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Uprooting Jews

Awash in prayers and tears


By Stan Goodenough
August 17, 2005

The miracle never came.

Israelis across the nation gazed and gaped at heartrending scenes from Gaza that played out on their television screens from early Wednesday, the first day of the ?forced evacuation? of Jews from the homes many had lived in for more than half a lifetime.

There were many images, and there will be many more of them before this is over. While isolated incidents of individual resistance were reported, the vast majority of Gaza?s Jews left in pain, but with great dignity.

Watching this was like taking a knife in the heart.

A boy of about 11, his kippa askew, glasses sliding down his tear-wet nose, walks around in small circles on the road, screwing up his face and mouthing words we cannot hear, as soldiers and policemen mill around him.

The slight figure of a woman, a mother, stroller at her side, stands silhouetted in the just-opened door of her home, shrugging as she looks up at the three burly policemen who have come to take her away.

Streaming out of another house, their hands in the air as if surrendering to enemy soldiers, a line of women and little children make their way through the ranks of the police. The little ones have orange Stars of David pinned to their tops and are crying loudly, some nearly hysterical as they look with big eyes at the policemen, their policemen, who are making them leave their homes.

Groups of teenage girls, huddled in their long skirts on a synagogue floor, rock back and forth, some weeping silently, others sobbing, their tears accompanying the prayers they send, still, to the heavens.

In another synagogue, six policemen surround a man. He, too, sits on the floor as the Jews do on Tisha b?Av, bewailing the destruction of their temples. Draped in a prayer shawl, tefillin on his head and forearm, he clasps his prayer book to his chest, in determination continuing his prayers despite the officers' demands that he stop. Picking him up, prayer shawl and all, they carry him out as he continues to pray and his tears begin to flow.

?Sh?ma Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad?? Is that the prayer on his lips?

In yet another house of worship, soldiers led by a senior officer enter the room, telling the men who are praying in song as they move in a swaying circle that it?s time to go. Responding to an invitation, officer and men join the circle, singing the well-known prayers, their tears joining those of the fellow Jews they have come to force out.

Then the cameras catch sight of a girl soldier, a beautiful, dark-haired Israeli girl, mouth open in anguish, her wails reaching the microphone meters away. Like a wounded animal she clasps her hands to her head, and cries and cries. A fellow soldier tries to comfort her, in vain.

At a gathering point they wait: bewildered bearded men, stoic grandmas, fathers with toddlers in their arms; teenage boys supporting their dazed mother, girls clinging tearfully to each other and looking anxiously around.

One group of men cut their shirts, then rip them in mourning while nearby children look on, crying too.

Then they board the buses, pushing their heads and shoulders through the narrow openings to get a last look at the place they called, and made, their home.

Escorted on both sides by rows of uniformed policemen, the vehicles roll slowly away.

I can?t help myself. I know there is no comparison, but the scene triggers an image in my mind; an image I have often seen as I have paged through books of recent Jewish history. The image of faces pressing against the narrow windows of the cattle cars carrying them, just because they were Jews,  from their homes.

------

These are the scenes being broadcast on Israeli TV. Watching CNN and Sky News, however, it?s as if they are covering a different story. Blowing out of proportion the isolated incidents of settlers losing their cool, they talk about ?all the violence? which, says one CNN anchor, is what they were anticipating all along.

Given the excessive speculation on the ?inevitable? violence that Gaza?s Jews and the ?infiltrators? would unleash against the Israeli security forces, reporting that such acts are  indeed taking place was probably a face-saving necessity for many in the foreign media.

And anyway, why should they let the facts get in the way of the real story? Those damn Jews never belonged there. It?s Palestinian land, after all.

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