I feel great joy at the announcement of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the release of the Israeli hostages. But that joy is mixed with a very different feeling. This has come far too late—so much suffering and so many deaths could have been avoided. Even if this ceasefire were to finally lead to lasting peace, how can we forget that for over a year, [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and his army have starved and massacred civilian populations? That they have destroyed most of Gaza’s homes, hospitals, and schools? And that the most extreme members of his government still contemplate recolonizing the territory and expelling its inhabitants?
By acting this way, the Israeli right and far right have taken all Jews hostage—both in Israel and the diaspora—making us complicit in their crimes. And they have done so in the name of the Jewish people, which means in my name as well. For the first time in my life, I feel ashamed to be Jewish. But this is not the shame of the past—the shame of those who were insulted, humiliated, and confined to ghettos. It is a new kind of shame, rare in our people’s long history—the shame of being complicit in a massacre.
As the son of Holocaust survivors, I was born and have lived in peace in France, never experiencing or even directly witnessing an act of antisemitism. The catastrophe that destroyed so many of my people gave me a strong sense of moral certainty—it assured me that I was always on the right side, the side of history’s victims, of those who had been wronged. But that certainty kept me from seeing another injustice, one in which I was unknowingly complicit.
From the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust, the State of Israel was born—a refuge for all persecuted Jews. For survivors like my parents, it meant that perhaps the horror would never happen again. Thus, Israel’s very existence was seen as a blessing, and every one of its actions was regarded as such. This made it easy to overlook the injustices that had preceded and followed its creation.
I have visited Israel several times—first with my parents, who wanted to reunite with the few friends who had survived. Then, as a teenager, to harvest fruit on a kibbutz in Galilee. And more recently, as a guest at universities. I never felt truly “at home” there, yet I was happy to be in Israel, happy to be connected to it. I felt as if I were taking part—without bearing the cost—in the exhilarating adventure of the pioneers who, as I had been taught, had “made the desert bloom.”
I didn’t know—or rather, I didn’t want to know—that this land had never been empty, that it had already belonged to another people who were dispossessed, that the creation of the state had forced hundreds of thousands of men and women into exile, and that this injustice had led to even more injustices, even more violence. I refused to see that, little by little, David had become Goliath. The passion for ignorance is a powerful force—and even more shameful when it comes from someone who calls themselves a “philosopher.”
Unlike other religions, Judaism emphasizes practice over belief, allowing one to pray without necessarily being a “believer.” When the young Hannah Arendt told a rabbi that she had “lost her faith,” he replied, “Who asked you to have faith?” My father considered himself an “anarchist and atheist” (and, much to the scandal of his friends, he asserted that Palestinians had the right to their own state). Yet this didn’t stop him from being a champion of our small community, singing prayers while crying on holidays. I must have been about 10 when I asked him why he prayed, despite being an atheist. He answered, “I pray for the dead.” As an adult, I chose to follow his example. It seemed possible to address an Other, without knowing if it existed or if it would hear my voice.
This year, I stopped doing it. How can one ask for forgiveness for our wrongs while praying with those who approve of a massacre? To invoke the Other, a Jew must do so with other Jews—at least ten of them—because their prayer is the prayer of a people who renew their Covenant every time they address their God. It is this People that is lacking today.
To “be lacking” is more serious than committing a wrong, because the one who commits a wrong can, sooner or later, recognize it and ask for forgiveness, whereas the one who is lacking cannot even recognize themselves as the author of a wrong. This is what is now happening to a large part of Israelis. “For us,” they say, “it’s always October 7th.” For them, certainly, but also for the innocent Palestinian civilians that their army has massacred. The fierce aggression Israel has suffered has blinded it, numbed it, and stripped it of any ethical sense, any empathy for the other victims of this war. This is where this People is lacking.
Did I “betray” my people by protesting against the carnage, as I’ve been accused, or is it this People that has betrayed itself? “Lo-‘Ammi,” “not my people”: a voice had commanded Hosea, a prophet from biblical times, to name his son that. What this means, the voice tells him, is: “You are not my people, and I am not your God.” But a day will come, the voice continues, when “I will forgive, and I will say to Not-my-people: ‘You are my people,’ and they will answer me: ‘My God.’”
Who will prophesy for us today? Who will forgive us for the tens of thousands of men, women, and children who have been starved, mutilated, and killed, if we cannot ask for forgiveness for these crimes? If I am able to pray again, I will pray for a future People – a People worthy of the Covenant.
This op-ed was originally published in French on Le Monde, on February 5, 2025.
Cover photo: A man stands on an elevated floor in a heavily-damaged building without walls in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 21, 2025, as residents return following a ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian territory. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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