On Loneliness
Since the beginning of this war I've found myself longing for a second innocence. I fear I may have thrown that opportunity away.
Michael Licht lives in West Jerusalem. He is involved in a number of anti-occupation initiatives and is a member of the Tent editorial team. He enjoys learning Torah in his spare time.
We live in a time of big statements. Of playing for your team, whatever the circumstances. We live in a time of battle between Light and Darkness, when we must fight for what’s right. We’re battling “literal Nazis” and, of all the weapons in our armory, the one we hold most dear is The Truth. No matter what they do to us, we will always have Truth on our side. We cannot not fight this battle. If we sit it out, if we hesitate, we lose. Our entire team. We do not have that privilege. We cannot let Darkness reign victorious. We are the Light.
But I am not we. I am I, or at least something in between. While we are determined, I am confused. While we charge to victory, I hesitate. While we have Truth on our side, I have questions, doubts. I don’t know where I stand.
At a friend’s wedding, in an abandoned village hastily turned into an army base, I look on from the side at the collective which I used to be a part of, my heart filled with melancholic nostalgia. Most are soldiers awaiting the command to cross the fence, to fight against The Darkness and to win. The bride was not expecting this, but she is happy – at least on the outside – to be swept along, at her now-husband’s request, dedicating her wedding to the national fervor. I see them dancing together, I see the concentric circles of soldiers jubilantly celebrating this moment, their happiness tangible as they chant slogans, resolutely dedicated to sharing The Truth, whether at this makeshift wedding hall, via their keyboards or through the barrel of the bulky M16s that dangle – for now – at their side, always at the ready. They will go into battle soon; some of them will not return. They dance round in delirious joy, soaking in the beauty of their shared destiny, basking in the justice of their cause. I watch on from the side, remembering a time when I was part of something bigger. Now I’m just confused and sad.
I still feel deeply connected to the collective, I want to be there; but I can never be part of it again, I think. I fear I may have thrown that opportunity away.
I recall the many happy summers I spent as a child in Jerusalem, playing in San Simon park, lapping up Shoko and delicious fresh bread and the August heat as we burnt our names into leaves using my grandfather’s magnifying glass. I remember the longing I had for those summers to arrive and the sadness upon our return to the cold and wet diaspora. Israel was home; everywhere else was a temporary refuge.
I remember the trip I made as a 17 year old, traveling the length and breadth of this country in a few short days, on my own for the first time (oh, the glorious independence!) and the subsequent realization that if I wanted to live here - I should just do it. My parents would make my life hell for it but what did I care. I wanted to be here and this was, after all, my life.
A few years later, on my bunk bed in a dank, godforsaken army base, came the mirror image of that moment: again, a feeling that I could and should leave, in spite of the clearly radical nature of such an action and all the many barriers that would inevitably stand in my way. There was an image in my mind, a scene I pictured day and night on loop: I’d see myself taking the witness’ stand, on trial for being part of something truly evil. Being ‘just a cog’, I knew, simply wasn’t good enough. I’d have to admit - yes, I was part of this. For better or for worse, I controlled people’s lives. As benevolent as we were, or as I tried to be (and we weren’t; I wasn’t), I was part of the system which meant people young and old would have to come begging me for personal favors, privileges, that I would consider rights if only it didn’t concern Palestinians. The realization that, upon returning from a late-night incursion into a Palestinian village, hours later I’d have to open the back gate of the base to allow today’s batch, of hundreds more Palestinians, to stand in line and ask for the most basic of permissions. I didn’t want to be part of that any more. It was the beginning of a long journey to dedicating myself to anti-occupation activism - at first with much apprehension, and eventually easing into the role of the perpetual critic. As I got better at arguing my side, I minded less about being hated. I could deal with it, as long as I saw myself immersed in a community of like-minded people with similar values.
The wedding took place two weeks into the war, its guests still deep in the shock and grief of the events we had all experienced on that horrific shabbat-chag morning. We went in order to be there for our friends, but no one was in any doubt that we were there for ourselves. We needed to be uplifted. The village-turned-base where the party took place was usually inhabited by Gush Katif evacuees, and hints of the place’s ultranationalist ideology came through in numerous tiny hints: the streaks of orange, the flags, the slogans plastered in various places. I was firmly back on the nationalist turf of my pre-military existence, and I was all over the place. My partially self-imposed ex-communication hung like an albatross over me, telling me that I will never be one of those dancing, celebrating this moment. One of us.
Caught in this ideological limbo, I have never felt more alone. I long for the sense of belonging that this land and its people once gave me. I wish there was a way to go back to the innocence of simply not knowing, to allow myself, just for a while, to be happy with them, not just for them. To be them. But I also burn up inside at the mainstreaming of calls for revenge, which have made their way even into my liberal-ish shul, and at the normalization of images of Gaza turned into smoldering piles of rubble. If the biblical definition of the name Israel is anything to go by - “for you have struggled with God and with humans, and have prevailed” - then I am as Israeli as ever. Yet the complexity of my identity means I have no choice but to live my life as a leper on the outskirts of our camp. Will there ever be a space for people like me on the inside?