I don’t want to talk to you anymore tonight, you clearly have no interest in peace or listening to anything I have to say.” She was flummoxed by my reaction, but she said okay and we parted ways.
Marium Mohiuddin (left) and Zack Ritter (right) — Photo: Isma'/Shema Consulting
My colleague Marium Mohiuddin and I run a Muslim-Jewish consulting business called Isma’ Shema Consulting, where we teach about Israel-Palestine histories and ways to fight Antisemitism and Islamophobia. We have a saying when clients shy away from discussing the difficult topics: “If you don’t address the elephant in the room, the elephant will stampede you and the entire conversation.” I have attempted to explore these difficult discussions of Palestinian pain and liberation in Jewish spaces a number of times. The scene above is one example of what sometimes happens.
My fellow congregant’s response reminded me of James Baldwin’s quote: “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” I always interpreted this to mean their own pain and the pain of others. The congregant I spoke with that day was most likely grappling with her own pain and therefore couldn’t fathom understanding the pain of Gazan families.
This interaction left me wondering: What would it have taken for this individual to begin to understand a different perspective than her own and feel deeply someone else’s pain? And once this perspective was understood, could reparative action to help Gazans ever be accepted by someone with this worldview? I should note, this person’s views happened to be one of the more extreme views I’ve experienced at the temples I frequent, but it is the extreme voices, especially from individuals who didn’t seem extreme before the war, that have been most jarring to me over this last year.
Teaching Multiple Narratives
As the child of a refugee and a grandson of Holocaust survivors, I’ve always been curious about how intergroup/interfaith dialogue can change perspectives, actions, and lead to social change. I was always fascinated with how Germany incorporated Antisemitism and Holocaust education into their curriculum, so much so that Jewish reparations only became a reality seven years after the Shoah. And I always found it disconcerting that Native, Black, and Brown histories of oppression were never universally taught in the American curriculum, which I believe is one of the main reasons why Black and Brown reparations have still not been achieved in this country.
Photo: ZNetwork
I deeply believe that exposing individuals to different narratives can change their behavior and eventually public policy. With this notion in mind, I helped lead a trip of 70 Jewish professionals to Palestine (West Bank) and Israel. In Ramallah, we met with Palestinian Authority politicians and one official’s words about his family's suffering and loss of land were so moving that it brought some to tears. One of my students approached me afterward and said: “I’m so inspired by what I just heard, I want to know what our Jewish nonprofit is doing to help build an Autonomous Palestinian state. This is how I see peace truly coming about.”
I knew full well that the Jewish nonprofit would not allow the promulgation of an Autonomous Palestinian State because older donors would cut their funding due to fear and Anti-Palestinian sentiment. But I didn’t want to crush this student’s hope with the realities of funding and political realities so I told him to bring this desire to higher ups in the nonprofit and maybe he could be part of changing the organization and the larger Jewish community. These are the moments of transformation in thinking that intergroup/interfaith dialogue can make possible. We plant seeds of trees that we may never eat the fruit of, but we can only imagine how sweet it will taste to those that will.
Intragroup and Intergroup Dialogue
In my interfaith dialogue consulting business, I’ve found that intragroup dialogue is just as important as intergroup/interfaith dialogue. Let me share an example. A few months ago, I was having a routine meeting with Jewish staff and faculty regarding an upcoming Islamophobia and Antisemitism workshop my colleague and I were going to host. After I finished describing the workshop, one of the older Ashkenazi male faculty members took a combative tone with me: “I don’t like neo-McCarthyistic tactics, but let me revert to them briefly. I need you to state now on this Zoom call that Israel has the right to exist because I want a pro-Israel speaker.”
Photo: Unsplash
I was taken aback, but stayed calm and assuaged this person’s fears. So quickly those that are presumably from the “same tribe” are pitted against each other by litmus tests, fear, and distrust. I was a bit nervous when he came to our in-person workshop, but his combative tone melted away after he saw our presentation. He suspended his own prejudices to such a degree, that he even befriended a pro-Palestinian administrator during the workshop. Once he pushed past his own fear, he was genuinely interested in building bridges that could lead to action on campus. Sometimes holding space for someone to express their biases allows fear to melt away and curiosity to begin. And once this happens, action is right around the corner.
I want to pause for a moment and acknowledge that some who are reading this might be thinking: “Zack, it’s nice to change minds when one has time, but how ignorant you sound when 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, there is a mass refugee crisis in Gaza, and you want to coddle peoples’ feelings. Talking is nice, but this moment calls for action!” I am highly critical of myself and wonder if what I’m doing is really helping save lives in the Middle East. Some voices have called for me to be more vocal about one side or the other, or urge me to call for a ceasefire and arms embargo in my presentations. I know the tight rope I walk as I do my best not to alienate the various communities I speak to. Of course I have my personal beliefs and biases about the situation, but I try to not shut out potential partners in action and peace.
Sometimes I worry about extreme voices canceling me and shutting down the bridge building work I’m trying to accomplish. It has happened to me before and it hurts me deeply. I want individuals from all sides to understand where each other is coming from and through that understanding maybe common understanding and action toward peace can occur. Some may call me naive, but I still have hope that something in the region can change so that all communities can thrive.
Moving from Dialogue to Action
Resuming our exploration of action, I want to encourage folks from various Jewish communities to think in new and creative ways about how they can not only participate in interfaith dialogue, but also take action, not only for Israeli citizens who were devastated, killed and injured on October 7th, but also for Gazans being killed by bombs, starvation, and lack of clean water. What if temples not only educated their congregants about the horrors of October 7th, but also taught congregants about the ongoing horrors of the 40,000 lives lost in Gaza and the 600+ lives lost in the West Bank since that time?
A wall at Netiv HaAsara facing the Gaza border reads the words “Path to Peace” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English — Photo: Unsplash
What if Jewish organizations/communities raised money in our temples for Doctors without Borders to help feed Gazans? What if we raised money for HIAS (formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Services), for Gazan refugees, making the historic connection between their and our own families' refugee stories? What if we brought in speakers from nonprofits like Tomorrow’s Women and Standing Together, that illustrate what real Palestinian and Israeli partnership looks like. What if we taught about and pooled resources for a real Autonomous Palestinian State? What if we taught Arabic in our day schools, alongside Hebrew, if we taught Palestinian histories alongside Israeli histories, and that Jewish safety doesn’t have to be predicated on Palestinian destruction? As Peter Beinhart states: “Jews may be more safe living alongside Palestinians who are free and equal than Palestinians who are subjugated.”
I wish I could go back to that night at the temple and redo the conversation with that congregant who said all 40,000 Palestinians killed were terrorists. I wish I would have asked her what her hope for the region was. I remember asking her if she had any Palestinian friends or Muslim friends that she was talking about this with. She answered no. The stories she shared with me indicated that she was not in interfaith spaces. She was not hearing a variety of narratives of suffering. The one good thing that came out of the conversation that I didn’t mention earlier was that I encouraged her to join New Ground, a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Peace and she expressed an interest in exploring this.
By happenstance, I saw her again in the supermarket several weeks later. She didn’t bring up our disagreement but she did smile and hand me a free sample of the product she was selling. Maybe my words made a difference. Maybe she was embarrassed about what she said. Because I didn’t give up on her, demonize her, nor discard her, she knew I cared about her. Maybe this is the work, sticking with someone I deeply disagree with, and waiting until the next Shabbat to engage with a renewed sense of deep listening and care. Throughout my teaching and consulting career, I’ve seen people have transformations I never could have imagined. So, I still live in hope of what could be, because I don’t know any way else to be.
Header Photo: Sarjana Sky, CC 2.0 BY NC SA