Contents
Foreword by Sarah Anne Minkin
Introduction by Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Letters by Penina Eilberg-Schwartz and Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Postscript by Penina Eilberg-Schwartz
Foreword
Over the last year and a half, in my work as a Jewish human rights advocate focused on Israel|Palestine, I’ve been navigating two truths. First: the violence in Israel|Palestine is the most brutal it has been in many decades. In the face of that, so many of us are spurred to bring about change, to try to pull the world back from the brink of even greater catastrophe. Second: people are polarized, and dug into very different ways of experiencing and interpreting the world. We live in deep disagreement, including with people we’re connected to by blood, history, and community.
In early 2024, when Ayin Managing Editor Penina Eilberg-Schwartz told me she was exchanging letters about October 7th and its aftermath with her mother, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, I was moved and intrigued. Penina shared that she and her mother hoped these letters—which explored Amy’s initial hesitation to publicly call for a ceasefire, her eventual decision to do so, and the remaining differences of opinion between mother and daughter—might help others engaged in similar conversations. I know Penina and Amy as ethical, nuanced thinkers who are deeply committed to the principle, practice, and pursuit of peace, and to each other. How would they navigate these truths of violence, disagreement, connection, and desire for change?
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild writes of “empathy walls”—obstacles that prevent us from being able to see from another person’s perspective, or even wanting to try. If we look, we can see empathy walls all around us now, part and parcel of this moment of extreme polarization, urgency, and very high stakes. Many of us choose to stay behind those walls and the validation they provide, spending our energy only on people with whom we are already aligned. Empathy and bridge building may feel like luxuries for another, less urgent, less violent time.
And yet.
The carnage in Gaza, the horror of October 7th, the escalating dispossession and violence in the West Bank, the remaining Israeli hostages, the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, the fear and uncertainty about a safe and viable future—wherever we think we stand, we are in a position to bear witness. And when we do, when we witness all the narratives and violence—both those we are accustomed to seeing and those we are used to turning away from—we insist on the value of each and every human life. When we reach out across our painful divides and build bridges to those we disagree with, we are insisting, again, that no person is disposable.
When we reach out across our painful divides and build bridges to those we disagree with, we are insisting, again, that no person is disposable.
Amy and Penina’s letters show a mother-daughter relationship grounded in love, respect, and a commitment to connection—we see no empathy wall between them. Even so, they give voice to fissures and fractures so many of us are experiencing in our personal and collective worlds. They articulate their differences in ways that are painful, charged, and sometimes haunted. They ask what we owe each other now. They ask what we owe our Jewish communities, Jewish ancestors, and a Jewish history that includes extermination and expulsion. They ask what we owe the Palestinian victims of the Jewish state. And as they do, their conversation deepens and sharpens.
Far from the public spectacle of dueling rallies or adversarial statements, what we see from each side in these letters is an invitation to engage, a willingness to be vulnerable, bare, and raw with what is still in the process of being formed.
These letters are pulled from the archive, from the period between March and May 2024. They describe moments that already feel quite distant, but Penina and Amy decided to share this exchange now because, despite all that has shifted, it remains painfully relevant. Their letters offer insight into the experience of the past year and a half, and they suggest at least three questions we might use to guide our way: How can we hold insistence and commitment as well as respect, humility, and self-questioning in our political engagement? Can we witness ourselves in relation to those with whom we are in conversation, paying attention to the language and positions that cause us to shut down? And as we focus on the personal work of reflection and reconsideration, how can we ensure it is in service of concrete action to end the current catastrophe, to move toward justice, peace, and human thriving?
Ultimately, Penina and Amy’s exchange suggests that trying to build or cross a bridge to an/other might also be an exercise in bridging parts of ourselves. In this very act of release and reconnection, we might discover yet more energy, more commitment, and more creative force to generate the changes that are necessary, and build the world we so urgently need and desire.
—Sarah Anne Minkin, March 2025
Introduction
When Penina invited me in early 2024 to coauthor a public exchange of letters about the war in Gaza, I was deeply grateful. Of course, I would do anything to support my daughter, and I knew that she had been struggling to process and express her anguish about the war. I also welcomed the opportunity to enter more deeply into her thinking and perspective—always a learning opportunity for me—despite (and because of) our sometimes different perspectives.
