Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 I have been reluctant to post on social media. How can I share a picture of my wonderful visit to Google NYC with my 90 year old dad when 1,400 people were brutally murdered and 200+ kidnapped on the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust? Should I be letting people know about my final 2023 talks when innocent civilians in Gaza, including thousands of children, have been killed by Israeli bombs?
I feel like everything I write needs an asterisk. This post is it.
I am Jewish. For my entire adult life I’ve identified as a progressive person, a person on the left of the American political spectrum. My first anti-war protest was wearing an armband to school in 9th grade. I took my children, the youngest in a stroller, to their first protest in the early 1990’s against the U.S. war in Iraq.
Like so many Americans, I donned a pink hat and protested Donald Trump’s election. I’ve always believed that being Jewish contributed to my progressive ideals. If I were Israeli I would likely have been in the streets this past summer as hundreds of thousands of Israeli’s protested the government’s anti-democratic actions.
Like many Jewish people in the United States I have family in Israel. The impact of October 7 on this small country, and the small Jewish diaspora (.2 percent of the global population – not 2%, but two tenths of one per cent) cannot be overstated.
I am heartbroken for the families of the dead, the missing, the kidnapped, and for Israeli society that is shaken to its core by the Hamas terrorist attacks. I am dismayed by rising global antisemitism over the past month.
And like many Jewish people I know in the United States, I am heartbroken for innocent Palestinians living under unfathomable conditions, victims of war in numbers hard to conceive. Another society shaken to its core. Dismayed too watching republicans seize on the crisis to advance a conservative and racist anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim agenda here in the United States.
These tragedies are at the front of my mind every day since October 7th when I awoke to news of the horrific attack in Israel, to news of senseless death at a musical festival and beyond. At the front of my mind as Israeli military strategy results in the deaths of innocents and destruction of the civic landscape.
Jump to:
Compartmentalizing Failure
I have been self-employed for 27 years, working from home long before remote work was a thing. The importance of being able to “bring my full self to work” never really resonated. As a disability rights lawyer, public speaker, and author active on social media, I never struggled over what or whether to share anything about myself unrelated to my work of making the digital world accessible to disabled people. I easily compartmentalized without much thought.
This feels different.
I realized that I had a “failure to compartmentalize” when last week I sent a work email to two colleagues. About ten minutes later I realized that the people I had written to worked for a company that began as an Israeli start-up. One email recipient was a co-founder, and many company employees were based there. How could I have sent that email without acknowledging the current situation?
I sent a follow-up, asking after the physical safety of their team, offering my hope for peace. I received a heartfelt response, with a “wish for a speedy resolution to this situation, and one that comes with lasting peace.”
It was that blurring of my compartmentalizing lines that prompted me to write this post.
My work, my dream for peace
My need for an asterisk to all social media posts, and even emails, also feels related to my work, both as a disability rights lawyer focused on digital accessibility and as a problem solver who believes in collaboration over conflict whenever possible.
Disability is writ large in the unfolding of events in Israel and Gaza.
Every hostage story is sad and compelling; the disabled teenager and her dad, killed by Hamas at the music festival, one of so many. The trauma of the October 7 terrorist attack and the physical and mental health impacts on survivors (primarily but not only Jewish Israelis) create disability.
War is a disabling event, and thousands of Palestinians have been disabled by this past month’s bombings. The trauma and lasting effects of this war, on Palestinian children and adults alike, cannot be overstated. Disabled people in Gaza – estimated to be more than 15% of the population before Hamas’ October 7th attack, face added burdens in this war and the displacement it is causing.
I often say that as a characteristic of the human condition, disability is global and cross-cutting; impacting humanity across race, gender, gender identity, and nationhood. The Israel-Hamas war adds another dimension to the universality of disability.
In my work as the co-creator and practitioner of Structured Negotiation, I define myself as a peacemaker. In my Structured Negotiation trainings I open with a song in the background. It asks “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding?” My answer in the digital accessibility advocacy context is always the same — “nothing.”
In 2017, after reading a book by mediators titled Bringing Peace into the Room, I wrote an article titled Stuck in the Middle with Everyone, in which I wrote that “Although I’ve never been a neutral “in the middle,” it struck me that lawyers practicing Structured Negotiation also “bring peace into the room.” . . . I realized that “bringing peace” and being a strong advocate are not mutually exclusive.”
I’m not suggesting that I have a roadmap for bringing peace to the Middle East. Peacemakers on the ground in Israel are struggling. But the current crisis reminds me that at heart I am a person who believes in peace. No matter the complexity of getting there, no matter the nuances that make today’s sloganeering ring hollow and often dangerous to me.
I am heartened by stories of Arab-Israeli heroes who saved Jewish lives on October 7, beautifully told in this first person account of rescue. Heartened by isolated stories of small scale attempts at peace making in Israel even in this time of national crisis.
I want to hold the dream of peace, no matter how unattainable it feels right now. I want to hold on to Helen Keller’s words that “nothing can be accomplished without hope and confidence,” even in these times when hope and confidence are under fire. Even when words like peace and hope sound naive.
My asterisk, my prayer
So during this next period of time, as I write my legal updates, give my talks, and share moments of joy on social media, please know that my words come with an asterisk. An asterisk saying that all I share right now is done with this prayer in my heart:
May the hostages be alive and may they be returned safely. May the bombing, missiles, and gunfighting stop, may terrorism end. May humanitarian aid come swiftly to the people of Gaza. May healing of body, mind, and spirit begin. And may lasting peace prevail.