Question 19: What do we do as Gaza starves?

Dear Nathaniel,

I didn’t expect that you would become my primary audience when I think about the world these days, but maybe that was silly of me. Of course I think of you. You are the future of this world. You, and all of those born in your generation. The babies down our block whose parents own an entire brownstone. The babies a few blocks south of that in Section 8 housing. The babies in migrant shelters and in migrant detention. The babies across oceans. The babies in Israel who’ve never lived in a country without war. The babies in Gaza who are starving to death right now.

Nathaniel, I’ve spent the last couple of months slowly introducing you to food. You love it. I can barely express to you how much you love it. In fact I think there’s a distinct possibility you’re gonna self-wean before I’m ready to stop nursing because of how much you love it. The first time I put you in your high chair you cried. It was new and probably felt like a trap what with the tray and all. You cried when I put on your bib and especially when I stepped away from the high chair to get your bowl. But then I put down the bowl in front of you, and, oh, the love affair began. Yogurt smeared all over your face. Bagels the size of your face (in which you made barely a dent). Whole halves of peaches smushed into delightful textured juice. Consternating corn cobs too difficult to strip. Ricotta cheese by the spoonful. Blueberries crushed. Heels of crusty bread. Baby pancakes (sugar and salt-free). Baby waffles (same). Baby french toast (same except for the sugar and salt in the challah itself, but we let it slide just this once). Every day, you drink plenty of my milk, but every day you also eat, and it is a delight as your mother to watch you expand your world through food. And every day, Dada and I clean up your scraps. Chewed up and spit out bits of berry. Yogurt caked onto the tray. Crumbles of bread too small to be worth saving, or so we’ve decided in our privilege. And every day I think of babies in Gaza who are starving.

A few months ago a friend wrote a piece in the Jewish Forward about how new mothers are struggling with the constant exposure to news about Palestinian babies and children in the war. I was afraid, at first, to give her a quote. I worried that in my capacity as a congregational rabbi, I might alienate congregants who could take my speaking out about my horror as a sign that I didn’t care about Israelis. Quickly enough, I realized that if I was afraid that was all the more reason that I had to participate in her story, and I sent her a voice memo. In it I shared a truth that’s been true for me for months: I can’t nurse you without thinking about mothers in Gaza who can’t produce breastmilk and can’t access formula. The number of mothers in that category has risen catastrophically in the time since that article. Mothers and babies are starving to death, and right now many are at the point of no return, and many more will get there in the coming days.

I wish I could tell you, sweet little, that Gaza is the only place in the world with hunger. It’s not. There are starving children and mothers in many places, and there are many hungry children and mothers —perhaps not starving, but hungry— here in New York. But Gaza is different. Gaza is starving because of Hamas’s horrific terror attack and the subsequent war, waged by the Israeli government and funded in part by American tax dollars. Gaza is starving because the Israeli government is allowing far from enough humanitarian aid to enter, and because Hamas is keeping some of the aid from getting to those who need it, and because the IDF is shooting people as they approach distribution centers to receive aid. Gaza is starving because of a war that is continuing for the stated purpose of keeping Jews safe.

As Jews, of course we don’t want to believe that this war could be unjust. We don’t want to believe that a Jewish state, led by a Jewish government, with a largely Jewish military, would shoot civilians. We don’t want to believe that Jews would keep civilians from receiving the food they need to live, any more than we want to believe that Jews would bomb hospitals or schools. We are not Israeli, you and me (Dada is, and he’s just as upset), but we are Jews, and that makes this all the more painful, because we as Jews want to believe that Jews are an inherently moral people and that any state that calls itself Jewish would be a moral state.

But Gaza is starving, and beyond begging politicians in Israel and in the US to do something, and signing letters, and donating to organizations still trying to feed civilians even when there is almost no way to do so, there is nothing we can do. Gaza is starving, and it’s happening in the name of our safety, and I’m grateful that you are too young to understand any of this, because right now all we can do is watch.

I’m watching you on the monitor as you sleep comfortably in your nursery. Before I go to bed, I’ll prepare your bottles and make sure that there are snacks for our nanny to give you. You’ll eat tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Even if I were to suddenly stop producing milk entirely, we have enough in the freezer for a few weeks and then we’d buy formula. We’d do anything within our power to keep you healthy and safe and full.

There are too many babies in Gaza whose parents have also done everything in their power to keep them healthy and safe and full, and still have had to and will have to watch them die. These babies should have grown up to be your contemporaries. Some will die because they will be casualties of bullets and bombs— a fate horrible enough. But some will die because they have no food. Some will die because despite the adults who love them undoubtedly doing everything in their power to feed them, there is simply no milk to be found in any form anywhere.

This is wrong, Nathaniel. No matter the reason for the war, no matter how afraid we may be for our own safety, starving children is wrong. I want you to know that I know that, that Dada knows that, that much of the Jewish community I am raising you to love knows that. Our knowing it doesn’t fix it. Our speaking out about it doesn’t fix it. And still, it’s important to bear witness and to name this horror plainly, even if it only breaks our hearts all the more.

One of the truths I hope you won’t learn for many years is that the adults who love you can’t protect you from the horrors of our world. Not completely, anyway. All we can do is raise you to have compassionate hearts, to think critically, and to be open to learning from people whose lives look very different from your own.

Little, if your heart breaks because the world is broken, that is not a flaw but a gift. It will show that you have received enough love to feel its lack and wish to nurture its return. And it will give you the courage and spirit you need to repair the world in all the ways that you can.

I love you.

-Mama