Chronicles of an Elder

I’m old now. I didn’t take that in until my latest February birthday. Reaching it, I’m three years older than my mother who died at eighty. It’s startling to find myself in territory she was not around to explore. I grope my way around in my newly acknowledged elderhood, looking for anchors that make sense, before there are no more anchors, no more journeys,

Endless articles tell me what a healthy old age looks like, what I should do to enjoy it, to feel positive. Of course I read them. Sometimes I snort with contempt. I’m not going to take up power gliding to prove a point. Other times, I think maybe it is important to up my intake of chickpeas. On good days, the thought of death keeps its distance. On bad days, mortality hovers around me like a nimbus, wisps of fear encircling my body. It’s mostly a quiet fear, though sometimes I erupt into panic, trying to mentally outrun the images. What will happen and how will ‘it’ happen; will it be me first or my partner; how will I/he cope? I try to limit the time I give these thoughts; some days are better than others.

A mirroring of my adolescence revisits me in elderhood. Now as then, things are in flux. Lots of unanswerable questions. The younger me kept searching for meaning and direction. The old me does that too, still impatient at how incomprehensible things are. There is no whole to be discovered. Only random fragments lie about which I occasionally assemble into coherence.

Often I feel I’m failing to ‘do old’ properly. Shouldn’t I be a wise old woman, cheerfully dispensing advice to generations below me as I pass around homemade chocolate chip biscuits? Alas, I’m too ill-tempered to measure out the ingredients, too full of rage to focus on the oven. All my life, I’ve waged battle with my temperament, all that Vilnius/Kiev-persecuted-Jew DNA knotted in my interior.

As I’ve aged, I’m more fully convinced we’re born with indelible patterns, ways of being which we can challenge but never fully overcome. For me, the DNA I inherited holds depression and anxiety. I think part of it comes from those times when Jews were slaughtered or conscripted into the Czar’s army, precarious lives subject to random death. Second generation American that I am, those ghetto fears shouldn't still be there. But they are. My genetic test indicated I’m 98% Ashkenazi Jew and 2% Neanderthal. These days, the Neanderthal is the upbeat part of my inheritance.

Curiosity is one of the main engines that keeps me going. That and a strong desire to be seen, acknowledged. Having no biological children, I tussle continually with the knowledge I’ll leave behind no genetic traces. That’s a hard one, though I have no regrets at being childless. I have mothered without giving birth.

So let me continue to be curious, though afraid. Creative, though depressed. Giving, though withheld. Thoughtful, though confused. And all manner of things shall be clear, if only for a brief moment..

……………………….

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

(from a 19th century nursery rhyme Ring Around a Rosie)

Jew woman that I am, the war on Gaza grinds itself into my being, not letting go. The initial reports - hard to believe it’s now 6 months since the start - are losing their power to whip me into a frenzy. I’m more numb now. Seeing photos of dead Palestinian children no longer shocks me. But if we had a wall chart measuring years on earth, my line would reach the ceiling. Theirs would not reach my toes. I, an old Jewish woman, breathe this world’s air. They, a fraction of my eighty plus years, do not. How many more lives have I had than these dead young ones? 

I, an old Jewish woman, breathe this world’s air. They, a fraction of my eighty plus years, do not. How many more lives have I had than these dead young ones? 

The war in Gaza is now over 160 days old. Over 30,000 Gazans are dead. A shortage of food, water, medicine and housing will kill many more. A constant state of terror imperils life and sanity. Hostages taken by Hamas remain in captivity, save for those released or dead. There is talk of a ceasefire, but Netanyahu and his right wing government do little to move towards peace. It is an ongoing horror. And it cannot stop soon enough, leaving broken husks of human lives to somehow be pasted back together.

Shards of what I once held dear lie all around me. These were once solid vessels holding my Jewish identity. The idea of a Jewish god vanished some time ago, as did my observance of most Jewish customs. But I never questioned that I was a Jew. I still do not. When people in my London neighbourhood ask, ‘where are you from’, I answer ‘I’m a New York Jew’ (despite having lived in northern California for over thirty years). Being a Jew is wired into my DNA. It’s like saying ‘I’m a Scot’ or ‘I’m an Afghani.’ My Polish and Ukrainian grandparents reside within me, their Yiddish voices still not silenced by the passage of years.

My gaze, the way I interpret the world, is through the eyes of an urban, smart assed, educated, East coast Jewish woman with street smarts. But secularist though I am, hearing a Hebrew tune stirs me. I’ll hum along; sometimes I’ll even sing the tune. Because I know it. It’s like reciting a child’s nursery rhyme. The joy of the familiar, the pleasure of the knowingness, the links to treasured memories. Rituals around sabbath meals stir me, linkages to my ancestors and to others I hold dear. Jewish rituals, human-made ceremonies to help deal with finitude, touch me. Lighting sabbath candles takes me into a sacred space, even though it is I who ‘sanctify’ this space. I light two candles and chant a short Hebrew prayer. My sense of time is transformed for a blessed few hours.

