{"id":42278,"date":"2025-10-16T16:25:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T23:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42278"},"modified":"2025-10-17T01:39:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T08:39:40","slug":"mourning-with-those-who-mourn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/mourning-with-those-who-mourn\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourning with those who mourn"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the morning of October 7th, before hearing of Hamas\u2019s attack on Israel, I was reading Lamentations. In my journal, I noted: \u201cAll our enemies open their mouths against us\u2026 my eyes flow with rivers of tears for the destruction of my people\u201d (Lam. 3:46\u201348). When the news broke hours later, those ancient words felt suddenly alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

I grew up in an environment deeply sympathetic toward the Jewish community. Even as a child, I sensed\u2014without the language for it\u2014that antisemitism was real. At twelve, a visit to the Museum of<\/em> Tolerance<\/em>[1]<\/a> in Los Angeles left a lasting impression; the piles of worn shoes and abandoned luggage made history tangible. Later, my aunt\u2019s involvement in a Messianic Jewish congregation brought Jewish traditions into my own life. In Los Angeles, Jewish life was visible and familiar, while Palestinians were almost entirely absent from my awareness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time I saw a Palestinian flag, it felt foreign, even threatening. In 2005, my aunt\u2019s Messianic congregation sold artwork made by Jewish settlers preparing to vacate the Gaza Strip. My first trip to Israel in 2014 revealed the region\u2019s palpable tension. At Yad<\/em> Vashem<\/em>[2]<\/a>, I was struck by a pair of glasses a young woman had hidden in her clothing\u2014the last possession she kept of her mother. Later, at the Holocaust Museum<\/em> in Washington, D.C., a banner quoting Elie Wiesel\u2014\u201cThis Museum is not an answer. It is a question\u201d\u2014seemed to capture all the uncertainties that history continued to stir within me: my understanding of Israel\u2014and, inseparable from it, the Palestinian experience\u2014their history and the complexity of their place in this shared history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zionism emerged in the nineteenth century from both religious and secular strands of Jewish life. As Howard Sachar notes, Jewish nationalism drew on \u201cthe messianic dream\u2026the need for establishing Jewish colonies in the Holy Land as a necessary prelude to the Redemption.\u201d[3]<\/a> Rabbis Judah Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer envisioned a spiritual return, while the Haskalah<\/em> promoted integration into European society through assimilation and the cultivation of a modern Jewish identity. The pogroms of the 1880s shattered such optimism; Moshe Lilienblum concluded that \u201cthere is no home for us in this, or any, Gentile land,\u201d[4]<\/a> urging emigration to Palestine. While Zionism arose from Jewish hopes for restoration and security, a parallel and opposing current later took shape among Palestinians. Out of displacement, occupation, and resistance emerged new movements\u2014most notably Hamas, whose vision fused religion with militancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya<\/em> (\u201cIslamic Resistance Movement\u201d), known as Hamas, is a Palestinian Islamist organization with both political and militant dimensions. Its founding covenant declares that \u201cthe land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [endowment] consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day.\u201d[5]<\/a> The group\u2019s ideology fuses religion with resistance, sanctifying violence as liberation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On October 7, 2023, that ideology erupted into horror. Douglas Murray recounts in On Democracies and Death Cults <\/em>footage from that morning showing young Israeli women, bloodied and terrified, being bound by Hamas militants. Their pleas for mercy were met with mockery and cruelty.[6]<\/a> It was one of numerous atrocities committed that day, including the massacres at the Nova music festival and several nearby kibbutzim, where entire families\u2014including infants\u2014were murdered in their homes. In the days that followed, global discourse grew increasingly polarized and volatile.<\/span><\/p>\n