At that point, I knew that many American Jewish families were suffering through their attempts at communication about October 7th and the destruction that ensued. Particularly, in my experience, boomer parents and millennial adult children were at odds with one another, locked in passionate opinions and intense emotions about the war. I knew of multiple families in which communication had broken down altogether. In my work leading listening circles and teaching dialogue skills, I sensed a hunger to reconnect.
With this in mind, I felt there was educational potential in these letters. Penina and I had been engaged in sometimes difficult dialogue about Israel|Palestine since she left for college in 2004. Over many years of conversation across our different perspectives, we had learned to pursue our dialogue in a way that was grounded in our powerful love and strong respect for one another. I hoped that for some people, it might be helpful to see an illustration of this on the page.
We came at the question from different places: she as a writer and activist, and I as a teacher and facilitator of dialogue.
Our strongest disagreement in this exchange was about language—both its meaning and its impact. We came at the question from different places: she as a writer and activist, and I as a teacher and facilitator of dialogue. As an organizer, Penina believes that in addressing injustice, it is sometimes important to use strong language, commensurate with the wrongs being committed. As a peacebuilder, I believe it is essential to avoid using language that causes unnecessary pain and arouses resistance in the listener. This was a potent disagreement, not entirely reconcilable, particularly focused on use of the word genocide.
For various reasons, it took us a long time to finally decide to publish these letters. Now, a year after we began this exchange, the death count in Gaza is past 50,000. And as I’ve watched the war continue, my own opposition to Israel’s tactics has deepened. I am perhaps most horrified by the calls in Israel for the reoccupation and resettlement of northern Gaza—and President Trump’s even more horrific plan to forcibly “relocate” its 2.1 million inhabitants. In this context, some language that I found offensive while writing these letters now seems quite plausible.
Composing and exchanging these letters was, for me, a process of engaging in the practice of peace building by communicating in the presence of deeply felt difference. I can only hope that reading them will persuade some people that such conversations are possible in their own families and communities. We will need this skill in the months and years to come, as we do all we can to find a way beyond this moment, reach a lasting ceasefire, and build a future of peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
—Rabbi Amy Eilberg, March 2025
Letters
March 29, 2024
Dear Ima,1
In late December, when you texted to say you’d signed a public letter calling for a ceasefire, I cried with relief. “Something about 20,000 people,” you wrote. “What took me so long?”
In the months before, we spoke on the phone often. If I tried to convince you, it was gently and slowly, with subterfuge you knew about: by just telling you what I felt. I shared my grief for the Israelis Hamas killed on October 7th, my fear for the hostages, my sense of increasing doom with each escalating stage—all the echoes of the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948; the dizzying Palestinian death toll; the threat of famine and worse to come.
At a Shabbat dinner on October 20th, my friend Sarah Anne recited the kiddush in the feminine and the blessing had the tinge of a dirge. That night, she told us about her friend Khalil Abu Yahia, a Gazan activist and scholar who’d written to her once about the stars as a source of imagination, inspiration for a world beyond colonization and war.
She told us that in the days after October 7th, Khalil had fled south with his family, where they were promised safety. On October 10th, the same day an Israeli airstrike destroyed his family home, he wrote to her: “It is important for me to say that this will never affect my enthusiasm for a better world for all people without discrimination. I don’t want this to happen to any person.”
I keep thinking about your question, which was also Khalil’s question for all of us. What is taking us so long?
The next day, he wrote that the Israeli army was using phosphorus bombs, and he could hear the screams of his neighbors. The day after that, when an Israeli airstrike destroyed the house he was staying in, he wrote: “What is the world waiting for to move? Until we are completely annihilated?”2
I told you about Khalil only after he died, hoping it might shift something for you. I told you how he’d written in October that he was dreaming still “of a future where people are treated equally, where there is no occupation, no colonialism, no genocide, no ethnic cleansing.” How he’d texted Sarah Anne to say that they should choose a future time to meet in person and keep it close, that he would make sure to live so he could keep their date. And how on October 29th, an Israeli airstrike killed Khalil, his wife Tasnim, and his two daughters, Rital and Elaf.
I keep thinking about your question, which was also Khalil’s question for all of us. What is taking us so long? So I’ve been wanting to ask you: What was happening inside you during those months when you had not yet aligned yourself with calls for ceasefire? What really changed your mind?
