The music stopped

Sat waiting to hear a talk from a survivor at the Nova Exhibition and just reflecting on what we have just seen.

This exhibition is so well done, so heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching and attacks every sense. The sounds of that day fill some of the exhibition and there are parts quieter for contemplation.

We see the horrors of that day, but those that survived carry it with them and the families of those that did not, live with these horrors. One man talked about being a 3rd generation Holocaust survivor and a first generation Nova survivor and that hit home. It was a massacre and a blood bath carried out by evil.

On Facebook yesterday, someone asked what is your tipping point to leaving and I had answered the Bob Vylan Glastonbury event but sat here thinking, maybe it was this, maybe Oct 7 was the tipping point, even though it took us time to realise it.

It changed us all, both in Israel and every Jew on the diaspora. I feel I do not know how to live here amongst those that deny what we have just seen. Those who can minimise it or deny it, those that can only hear us if we also give equivalence to the pain of those that carried it out. I can’t do that - as I watched the glee on the perpetrator’s faces and saw the pain and heard the words of those about to die, I cannot give it equivalence. October 7th was evil personified, it was Nazism come back to life, it was the Spanish Inquisition and many other events where resistance is not the motivated, dead Jews is the aim. Jews extinguished.

And I also feel despair. Around me here are faces haunted by what they have seen and are seeing. But they are mainly Jewish faces, young and old. They are not the ones who need to see this. Those that have spent nearly 3 years telling us that Palestinians want only peace and we are the evil ones need to see this. But I know that even if the haters and the doubters came, they would still hate or excuse. They would deny what they are seeing and push blame onto those in Israel. they already have done so because the footage was live-streamed and still Israel was blamed. We are so far down the route of Israel being demonic that even this event and this evidence means nothing. It is too late.

It was too late on October 8th when the world did not condemn. Did not condemn Hamas and still will not be truthful as to what their aims are. It was too late when the UN failed to condemn, when the Red Cross failed to fight for our hostages, when march after march went unchallenged and calls for Jewish death became normal on our streets. When genocide became an attack on Jews rather than any semblance of fact.

Today on our journey down to London, I read up on the document the church Synod has ‘read’ which contains every trope about genocide and colonialism . A report that the Chief Rabbi has said will set back Jewish relations. Those that stood against it are called racist and genocidal Zionists. Of course Palestinian suffering must be heard, or course it must. But by ignoring what Palestinian Hamas says about its aims, by ignoring what those many civilians on the streets of Gaza did and would do again on a heartbeat, by ignoring Israel’s suffering and wish and attempts for peace, that is not ‘hearing’ that is the same antisemitism that has stalled the church for many a century.

I don’t know how to live in my country anymore when I can come a see this exhibition and know most ignore or deny. When the church cannot see how damaging and hurtful this document is. When government gives money hand over fist to Gaza but cannot visit this exhibition. It is too hard to find peace here . I want to be happy and to live a productive life. I want to relax around people.

I want peace for all the people of Palestine. Those that came for Israel on that day do not want peace and until a world acknowledges that, we cannot have that peace. We have to fight this hate. We did it on 1939 but now I am leaving a country that will not acknowledge this hate, that hands over money to Gaza but cannot even travel from Westminster to Shoreditch to see this exhibition.

At 6.29am on October 7 2023, the music stopped. We will dance again.

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