(In L.A. until October 8th.)
It was the bullet holes in the Port-a-Potties that pushed me over the edge.
I wasn't going to write about this. Because non-Jews don't want to hear about it. After all, hasn't Israel killed all those people in Gaza? And then they blew up pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon and bombed the country. When are these heinous Semites going to stop?
When the world stops hating Jews. And that ain't never going to happen.
The security was heavier than the airport. That's what it's like to be a Jew these days, you fear for your life. Congregate and you never know. They went through every item in the handbag of the woman in front of me. EVERY ITEM!
And after getting through the metal detector I waited in line for a short film and...
I'd like to tell you I was overwhelmed, viscerally affected, BUT I'D SEEN THE MOVIE! It wasn't brand new.
But if you were unprepared, you would have been shocked. Positively shocked I tell you!
Now although they've got items from the festival, the essence of the exhibition is testimony from survivors. On video screens placed throughout the premises. And the stories...
There was this whole story about the rapes and the dismemberment, about killing women while they were being raped, and how the women's groups of the world haven't come out and denounced this, how they've stayed silent.
After all, it's Jews.
I know, I know, you've heard enough from the Jews. They've got all the money, they've got all the power, can't they shut up, stop complaining?
Now let's be clear. EDM festivalgoers are a self-selecting group. Almost always young, with a kumbaya vibe. They go to an oftentimes secret location to get high and dance and marvel at their surroundings. These are not terrorists, they're peace-loving and...
Hamas invades.
People just don't get it. They think it's tit for tat. That the Israelis are no different from the terrorists, from Hamas, but that is patently untrue.
Hamas soldiers picking up Israeli phones to call and tell their parents they've murdered Jews. This was a rampage, and Hamas was enjoying it! It was almost a party!
As for escaping... It was mostly luck. What you chose to do. A woman in a refrigerator lived, but the terrorists shot up those hiding amongst garbage bags in a dumpster.
And people are running and bullets are whizzing by...
This is the world we live in. One in which we sit back and judge but have no idea what is going on. Then again, you have to be worried about getting shot in school in America.
You're just minding your own business, and your life is at stake. And it's not just one disaffected teenage student, it's a legion of terrorists, and their goal is to eliminate you, eradicate you from the earth!
That's what non-Jews don't understand. This isn't a skirmish, this is about extermination. From the river to the sea. These Arabs want Israel gone, completely. As for a two state solution, fuhgeddaboudit.
But it's not only Muslims who are anti-Israel, a ton of Jews are too. Makes me wonder, how were they brought up?
It's not like we were super-religious. But we heard about the Holocaust from birth. People with concentration numbers tattooed on their arms lived amongst us. We had relatives in Israel. It was all very real.
And now it's real again.
Believe me, most people don't want to read what I'm writing here. It's actually working against me to write this. I need to shut up, bow my head and march forward.
That's a recipe for death.
I've been told to stand up to antisemitism from the moment of birth. If someone says something, to say something back. To be silent is to be complicit. And the worst isn't when someone makes an antisemitic comment to your face, it's when you're in a group of people and they don't know you're Jewish and say something.
So, there are burned out cars. Shoes. Backpacks.
But what struck me most was the pictures of the dead. It was akin to 9/11, but the photos were all in color, and almost everybody was a twentysomething, just at the beginning of their lives.
I'm watching this video of a woman who appears about thirty eight, telling a long story, and it ultimately comes out that her two daughters were at the Nova festival...and they didn't make it home.
One woman was shot five times, gave up and then the will to survive kicked in. She crawled out of the dumpster and...
There was the woman who needed to live, for her children, because their father was already dead.
The dying telling their friends to call their mothers to tell them they loved them, before they faded away and expired.
And then the cleanup crew, who found bags of heads. Yes, Hamas didn't only kill people, they beheaded them, dismembered them, burned them...
But the Israelis are no different from Hamas or Hezbollah.
Yeah, right.
Most people don't want to see bad things. And I don't think I can convince you otherwise. But go to this exhibition, watch the movie. If for no other reason than you'll be exposed to, learn about man's inhumanity to man.
And if you're Jewish let's be clear, you think you're safe, but you're not. Rust never sleeps, nor does antisemitism.
Standing in line reminded me of summer camp. Los Angeles is the land of assimilation, but when you're together with other Jews...it's palpable. It's both lively and heavy. Enjoy it, because you never know when it will end.
Life goes on, but not for all of us.
It was amazing to see the people dancing at a festival subsequent to the Nova atrocity. You've got to keep on living, it's all you can do.
But you can never forget. Because your brain won't let you.
Let me be clear, I thought these days were behind us, I thought we'd evolved to a more egalitarian society, where we could all live in harmony, at least better than we used to.
But the Berlin Wall fell, Russia was liberated, and now we've got Putin.
As for Hezbollah, they're willing to sacrifice themselves, to die for the cause. Ditto Hamas. How do you fight that?
It's not reasonable.
But we live in an unreasonable world.
Someday they'll come for you, just you wait.
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