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Modern day war calendar

While most Americans around me are on a consumerist binge, dealing with the excess of the holiday season and her aftermath, namely spectacular sales, Israel is living with serious worries. Operation Cast Lead or Cast Iron — “Oferet Yezuka” — is the name of Israel’s invasion into Gaza.

“Oferet Yetzuka” is a phrase from a children’s Chanukah song, referring to the leaden dreidels spun on Chanukah that were once made by pouring molten lead into medal molds.

On the sixth day of Chanukah this year, on Shabbbos Chanukah, the day had finally come when Israel responded to the ten thousand-plus rockets that have been launched at southern Israel, unprovoked.

The civilians of Sderot and other farms, towns, and villages in southern Israel, have been enduring this life-threatening barrage of Kassams for years now.

They reached a feverish pitch last week with 80 Kassams being fired onto Israel in just one day.

Despite it being Shabbat, somehow between the doorman and others the word quickly spread. We knew Israel had finally acted.

Over a Shabbat meal we couldn’t help but discuss this.

The confluence of Chanukah and the incursion into Gaza was striking.

On Chanukah we commemorate the war that we, the few, the vulnerable, won in the face of the many, and the fierce. We invoke miracles from the past and talk about Chanukah’s power to effectuate miracles in the present.

I am sad that we need to be at war. I am deeply sad at the innocent loss of life that is inevitable in the way of war. I am sad at the thought of the thousands of Israeli soldiers prepared to cross the Gaza border at any moment.

But this war is a fact that must be accepted. Actually, the Israelis’ plea for help, those living in southern Israel, especially Sderot, should have been heeded long ago.

I know the skies of Israel must now be thick with smoke, the air permeated with the smell of gunfire, the noise of overhead jets at night keeping people awake.

The people of Sderot are huddled in bomb shelters, dark and dirty, worried sick. And I am sure there are some innocent civilians suffering among the Hamas terrorists, too, since Hamas intentionally sets up operations in civilian neighborhoods.

It’s just sad that in order for us to exist in our land the Jewish holiday calendar is becoming a modern day war calendar. In the annals of Jewish history this war will go down as the Chanukah war. In 1973 it was the Yom Kippur war. In 1991, Purim meant victory in the first Persian Gulf war. And Rosh Hashanah of 2000 marked the beginning of the latest and bloodiest intifada.

I know the whole world is watching Israel. And I know that despite Israel treating the wounded of her cruel and heartless enemy in her own Israeli hospitals, despite Israeli fighter jets mostly targeting with precise strikes the missile launching pads Hamas and their underground tunnels used for smuggling weapons, and despite Israel acting as a result of attack, Israel will be bitterly and unfairly criticized.

I pray for my brothers and sisters in Israel. “Le’ma’an achai ve’rei’ay adabra na shalom bach

I hope that just as the title of this war “Oferet Yetzuka” harkens back to the dreidels of yesteryear, when we spin the dreidel on this war it will say, as did the dreidel commemorating the victory of the Maccabees, “Nes gadol haya po, a great miracle transpired here.”



Tehilla Goldberg

IJN columnist | View from Central Park


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