Israeli history will, for at least a generation if not longer, be divided into before and after. Before October 7, 2023, and after October 7, 2023.
The Simchat Torah massacres on that date will be the point of reference marking the time when Israel changed fundamentally, when its security philosophy changed, when its political landscape was rearranged, when its attitude toward the enemy was altered, and when its solidarity and cohesion were regained.
Historians will talk about a pre-October 7, 2023, Israel, and a post-October 7, 2023, Israel, and they will not be the same.
Marking 30 days since the Hamas October 7 massacre
A grieving nation marked 30 days this week to the horrific events of October 7.
In Jewish tradition, the mourning period for close relatives, particularly for parents, is divided into separate units of time – there is the period before the burial, the seven-day shiva period, the 30-day – or shloshim – period, the 11 months of saying kaddish, and the yahrzeit that marks the end of 12 months of mourning.
As time passes, the laws of mourning are relaxed. Things permitted during the shiva, are not permitted before the burial; things permitted during the 30 days are not permitted during the shiva, and on and on. The underlying philosophy is that the enormity of the grief lessens as time passes.
Israel marked the shloshim this week to the October 7 massacres, but the national sense of grief and bereavement has not eased with the passing of this time, perhaps because there are still 240 hostages cruelly and inhumanly held in Gaza, perhaps because each day additional names are added to the list of fallen soldiers, perhaps because of the enormity of the crime against humanity perpetrated – again – against the Jewish people.
The Jewish laws of mourning are structured so that by the shloshim, life starts returning to normal.
Life in Israel, however, has not begun to return to normal a month after the slaughter.
Normal in Israel is happy and vibrant and joyful and optimistic. A month after October 7, the country has slipped into a certain wartime routine, but the national sense of grief, bereavement and deep, deep sadness has not dissipated.
It’s everywhere. It’s on the television. It’s in the papers. It’s in conversations around the Shabbat table. It’s on people’s faces in the supermarket. It’s on everyone’s mind, and it’s in everyone’s heart. You can feel it.
Those not directly mourning anyone killed on October 7 or its aftermath are worried about sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, or just friends and co-workers called up to defend the northern border, keep Judea and Samaria from exploding, and fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists inside Gaza, often in face-to-face battles in narrow alleyways, or through the ruins of bombed out buildings. And that, too, is a worry you can almost taste.
A month after Kibbutz Be’eri and Kibbutz Re’im, Kfar Aza, and Nir Oz were seared into the nation’s consciousness, Israel is sad and bereft.
It is also full of fury and anger. Fury at those who did this to us. Fury at those around the world who celebrated the massacre of Jews and gave cover to those who perpetrated this crime. And anger at the government for having dropped the ball, first in not protecting Israel’s citizens as it should have, and second for not rising to the occasion and providing solutions to those displaced from their homes as fast as it could.
BUT IT is not a country incapacitated or paralyzed by this sadness, grief, and fury. Rather, these emotions have instilled a sense of solidarity and purpose not felt here for decades.
“How is the morale?” Lt.-Col. (res.) Ido, the commander of a tank battalion in the Harel Brigade, was asked in a radio interview on Thursday from “somewhere in the south.”
“I’ve been doing reserve duty for 15 to 20 years, and I have never seen this degree of keenness. The morale is high from all segments of the nation. It is moving to see – people from all over, all different lines of work, are all harnessed together toward one task. It is very strong.”
A people disastrously divided before October 7 has unified afterward: “From all segments of the population,” Ido said, “haredim and religions, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, Druze and Jews – everyone, with a fighting spirit and a willingness to keep moving forward so that the enemy understand that we are here.”
That sentiment is heard repeatedly by soldiers lying in ambush on the northern border or blowing up tunnels in Gaza. And it is a sentiment that is as strong on the 35th day of fighting as it was on the first. Even as the number of IDF casualties inside Gaza mounts, even as hundreds of thousands of reservists have now been away from their families for more than a month, even as the difficulties for the families of those mobilized add up, even as the economy is struggling.
Israel, a small country with an acute sensitivity to military casualties, is not built for prolonged wars. Its wars need to be short. And, for the most part, its wars have been short. This war, at 35 days as of Friday, is already longer than the 1956 Sinai Campaign (100 hours), the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War (19 days), and the Second Lebanon War (34) days. Only the War of Independence and the First Lebanon War lasted longer.
Yet there is little sign of a nation tiring, losing its resolve, or questioning the need for the war or even how it is being prosecuted. Israelis across the board view this as a war of no choice, an undeniably just war, one that is necessary to win convincingly in order to ensure the country’s existence down the line.
As the war enters its second month, not only are almost no dissenting voices being heard, but – on the contrary – there are calls for the government to stand firm, hang tough, and not give in to pressure for a ceasefire. And these calls are coming from all sectors of the population, even from the Left, even from families of those kidnapped in Gaza who are concerned that the ground incursion could endanger their loved ones.
On Sunday, one voice calling for the government to “finish the job” was heard at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. It was the voice of Elnatan Levenstein, who eulogized his younger brother, Yonadav, 23, married just two months ago, a soldier in Givati’s commando unit, who fell Friday fighting in northern Gaza.
“Now you are, unfortunately, part of history,” Elnatan said of his brother, who loved Jewish history. “Part of a bloody war that we will never forget. A hard but necessary war. A war over the future of our people in our land. A war that should have ended a long time ago and which your generation was not supposed to fight.
“In 2012, Operation Pillar of Defense, my comrades and I, with the whole army, were prepared and trained for this exact objective. We received orders and detailed plans that were postponed again and again at the last minute. And there were many opportunities over the years that were not taken advantage of [to finish the job].
“The price we paid since that cursed day in October 2023, Simchat Torah 5784, is unbearable. No more. I want to call from here to the prime minister, defense minister, ministers, and all the decision-makers: Do not dare to stop, do not dare to hesitate, do not dare to fold.”
A month after the war, that sentiment reflects the national attitude – both on the Right and on the Left: Finish the job this time; convincingly and unquestionably defeat Hamas this time.
It is not that the country is unaware of suffering taking place in Gaza, but it is just that the magnitude of the atrocities on October 7 – the sheer barbarism, sadism, and unadulterated evil on display – has seeped deeply into the Israeli psyche and created a sense that in this war either Hamas’s capabilities are destroyed, or Israel’s ability to survive and flourish here as it has done in the past is in question.
For most Israelis, the choice seems that stark. And this explains why the morale of the army is so high, why the nation has come together in ways not seen since the Yom Kippur War a half century ago, and why – 35 days after the war started – nary a voice in Israel is being raised questioning the justice, morality, or necessity of what the IDF is doing.
While around the world the horrific images from October 7 have been mainly replaced and surpassed by pictures of the war’s toll in Gaza, those images have not been eclipsed in Israel. Instead, the images of October 7, as well as the stories that accompany those images, stories that still come out day after day – tales both of agony and of heroism – have deeply penetrated the Israeli psyche, surely not to be overtaken or overshadowed by anything else for the foreseeable future. •