Love,
Penina
March 31, 2024
Dear Sweetie,
I have read and reread your beautiful letter. I feel your anguish so keenly, as you are no longer trying to spare me the intensity of your pain. I have now read the excruciating obituary for Khalil, and I share your heartbreak.
What really changed my mind? I’d say, as you know, that all along I had the voices and perspectives of many different people in my head and heart. At first, in the immediate aftermath of the horror of October 7th, I felt profound grief and deep solidarity with Israeli friends and colleagues—including people who had long been peace activists—who were saying that this time it was clear that living with a murderous presence on our border was just no longer tenable. I felt a great need to be respectful and empathic about the profound pain of Israeli Jews. I took in the repeated emails from an old friend in Jerusalem, who responded with a one-word answer every time I wrote to ask how she was: “Devastated.”
I felt deeply called, too, to be loving and compassionate with many American Jews, among whom I live—again, including many leftist types—who were suffering greatly in response to the attack and rising antisemitism. At first, I could not consider saying something publicly that would cause hurt to people I cared deeply about who were already in so much pain.
But gradually, as the immediate shock of October 7th began to diminish a bit, I started to feel my own anguish at the rising death toll in Gaza. How could it be that there was no better way for Israel to disable Hamas? After all, as you and I have both written about, I know in my bones that there is no military solution to this conflict. I began to take strength from leaders of collaborative Israeli-Palestinian peace organizations that you and I have both supported and written about for years, who continued to say—even post-10/7—that the only way forward is together, working collaboratively toward a peaceful solution. They touched an essential chord in me, since these were beliefs that I had held passionately for so many years, and I recognized their ever-deepening urgency.
At first, I could not consider saying something publicly that would cause hurt to people I cared deeply about who were already in so much pain.
So, what pushed me over? First, some of the public ceasefire letters I reviewed used the word genocide. I know you and I disagree about this, but that was not something I could sign on to. But sometime in December, I found a letter that called for a ceasefire without using that word. That made it possible for me to consider signing. That same week, the death toll hit 20,000. Why was 20,000 a turning point for me? It’s not a magic number. Maybe not even an accurate number, given that Hamas does not distinguish between fighters and people who are undeniably civilians, and given the widespread suspicion in the mainstream Jewish press that Hamas has inflated numbers in the past. But somehow 20,000 felt unbearable to me, along with the feeling that the death count might continue to spiral.
And that same week, the New York Times published its piece on the 2,000-pound bombs that Israel had used in residential neighborhoods, despite Israel’s constant assurances that they are very careful about unnecessary civilian casualties. This tipped me over, because I do not trust the current Israeli government to make wise decisions and offer responsible and moral leadership to a deeply traumatized people.
So it was time for me to sign on to a public ceasefire letter. My memory is that I had two voices in my head. One was still saying, Am I going to cause hurt to people I care about? Will some people judge me for my decision? Is this the right way for me to use my rabbinic authority? But the other voice, as you said, was, I wonder what took me so long.
And one more thing. Of course I knew that you were hoping I would lend my name to the movement for a ceasefire. But, to your credit, I also found our conversations richly moving. I heard you as genuinely curious and respectful about my concerns, about what held me back. I was so grateful for our ability, that you and I have built over many years, to hear one another lovingly across our differences. In fact, during that period of so much pain, when people asked, “Where is the light for you these days?” I often pointed to the conversations we had. In those moments, you and I were practicing peace, and I am boundlessly grateful.
Love you,
Ima
April 12, 2024
Dear Ima,
In those early months, I could listen to you because of how well, for so many years, you have listened to me. Like you, I was moved by our ability to stay inside our conversations lovingly, and I’m happy to know they were a solace to you, that you felt my genuine care—a capacity for listening that I learned from you, and that we built upon together over the years.
Still, reading your letter, I found myself wanting to argue the facts, to address what you raised about Hamas’s inflation of numbers. To say that Israel, too, sometimes recites death counts without distinguishing between civilians and soldiers, that Israeli intelligence has found the Gaza Health Ministry’s casualty data to be accurate, and some believe the numbers are actually low. But even as I rehearse my arguments, and consider all the others I’d like to make, I doubt their efficacy.