Language itself became a battlefield, with emotionally charged rhetoric shaping public understanding of the conflict. One frequently invoked example is the description of Gaza as a \u201cconcentration camp.\u201d Murray challenges this characterization, arguing that such comparisons fundamentally distort reality. In 2005, Israel withdrew all Jewish residents from Gaza; since then, the population has grown from 1.3 million to over 2 million\u2014an impossible statistic for what some call a \u201cconcentration camp.\u201d As he notes, \u201cThat would make it the first concentration camp in history in which the population actually grew. There was no population boom in Auschwitz in the 1940s.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The language we use to describe conflicts carries immense power. As Stephen Hicks writes, \u201cTo most postmodernists, language is primarily a weapon.\u201d[8]<\/a> This weaponization of language is evident in the careless use of charged terms like \u201cgenocide\u201d<\/em> or \u201capartheid,\u201d<\/em> which often influence perception more than they convey truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nigel Biggar reminds us that \u201cAdolf Hitler and his spellbinding vision of things generated a coherent Nazi project, driven by powerful motives: revenge upon France for the defeat of 1918 and the humiliating peace of 1919; the yearning to restore Germany\u2019s dominance in Europe; hatred of Bolshevism, cosmopolitan capitalism, America, and above all, Jewry; and the concomitant desire to purge the world of these evils.\u201d[9]<\/a> Who today is propelled by historic grievance, by vengeance, by hatred of Jewry, and by the conviction that the world must be cleansed of its perceived evils?<\/em> Biggar\u2019s description of the ideological fervor behind the Nazi project bears unsettling parallels to the hatred and violence that animate Hamas\u2014not Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

I must be honest\u2014it\u2019s hard for me to separate Palestine from Hamas. I once admitted this to a close Muslim friend, who replied, \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for Hamas, Palestine would not exist today.\u201d Although I disagree with her statement, her words have stayed with me. I do not wish to dismiss the pain felt by many in the Muslim community, whose sense of loss and injustice over Palestine is both real and deeply rooted. The conflict is so layered with history and suffering that clarity often feels out of reach. Living in a country that grieves for the Palestinians, I\u2019ve learned to share in that mourning for those killed\u2014to grieve their loss while continuing to love Israel and all who dwell within its borders.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a Christian leader, I want to stay anchored in truth\u2014resisting the pull of media and rhetoric\u2014and guided instead by prayer, humility, and empathy. I\u2019m learning that compassion requires holding tension: seeing suffering on both sides without surrendering to despair or distortion. My hope is simply to stand between grief and grace, mourning with those who mourn and seeking peace where it seems out of reach. As the psalmist writes, \u201cPray for the peace of Jerusalem: \u2018May those who love you be secure'” (Psalm 122:6). The peace we pray for is a blessing meant for all.<\/span><\/p>\n

In revisiting my journal entries from October 2023, I return to a line that I noted from Augustine:<\/span><\/p>\n

“What matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical.”<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a> The Museum of Tolerance was founded by the\u00a0Simon Wiesenthal Center, a renowned Jewish human rights organization honoring the legacy of Simon Wiesenthal, the legendary Nazi hunter. Dedicated to justice and tolerance, the Center created the Museum to address growing Holocaust denial and foster tolerance. Rather than a traditional museum of artifacts, the Museum of Tolerance was designed as an interactive space to inspire action. It utilizes interactive media and animated walk-through exhibits to engage visitors and initiate conversations about injustice and oppression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Established in 1953 by an act of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is entrusted with Holocaust commemoration, documentation, research and education: remembering the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazis and their collaborators; commemorating the destroyed Jewish communities, the ghetto and resistance fighters; and honoring the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time<\/em> (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007), chapter 1, Kindle edition.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Sachar, A History of Israel<\/em>, chap. 1, Kindle edition.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, Hamas: The Quest for Power<\/em> (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 46, Kindle edition.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Douglas Murray, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization<\/em> (New York: HarperCollins, 2024), 76, Kindle edition.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Murray, On Democracies and Death Cults<\/em>, 121-122, Kindle edition.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault<\/em> (Expanded Edition; Ockham\u2019s Razor Publishing, 2011), 184.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Nigel Biggar, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning<\/em> (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2023), 34, Kindle edition.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the morning of October 7th, before hearing of Hamas\u2019s attack on Israel, I was reading Lamentations. In my journal, I noted: \u201cAll our enemies open their mouths against us\u2026 my eyes flow with rivers of tears for the destruction of my people\u201d (Lam. 3:46\u201348). When the news broke hours later, those ancient words felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3487,3485,3486,2967],"class_list":["post-42278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-milton-edwards","tag-murray","tag-sachar","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42278"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42308,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42278\/revisions\/42308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}