This is great! I have a question to disambiguate. The intro describes this as a short story. It reads like creative nonfiction, though. Is this a personal story that is nonfiction, or a fictional short story?
Jennifer Coolidge is the greatest! She's the blonde actress from the lotus show but also from all the amazing ensemble productions like best in show, waiting for guffman, and many others.
I loved reading this. I felt the pain of the loss of a close friendship and the resolve to move on. I felt the loneliness of a hole left in my life from the loss of someone so close that we believed that we would always be a part of each other's existence - and life.
Being an Israeli and living through not only the horror of that day but every. Single. Day. of this war; and worrying about the hostages; learning to live an entire year with perpetual sadness and despondency; I see the tide of anti-Israel activism and anti-Semitism in the West (and the US) differently to what Jews in the US and the West are experiencing. I understand that they are fed and consume a biased interpretation of the reality, which in a way challenges through gaslighting their belief and values. I am so sorry. But there is a reason why so many Left wing Israelis think like me.
I cannot afford to try to fathom the twisted phenomenon of mass mobilization on the part of the Left, without questioning the Palestinian and Hamas's motives, in sympathy for this genocidal, anti-Semitic, barbaric, evil terrorist organization (which parades itself as a "liberation" movement) which manages to somehow garner sympathy for failing to complete their genocide despite committing the most savage and horrendous atrocities on innocent and unarmed victims, and paying the price for it, while they then cynically and expediently use their own people as human sandbags and shields, and exploit their suffering as a propaganda tool - suffering that they themselves brought upon them, their own people. They use their casualties as propaganda props for the solicitation of that sympathy. The reason is because I am more concerned with my own and our national survival, in the face of their genocidal intent. I think that well intentioned people like Gigi have been hoodwinked and had their naivete exploited by manipulators for the Palestinian cause, who cleverly hide the genocidal intention parts of their agenda and guilefully create a twisted picture of reality, in terms of their intent and actions. But I also think that these same "social justice activists" have also not been discerning, and failed to question the deeper undercurrents of the Palestinian Hamas intent, that have been flowing during this war.
While I do feel sadness for the suffering of the "innocent" civilian population, the tragedy is that I find it hard to actually identify who they are, since Hamas is so deeply imbedded into every aspect of civilian life and daily life, and uses it all for their war waging, that you can never know who is really innocent and who is a Hamas accomplice, or operative hiding (or being hid) among the civilian population. And I don't know if it is naivete, or latent anti-Semitism now becoming overt on the part of the activists on the Left, that people use the war as an excuse to feel justified to now openly express their anti-Semitism, which has motivated people I once saw as allies to totally abandon us, when we are the original victims in this war and they still inhumanely hold hostages in indescribable conditions - even babies and octogenarians. People, who I once considered brothers in arms in the struggle for a more just, and equitable world, have not only betrayed our alliance, they have rejected our right and our obligation to ensure our very survival.
And it hurts. But our survival comes first, so we get over it.
Love the voice, the imagery, and the wise reflections on relationships and perspective as we age.
You can’t imagine how timely this is for me (and likely more of us). Thanks Meg, congrats on this publication, and happy New Year.
Great story, thanks David and Judith Magazine for publishing, and congrats to Meg!
This is great! I have a question to disambiguate. The intro describes this as a short story. It reads like creative nonfiction, though. Is this a personal story that is nonfiction, or a fictional short story?
This is so, so painfully good. I love the voice in this so much. I'm tearing up.
Jennifer Coolidge is the greatest! She's the blonde actress from the lotus show but also from all the amazing ensemble productions like best in show, waiting for guffman, and many others.
I loved reading this. I felt the pain of the loss of a close friendship and the resolve to move on. I felt the loneliness of a hole left in my life from the loss of someone so close that we believed that we would always be a part of each other's existence - and life.
Being an Israeli and living through not only the horror of that day but every. Single. Day. of this war; and worrying about the hostages; learning to live an entire year with perpetual sadness and despondency; I see the tide of anti-Israel activism and anti-Semitism in the West (and the US) differently to what Jews in the US and the West are experiencing. I understand that they are fed and consume a biased interpretation of the reality, which in a way challenges through gaslighting their belief and values. I am so sorry. But there is a reason why so many Left wing Israelis think like me.
I cannot afford to try to fathom the twisted phenomenon of mass mobilization on the part of the Left, without questioning the Palestinian and Hamas's motives, in sympathy for this genocidal, anti-Semitic, barbaric, evil terrorist organization (which parades itself as a "liberation" movement) which manages to somehow garner sympathy for failing to complete their genocide despite committing the most savage and horrendous atrocities on innocent and unarmed victims, and paying the price for it, while they then cynically and expediently use their own people as human sandbags and shields, and exploit their suffering as a propaganda tool - suffering that they themselves brought upon them, their own people. They use their casualties as propaganda props for the solicitation of that sympathy. The reason is because I am more concerned with my own and our national survival, in the face of their genocidal intent. I think that well intentioned people like Gigi have been hoodwinked and had their naivete exploited by manipulators for the Palestinian cause, who cleverly hide the genocidal intention parts of their agenda and guilefully create a twisted picture of reality, in terms of their intent and actions. But I also think that these same "social justice activists" have also not been discerning, and failed to question the deeper undercurrents of the Palestinian Hamas intent, that have been flowing during this war.
While I do feel sadness for the suffering of the "innocent" civilian population, the tragedy is that I find it hard to actually identify who they are, since Hamas is so deeply imbedded into every aspect of civilian life and daily life, and uses it all for their war waging, that you can never know who is really innocent and who is a Hamas accomplice, or operative hiding (or being hid) among the civilian population. And I don't know if it is naivete, or latent anti-Semitism now becoming overt on the part of the activists on the Left, that people use the war as an excuse to feel justified to now openly express their anti-Semitism, which has motivated people I once saw as allies to totally abandon us, when we are the original victims in this war and they still inhumanely hold hostages in indescribable conditions - even babies and octogenarians. People, who I once considered brothers in arms in the struggle for a more just, and equitable world, have not only betrayed our alliance, they have rejected our right and our obligation to ensure our very survival.
And it hurts. But our survival comes first, so we get over it.
Thank you for your open and candid story.
Heartbreaking story. So much nuance. Thanks for sharing.