It’s clear by now that facts are not reliable tools of persuasion—but it’s not always clear what is. The inability of various linguistic tactics to save lives is currently broadcasting in real time. This is perhaps why many of us, from various political vantage points, are suffering from how deeply language has failed: sometimes simply to describe the world as it is, and more importantly, to transform it into something else. Maybe in relation to tragedy, language will always be too soft, too hard, too simple, or too opaque.
It’s clear by now that facts are not reliable tools of persuasion—but it’s not always clear what is. The inability of various linguistic tactics to save lives is currently broadcasting in real time. Maybe in relation to tragedy, language will always be too soft, too hard, too simple, or too opaque.
But while many of us recognize the insufficiency of words, and the impossibility of finding the right ones, we demand that other people’s language avoid this failure. When someone expresses their pain in a way that doesn’t sit right, that uses the wrong words, many of us do not let it in. There are linguistic land mines everywhere. In some circles, for example, to express any concern for Israelis is to suggest false parity between Palestinian and Israeli experience, to oppose the anti-apartheid struggle. This dynamic, though concerning to me, is currently less dangerous than the linguistic problems plaguing Jewish communities.
When someone says a word, like genocide, that flashes out sharply and calls forth an unbearable number of associations, many Jews shut down or fight back. It is remarkable, in a way, the amount of force one word can have. Enough force to keep people from organizing to end a situation, whatever we call it, of mass death and destruction. I believe those of us on the Jewish left need to do more to ease people into such words. But I also understand the impulse not to bother: this is work that takes time, and we don’t have any. People are literally dying as we speak.
I suspect our problems in language can only be addressed relationally, since words never exist in a vacuum; they do their work in the space between people. And yet there is still something troubling about conversation—even this one—in a time of horrific violence. When so many Palestinians are dying, and many more will die if we don’t do something, it can seem absurd to aim for some kind of gentleness or kindness or balance in language that does not exist in life. A ceasefire will come only if we demand it, if people in the US and in Israel make it a political necessity, and such work cannot happen through dialogue alone. Still, I do believe in conversation as a place to practice peace, as you say, to grow empathic capacities that reach out and touch previously untouchable zones, because when this happens genuinely, people act differently in the world.
I want to more directly address what you raised about the word genocide, but that will have to come in another letter. In the meantime, will you tell me more about what the word brings up for you? About why you feel it’s not the right one to describe what’s happening in Gaza?
I love you,
Penina
April 19, 2024
Dear Penina,
As always, I continue to learn things from the way you think and write, but right now, I need to absorb that someone I love and respect as much as you believes that genocide is the right word to use.
Why do I not?
On one level, I want to say that I think the word is a technical legal term, and therefore it is for the International Court of Justice to make a final ruling on whether or not the situation in Gaza falls under the legal rubric of genocide. Throwing the word around more casually seems to me, almost literally, like playing with a loaded weapon.
On another level, I think there is a question about the intentionality of the mass death and destruction (a term I learned from you, which I have started to use in my writing and teaching!) that Israel is inflicting in Gaza. It is obvious that even if the Israeli war effort is aimed at destroying Hamas, an enormous number of innocent Palestinians are being killed. But despite the words of a few insane members of the Israeli government who say otherwise, I do not believe it is Israel’s official policy to kill as many civilians as possible.
On a deeper level, the truth is that the word feels like a violent epithet, a way of attacking Israel with the most visceral language possible. For me (and for many Jews), the word genocide evokes the Nazis (and of course, the word was invented after the Shoah to describe the Nazis’ intentions). I definitely don’t believe that people have no right to use the word in connection with Jews, as if the word somehow belongs only to a unique genocide—that is, the one that happened to us. But I do believe that the word evokes Nazis, so to say that Israel is committing genocide is the rough equivalent of saying, “The Israelis are acting like Nazis.” That statement (which I do encounter, as I’m sure you do), seems to me such an intentional act of wounding that it comes close to antisemitism in my mind (and you know I do not use that term lightly).
Another thought: In anti-racism work (as you know well), we talk about the importance of the impact of language rather than simply the intent of the speaker or writer. Since Jews are unquestionably targeted right now (both victimized and victimizing others), why not consider the impact a term has?
We will not end war by making war in the kind of language we use; we can only end war by practicing peace, including in our own language.
