Right Side
By Linda Arenson
Editor’s note: This editorial is in response to an editorial from Melinda Henneberger in The Kansas City Star.
I would like to commend Melinda Henneberger for taking the side of Israel in the war with Hamas (in the Oct. 13 issue of The Kansas City Star, page 7A, “In Israel, as in Ukraine, this is no ‘tomato/tomahto’ situation”). Everything she wrote is correct, but she needs to add the following:
Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, there have been no free elections. The millions of dollars Hamas has collected have been spent on guns, rockets and building tunnels to attack Israel. Hamas has not used the funds to improve the Palestinian people’s lives, but rather to keep them in a state of poverty and war. There have been few improvements to their infrastructure and little effort to help their economy.
Hamas’ mission is to eradicate Israel and kill Jewish people. They use their own people for human shields. They have no regard for human life. I am not an expert on the Middle East, but I do know right from the despicable wrong, as seen by the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir called it many years ago: You cannot negotiate with people who want to kill you.
Linda Arenson, daughter of local Bobbi Arenson, was raised in the Kansas City area and now lives in Westport, Connecticut.
We can’t let terrorism win
By Laura Gilman
When the Israelites fled Egypt, the sea parted so that they could cross it. Once safely across, we are taught, the water closed, and with this shift, the pursuing Egyptians drowned. On the other side of the sea, when some Israelites cheered, God censured them – “How can you celebrate when my children are dying?”
The Jewish people are taught to honor the divine in everyone – from those who pursue us to those for whom our liberation makes no sense.
To my Muslim sisters and brothers: I know Hamas does not speak in your name. Hamas knows nothing of Islam – its religion is destruction. You are seen!
To anyone I meet: please know that I am struggling to eat, sleep and function. The Jewish people have been massacred. The world feels unsafe. Everything I do is tinged with a heaviness for my people. My heart aches for the Palestinian people, treated like pawns by Hamas leadership. Their humanity means nothing to Hamas. But it means something to me.
I hear the clear, sweet words of my four-and-a-half year old daughter as I drove her to school. I’m filled with a heaviness for this simple privilege of transporting her safely to school, knowing it could have been our family murdered.
“Do you know why I love the earth, Ima?” she asked me. “Because I love all of the people on the earth.”
Terrorism is a tool of dehumanization. Its primary goal is destruction. Its purpose is to poison our humanity and dim the divine in each of us.
We can’t let it win!
Laura Gilman is a Kansas City Native and a graduate of Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy. She lives with her Israeli husband and two children in Overland Park.
Ramifications of war
By Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Please do not call this horrible war a Holocaust. However, the ramification of this war is the same as the Holocaust.
Many will seek all their lives for survivors, not knowing if they are dead or alive. Numerous families lost children to these barbarians, and in some cases will have to remarry, just like in the Holocaust. My father’s first wife was murdered together with two children.
Like survivors of this war, PTSD will be rampant as it is in the Holocaust community. I have a son, his wife and their two babies in Jerusalem. My oldest grandson is learning in a yeshiva in Israel. I have a nephew and cousins living in Israel, some of which have been called up to go to war.
I feel your pain, brothers and sisters, and can send you a hug and offer prayers. I basically do not sleep as I am writing articles in the media around the world. I would have volunteered to go to Israel and help as I have done many times before during armed conflict, but I just had spinal fusion surgery.
G-d bless you all and the State of Israel.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg grew up in Kansas City and now resides in Edison, New Jersey. He has authored multiple books about the Holocaust.
An open letter from the Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation
By Robin Rosenberg
Friends and neighbors, we write to express our thanks and gratitude to all who have shown us empathy, love and concern over the last two weeks. Like many of you, we in the Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation have experienced a range of emotions and thoughts in the aftermath of the horrific and unprecedented attack on Israel. Fear, anger, disbelief, dismay, disgust, confusion, concern and profound sadness weigh on us.
As we process our feelings and contemplate a communal response, we are comforted by your support.
The fact that it is safe for Jews to worship and congregate in Lawrence is not something we take for granted. We see how despicable and violent anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim activities sow fear in some communities. We thank you for creating a community where it is safe for all people to worship as they choose. We join in the efforts toward maintaining a safe community for all.
The LJCC is a pluralistic synagogue that seeks to include all Jews and their Jewish-adjacent loved ones who want to be part of our egalitarian congregation. As a lay-led congregation we have the privilege of learning from and listening to each other. LJCC members live our Judaism in a wide variety of ways in terms of worship, observance, and theology. Likewise, we have a range of views on political situations locally and globally.
While we may differ on the best path to achieve it, we all pray for peace now and into the future, among all people, at home and abroad.
Robin Rosenberg is the president of the Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation.
Statement on murder of child outside of Chicago
By the SevenDays board of directors
SevenDays expresses deep sadness after the Oct. 15 stabbing death of six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian-American in Plainfield Township, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois.
Wadea’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, who called 911 to summon police, was seriously injured in the same hate-provoked attack that took place in the family’s apartment. Shahin’s landlord now faces several charges in this heinous crime, including first-degree murder and two counts of hate crimes.
This is a particularly difficult time in the world after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, which SevenDays unequivocally condemns.
We extend prayerful thoughts to the Israeli, American and hostages of other nationalities and to innocent civilians, including Palestinians, who are suffering from Hamas’ actions.
Authorities in the U.S. have been on high alert ever since for violence driven by antisemitic and Islamophobic sentiment. Both Muslim and Jewish groups in the United States have reported a rise in hateful rhetoric since the initial attack on Oct. 7.
Let us be clear: SevenDays condemns hate in any form.
SevenDays works to overcome hate by teaching kindness through education and dialogue. SevenDays continues the healing journey after the hate murders that took the lives of Dr. William Corporon, his grandson Reat Underwood and Teresa LaManno outside of Jewish facilities in April 2014 by a white supremacist looking to kill Jews. None of the three was Jewish.
As we always mention the names of Reat, Bill and Terri when speaking out against hate and promoting kindness, let us extend kindness to one another as we work together to overcome hate in the world. Please consider how you can be a ripple of kindness today. Check out our website, sevendays.org, for kindness ideas and free resources to make a ripple and change the world.