Jew though I am, I’m not an Israeli. I don’t want an association with this country, daily committing barbarous acts. But the truth is, I can’t completely disassociate myself. I was never an ardent Zionist, but modern day Israel has been part of my Jewish consciousness forever. Like many in my generation, I gave Israel a free pass when it came to its initial seizure of lands belonging to others. Over the years, I knew the ongoing Occupation was wrong, but that knowledge resided in the back of my mind. The forefront was taken up by an unquestioned belief that a Jewish homeland was worth any price. 

Over the years, I knew the ongoing Occupation was wrong, but that knowledge resided in the back of my mind. The forefront was taken up by an unquestioned belief that a Jewish homeland was worth any price. 

I no longer believe in paying that price nor in the notion that a Jewish state is fundamentally different from any other religious-nationalist entity. The war on Gaza has destroyed any remaining sense I held that Israel, and its mainly Jewish citizens, are morally superior, incapable of the kinds of terrible acts other countries perpetrate. Israel is a modern nation-state, and it now joins the company of other nations that do terrible things in the name of preserving national identity.

When this cursed, horrible war ends, how many years of t'shuvah (repentance) will we Jews have to make? Twenty five? Fifty? One hundred? More? How long will it take to atone for those we have slaughtered? If you respond, ‘we owe no apologies to anyone. Hamas’ unspeakably vile acts free us of any obligation,’ consider the emptiness of revenge, the moral destruction when all-consuming rage swallows mercy. Vengeance is up to the Jewish god, not to their human creations.

How do I pick up the pieces, re-glue broken vessels which hold parts of my own personal identity? How do I Jew now? I don’t know and may not find out. But one of the best parts of being a Jew is living with searing ambiguities. I have no choice but to do that.

‘...where ignorant armies clash by night…

I don’t really want to be part of the conversation around what’s happening in the Middle East. I don’t have to, actually. I’m not a public figure. I live in London. No one is after me. My relatives got out of Kiev two generations before I was born a Jew.

I go to sleep at night after yet another glance at the headlines, wondering what the score will be in the morning: how many dead will be Palestinian, how many Israeli. At times, it feels like watching a scorecard, bloodsoaked but distant. I check in with friends and relatives who have family in Israel. I text my Palestinian contacts, hoping to get through.But I’m having a hard time seeing this as a real event in real time. I’ve become inured to what’s reported to be real, what’s actually happening, what my opinion is supposed to be.

Mostly, I rage, filled with contempt for what Hamas has done and terrified at the vengeance Israel will exact. There are no winners. There are just dead people, enraged and bloodthirsty people, grieving people. And lest we forget, there are stupefying responses from world leader people.

If I follow the dominant narrative, there is no question as to how I am to respond: Israel must be defended at all costs. She is in danger from an enemy who will destroy her. Countries which dominate the world outperform one another by beating the drums for more munitions, more fightback, more revenge. There is little to no talk of restraint, to consider carefully how to respond and what it will mean to bomb innocent people in retaliation for terrible atrocities committed by a crazed, religio-fascist, Jew hating armed force.

What can I add to the conversation? I don’t know. I’m unwilling to root for the Israelis over the Palestinians. This is in no way to diminish the brutality of Hamas, an embodiment of masculine, blind, indiscriminate blood lust. Their world view places them, as men, in a position of dominance over anybody they see as weaker. There are no leavening influences, no feminine input to temper testosterone rage. They are as wild as men when they clubbed their first bear cub to death. That’s Hamas.

But what of my people, what of us Jews? Who are we in this combat? Alas, we are also filled with blood lust, our warriors ready to destroy first and ask questions later. It’s ironic that at this moment, much of the world is on ‘our’ side. Go, Jews. Ironic given our place in world history as expendable humans. Now it’s the Palestinians who are expendable. As we were vermin to the Nazis, they are animals to far too many of us.

The situation will change. It always does, as it has over centuries. Wars come and go; peoples come and go; the villains and the good guys change places. Jews and Palestinians have both been around a long time. Once upon a long time ago , they lived compatibly in surroundings near to one another. Perhaps they will find a way to do so again. But right now, it’s hard to see the cycle of violence receding.

…………

The title for these remarks is taken from Matthew Arnold's 19th century poem, Dover Beach. Below are selected stanzas.

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

....

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

...

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery;

...

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Rose Levinson is the founder and managing editor of Emerging Voices. Read more from her here

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