I’ve just suggested a string of associations, which I need to step back from. I obviously don’t believe that everyone (including you!) who uses the term genocide about Gaza is an antisemite. Surely not. But from the perspective of dialogue and peace building, I believe it is always best to use language that is respectful and caring. Charged language only serves to shame and blame those listening, increasing animosity and dehumanization among people who need to be talking to one another. We will not end war by making war in the kind of language we use; we can only end war by practicing peace, including in our own language.
For me, this is an argument about principles, but also about theories of change, and yes, we may disagree here. You and I completely agree that what has happened and continues to happen is horrific, and it needs to stop. So it can be tempting to employ language that matches our sense of moral outrage. But such language can shut down those who most need to be reached, and thus, in my view, actually impedes efforts toward peace and justice. Ultimately, I believe that avoiding “trigger words” that stab the heart of those we want to speak to is more likely to serve the cause of peace, and achieve the goal we both want.
With much love, as always,
Ima
May 2, 2024
Dear Ima,
As I considered this response, I thought about the Israeli army’s recent attacks on the al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, the insane number of children now dead. I thought back to Gallant’s comment on October 9th that Israel was fighting “human animals,” just before he shut off water and electricity in Gaza.
There is no question that Israel has killed, caused serious bodily or mental harm, and/or brought about conditions that make life impossible for the people of Gaza—but genocide requires intentionality, and I understand your question there. Still, even if we set comments like Gallant’s aside, what was the intent behind shutting off access to clean water? And then behind severe and ongoing limitation of access to food, medical care, and shelter—coupled with indiscriminate bombing of civilians? It is hard for me to imagine an answer that limits the intended targets to Hamas alone.
And while the magnitude of Israel’s attack on Gaza is unprecedented, it is an amplification of ongoing Israeli policies: histories of dispossession, extrajudicial killing, mass incarceration of children and others without charge. Though one can argue about the reasons for these policies, they are clearly intentional.
With all this in mind, I do use the word genocide to describe what’s happening, though there were earlier moments when I was not entirely confident in its usage. (I would like, in general, to reclaim an ethical space for the uncertain—at the very least, for its place in a process of learning.) I use the word because there is a strong case for it, but also because I want to translate between those using it confidently and those who, like you, hear it as a violent epithet, a word intended to hurt Jews.
Some people undoubtedly harbor this intention. But I believe most people are using the word because they believe it, and are not speaking to those who still need to be persuaded. They are using the highest tone of urgency to mobilize those who do not need persuading, which is what activists do in an emergency. And whether or not the word genocide is intended as an insult, it has to be said: an insult can also be true.
I’m also concerned that, as you’re pointing to, for many the word still refers first and foremost to the Nazis, a word often synonymous with monsters. In this framework, for some Jews, it can be nearly impossible to imagine that the Israeli state could perpetrate a genocide. But why? The belief that you are defending yourself and those you love (which most Israelis understandably feel) is not an argument. As Israeli genocide scholar Amos Goldberg recently wrote, perpetrators of genocide have often believed they were defending themselves. Israelis can genuinely feel they are fighting for their lives and still do unspeakably horrific things, as all people can.
As for the question of whether the most sharp and direct language is the most effective: It seems you think it rarely is? I personally think we need different people speaking in different ways: sometimes these myriad modes can be symbiotic, even when they appear opposed.
I personally think we need different people speaking in different ways: sometimes these myriad modes can be symbiotic, even when they appear opposed.
In that spirit, I do try to inhabit various linguistic techniques, sometimes more indirect than here. Mass death and destruction, for example, is what I say when I am speaking to someone more sympathetic to Israel, when I want to avoid tripping any wires with my words so a deeper conversation can emerge. But it is not an easy resting place. Mass death and destruction makes responsibility less visible; it sounds like the act of an unkind God. This is the line we have to walk: on one side, the possibility of shutting someone down; on the other, the possibility of minimizing Israel’s responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza.
I have my own concerns about the dangers of simplifying speech, and I share your desire for a different kind of language—one, like you say, that builds from positive values rather than shame and blame, one that is also richer and more varied in its strategies. But I don’t think we’ll get where we’re headed by obsessing over harsh language, at least not in the way we’re currently seeing in mainstream Jewish discourse. We’ll get there by engaging with our different modes of speech, with curiosity about why people are using the words they’re using, by engaging with the fear that difficult words trigger in us as Jews. And of course, by changing the material reality that produced the need for the words in the first place.
