I don’t often stray in these pages from topics close to home. And it is tempting, amid autumn in Montana, to dwell on what is good and beautiful here — to revel in high school football and pie socials, haunted houses and fright nights, hills draped in yellows and oranges, and to wall off the rest.
But I can’t. I am gripped by and heartbroken at the unfolding tragedy in Israel and Palestine. The murder by Hamas of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of over 200 others, has prompted an existential crisis for Israel and for many Jews around the world. Israel has responded to that calamity by instigating another, launching thousands of airstrikes into Gaza and cutting off nearly all supplies of food, water, and fuel — in an attempt, it says, to destroy Hamas.
I’m consumed with what happens in Gaza in part because, until June, our daughter Tara lived there while working for a faith-based humanitarian organization. Tara is in Afghanistan now, but she has stayed in close contact with her Gazan friends and colleagues as the war has escalated. We now hang on the stories and the fates of people we’ve never met.
