view from central park: tehilla r. goldberg

As violence spreads, women pose threats

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When the holiday came to a close last Tuesday, I was scared to turn on the news. Throughout this holiday it seemed like things were spiraling out of control with difficult news from Israel. It hasn’t been the easiest start to a new year. In fact, as the saying in Hebrew goes, with one murder reported after another, the land of Israel seemed to have become drenched in a ma’agal damim, a circle of bloodshed.

It’s a curious phrase that, of all times, jumped out at me now.

Ma’agal. Circle. Right in the midst of the circles of the hakafot we were engaged in that very week. Encircling.

As we aspire to reach a meditative, encircled awareness, making the rounds of hoshanot that lead the rounds of joyous hakafot, holding the Torah, this sheltered circle of prayer, of meditation and joy, was pierced and marred by a round of hot bloodshed.

As this season is permeated by prayers for the circle of life, it was the circle of death and bloodshed that broke the sense of holiness and hope of the season.

You walk around in hoshanot as your heart bleeds with pain for the thought of these now shattered families.

The video is difficult to watch. A Jewish father, dressed in full regalia, humiliated, spat at, kicked, his yarmulke falling to the ground, raw terror in his childrens’ eyes not knowing what the outcome of this assult would be.

What admiration I have for this father, Yehonatan Levy. In a tense situation, surrounded by an Arab mob, somehow he found the wherewithal to carry on calmly, continuing to walk forward, making the split-second decision with an understanding that it was too late to turn back, for it would have most likely have meant a mob closing in on him.

“It’s not like I entered the Gaza Strip,” he explained. “It’s my regular route to the Kotel. We had passed through a police checkpoint and no one told us there was any danger.

“And you know the thing that really bothered me? There was no one there who cared — not one — not even the shop owners or the jewelers, the men, the women … who cared. Not one person who would stop this horror, with children screaming.”

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