The reality we’re living in now, as many have said, began long before October 7th. So many Gazans remember cowering as children under furniture as bombs rained down during past Israeli bombardments. The Palestinian fighters from October 7th also lived through this as children, also saw their people die, and this is the only way I think someone could act as they did: the trauma of watching your family become refugees not just once but twice or three times since 1948, of watching people you love die violently.
Israelis, of course, are acting from trauma, too—legacies of oppression, violence, and expulsion in their family histories that blind them to their perpetuation of a cyclical nightmare. And though the experiences of Palestinians and Israelis could not be more different, the nightmare is now in some way shared, growing as it does from the same history and the same ground. The way out of the nightmare will have to be shared, too.
The distance we have to travel feels unbearable. But you taught me the power of belief, how it is an engine that, when translated into action, can traverse distances that would otherwise be uncrossable.
How do you think we get where we’re going?
I love you very much,
Penina
May 6, 2024
Hi Sweetie,
WOW! There is so much here, and some places where we disagree. It feels hard to dive into this disagreement in a letter, but I’ll try, starting with smaller issues and then moving to larger ones.
1. I hear that Gallant’s disgusting “human animals” comment rings in your ears. To me it is significant that he made this comment on October 9th—two days after the attack. I completely agree that such language is unconscionable. I wonder whether it matters that he—along with everyone in Israel—was out of his mind that week?
If Israel had fully shut off electricity, food, water, and fuel beyond the first two weeks, I think there would have been a much stronger case for calling this genocide. But while Israel has continued to make food, water, fuel, and humanitarian aid scarce, and has destroyed much of Gaza’s medical infrastructure, the current policy remains short of a “complete siege.”
For me, I find the use of, yes, genocidal language on the part of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and some of their colleagues, even more concerning, because they use this language intentionally and consistently. The fact that the Jewish Israeli citizenry has tolerated their continued presence in the government is hugely concerning and painful.
2. In my limited knowledge about the laws of genocide, I think that the issue of intentionality is central. I believe that Israel’s purported efforts to protect civilians have been, at the very least, woefully inadequate (though Israeli officials profess otherwise). A friend who is a law professor recently used the term reckless disregard in this context. That phrase captures something for me about Israel’s intent: something between actual intention to obliterate most of the people of Gaza, on the one hand, and the destruction that “inevitably” happens in the midst of war, on the other. None of this changes the facts on the ground, but it does have implications for the kind of language that is most called for.
3. We haven’t talked about this before, and it may be hard for you to hear me say this, but I do think Hamas also bears some measure of moral responsibility for the civilian deaths in Gaza. That is, Hamas’s choice to embed in the midst of civilian populations makes the death of civilians virtually inevitable. This definitely raises the question of whether Sinwar3 genuinely has the well-being of his people at heart. And of course, Hamas regularly engages in genocidal language, including threats of many more 10/7-like attacks. Still, as I understand it, as a matter of law, Israel bears primary responsibility for the deaths of civilians.
Conflicts end when it becomes clear to both sides that resolution is in both of their interests, not to mention in the interests of their children and grandchildren.
4. The biggest issue you have raised—and where, perhaps, you and I disagree the most in this exchange—is the usefulness of “the most sharp and direct language” in campaigns for peace and justice. You’re right. I think it rarely is effective, especially when used in real conversations with actual people (as opposed to written language or rally slogans). Every conflict—and every oppression—has two parties involved. I know that some people (including you?) object to even using the word “conflict” about Israel and Palestine, because of the severe structural power imbalance between the two parties. But whatever you call it, there are two peoples, two communities, two populations involved. I believe that conflicts do not end because one party is beaten to the ground. Conflicts end when it becomes clear to both sides that resolution is in both of their interests, not to mention in the interests of their children and grandchildren.
The key questions for me, as a peace activist, are: What can we do that creates greater connection, understanding, and empathy? How do we get to our shared goal of peace and justice for everyone? Of course there are so many things that are needed: new governments for both Israel and Palestine, a radical re-education of both populations, and, of course, an end to occupation and a compelling horizon for a better future for Palestinians as well as Israelis.
I personally can’t see how the harsh language moves us in that direction. Simply put, I think that people harden when they are triggered and blamed. What we ultimately need is for people to soften and open their minds and hearts to the pain and experience of others. The harsh language may, in my view, make it harder to get where we want to go.
Looking back, I fear that I’ve been too argumentative here. I have so treasured the way in which you and I have been able to work with and through our differences with love and respect. I deeply hope that I have not departed from that mode here.
I step back from the argument now to appreciate the remarkable way in which you and I can disagree and question each other’s thinking and language without for a moment forgetting how much we love and respect one another. For me, that is the way we—and I mean the world—get where we want to go.
With all my love,
Ima
Postscript
From time to time, language dies.
It is dying now.
Who is alive to speak it?
—Fady Joudah, […]
Looking back toward March of 2024, when I began writing to my mother, I feel a profound sense of dislocation. By the time this is published, a year and a half will have passed since October 7th. I can’t relay all the devastating things that have happened that we haven’t named here, just that all of it was preventable. I don’t know what will happen in the months to come. With the help of the United States, Israel has bombed Gaza almost entirely to rubble. There are still hostages inside the tunnels, and Israel is now expanding its offensive. We still desperately need a lasting ceasefire. And everything, when it comes to this kind of destruction, is always too late.
In July, the Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar wrote: “For most of my life, I stupidly believed that art exists to change the world. Now, I think about art more like the black box flight recorder on an airplane: it won’t navigate the landing; it’s here to document the crash.” Though I insist on thinking otherwise, I understand this sentiment deeply, sense its echoes in my own feelings about this project: the apparent impotence of conversation—and language—in the face of death and violence.
At the same time, some part of me still feels that a misuse of language has brought us here in the first place, and that something broken in our ability to communicate, if fixed, could help change the reality of this world. Words are, after all, among the most fundamental tools we have at our disposal to shape the world we all share. Our tools and strategies for change are built out of language itself.
It’s this belief that led me into these discussions with my mother. I was inspired to pull these letters out of the archive in the hope that others in the Jewish community and beyond might see themselves reflected back in these often difficult, sometimes painful, but necessary conversations. That more people might find it is still possible to listen with care to others with whom we don’t agree, to take in language that we don’t yet understand, and to find the words that inspire us to action. In the wake and ongoingness of such catastrophic destruction, language still has the potential to push for a political arrangement in Israel|Palestine that grants self-determination and equal rights for all—to build a world, like the one Khalil (and so many others) have dreamed of, where everyone, everywhere, is free.
—Penina Eilberg-Schwartz, March 2025
Footnotes
- Ima is “mother” in Hebrew.
- I am very grateful to Maya Rosen and Erez Bleicher for sharing these details about Khalil in Jewish Currents after his death.
- The Israeli army killed Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader and architect of the October 7th attacks, in October of 2024, five months after this letter was written.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is the first woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She serves as a spiritual director, peace and justice educator, and teacher of Mussar (a classical Jewish system of spiritual development). She currently serves as Chair of the Racial Justice Subcommittee of the Conservative Movement’s Social Justice Commission. Her book, From Enemy to Friend: Jewish Wisdom and the Pursuit of Peace, was published by Orbis Books in March 2014.
Penina Eilberg-Schwartz is a writer and editor living in San Francisco. She has organized in Jewish communities around peace and justice in Israel|Palestine for over a decade, and is the coauthor of In This Place Together: A Palestinian’s Journey to Collective Liberation (Beacon Press, 2021) and the chapbook Everything in the Speaking of It (Alley Cat Books, 2019). She is the managing editor of Ayin Press.
Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, works at the intersection of human and civil rights advocacy, philanthropy, and education, with a special focus on Israel|Palestine. She is the Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Foundation for Middle East Peace and cofounder of the Palestinian Voices Study Group. She earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley for research focusing on the sociology of emotion, nationalism, and Jewish Americans’ relationships with Israel|Palestine. She is a trained community mediator and a chaplain-in-training. Sarah Anne lives in Oakland, California.
Jason Francisco is a visual artist working in the spaces between photography and writing, historical research and poetics. He is the author of Alive and Destroyed: A Meditation on the Holocaust in Time (Daylight, 2021), among numerous photoworks, blended image-texts, and essays on the art of witness. His book Autobiography of an Unknown American, with poems by Alexander Nemerov, is forthcoming from Fall Line Press this year.