Daniella looks up at her slightly older, much taller cousin. They catch eyes and share a smile. Then she peers over the balcony to watch her youngest cousin, a baby boy, prepare for his brit milah <\/em>or circumcision ceremony. As I watch the men milling around below in the main sanctuary, Gloria whispers into my ear.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that Philippe and Benjamin?\u201d She points toward my husband and teenage son, who are in their regular weekday attire of jeans and polo shirts. After the ceremony and meal, we will return to work and school. \u201cThey\u2019re sure easy to spot,\u201d she says with a hint of laughter. Most of the other males present, including Ashira\u2019s two brothers, wear the customary black suit, white shirt, black hat, white tallit fringes hanging outside their pants, typical of the Ultra Orthodox population. Both my nephews tuck tufts of longer hair called peyot behind their ears.<\/p>\n I watch Marc gently hand the baby to the mohel, who is ready to perform the circumcision. Four men encircle my brother. They are mysteries to me, with their worn white prayer shawls draped over their heads. Their beards look like cotton candy, in shades of red, black and silver. Only Marc appears different with his black-and-blue silk robe over his suit, his outfit for special occasions. Unlike Ashira, whose body is still during prayer, the men rock back and forth as the mohel cuts the baby\u2019s foreskin.<\/p>\n Seven days postpartum, Batya looks healthy and strong. It\u2019s her third son, her third brit milah<\/em>. One of her friends strokes her back as the baby\u2019s screams pierce the air. Her girlfriends swarm around her, uttering words of praise. Like Russian matryoshka dolls, they wear seemingly identical smocks over their full, shapeless bodies, headdresses that hide every strand of hair, and thick stockings to cover any skin, following their community\u2019s traditions of modest dress. They start every sentence the same way, with \u201cBaruch Hashem\u201d or Thank God.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s date weighs heavily on my mind. It is November 4, 2007, the twelfth anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. On this same day, in this tiny country, another baby boy is being circumcised and welcomed into the Jewish community: the son of Rabin\u2019s murderer, Yigal Amir.<\/p>\n Haaretz, November 3, 2007<\/p>\n AMIR SON\u2019S CIRCUMCISION TO BE HELD INSIDE PRISON<\/p>\n The assassin of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Amir, will not be allowed to leave prison for the circumcision ceremony of his newborn son, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, the 12th anniversary of the assassination\u2026. Yigal Amir, an ultra-nationalist Jew, shot Rabin to death after a peace rally on November 4, 1995, because he opposed the prime minister’s policy of ceding West Bank land to the Palestinians. He was sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n For me, the day Rabin was killed had started like any other. Faded, irregular-shaped leaves danced along the sidewalks of our northern California neighborhood. Shortly after our Saturday morning breakfast, Philippe left with then two year old Benjamin for Shabbat services at our synagogue where I joined them a few hours later. My husband greeted me in the entryway of the building, his expression serious. \u201cDid you hear?\u201d he asked. I shrugged my shoulders. \u201cRabin was assassinated at a peace rally.\u201d<\/p>\n Not amused by his quirky sense of humor, I raised my eyebrows and rolled my eyes. \u201cRight!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019m serious. It was some right-wing fanatic. That\u2019s all I heard.\u201d<\/p>\n Tears sprang to my eyes. In my mid-twenties, I had spent five of my most important young adult years in Israel. There, I had met and married Philippe, learned Hebrew, earned a Master\u2019s degree at Haifa University and given birth to a sabra or native-born Israeli. I had said \u201cShabbat Shalom\u201d on Fridays to the butcher and the baker, had camped in the Sinai desert before it was given back to Egypt and had celebrated the Jewish holidays with the entire nation. I had lived through stone-throwing in the late 1980s, the Gulf War in 1991, and bus bombings in the 1990s.<\/p>\n When we were twenty-nine, we left Israel. Philippe wanted to pursue an MBA abroad, and I craved a life closer to my parents in California. But by the time we settled into our American lives in the fall of 1995, my heart was divided. I had wanted to leave the Jewish homeland, yet when tragedy hit, I felt sad and guilty for not being with the rest of the country during such a difficult time.<\/p>\n CNN, November 6, 1995<\/p>\n \u201cSOLDIER FOR PEACE\u201d RABIN BURIED<\/p>\n Yitzhak Rabin, a \u201cmartyr for peace,\u201d was buried Monday after eulogies by world leaders, including Arabs, who promised that efforts to end religious and ethnic bloodshed in the Mideast would carry on despite the assassination of the Israeli prime minister\u2026.Thousands of Israelis gathered Monday at the Tel Aviv square where Rabin was slain, lighting candles and mounting a quiet vigil. Thousands more huddled outside the apartment building where the 73-year-old prime minister lived\u2026.an estimated one million people, in a nation of five million, filed past the coffin as it lay in state outside the Knesset.<\/p>\n When the brit milah<\/em> service in the synagogue ends, Gloria and I follow the crowd downstairs to the social hall for the traditional post-circumcision celebratory meal. En route, I mention the other baby boy\u2019s ceremony which is the top story on every television station and in every newspaper in Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cOy, don\u2019t talk to me about it,\u201d says Gloria. She leans lightly on her Lucite cane as she walks. Her soft eyes harden. \u201cI don\u2019t know why that man Amir\u2019s getting so much press or why he\u2019s even still alive for that matter. It\u2019s only because it\u2019s a Jewish state. If we were in any other country and someone had shot the prime minister he\u2019d be on death row or dead by now.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s right. For the past few days, I have been mesmerized, listening to all the news reports and reading all the articles about Amir\u2019s baby, the upcoming brit<\/em>, the countrywide controversy over his desire to attend.<\/p>\n I step into a sparsely decorated room and am reminded of just how different my brother\u2019s world is. Seven round tables are set up, three on one side of a mechitza<\/em> or partition and four on the other. The first\u2014and only\u2014time I had seen separate seating during a meal was at Marc and Batya\u2019s wedding seventeen years earlier when dozens of men had eaten and danced on one side of a tall, make-shift divider while dozens of women had eaten and danced on the other.<\/p>\n Yet that wasn\u2019t where my brother\u2019s story had started. Five months after graduating from an Ivy League university, he had immigrated to Israel because as a Jew he felt more comfortable there. Beyond that, he didn\u2019t know what his future held. After serving in the Israeli army for one year, he settled in Jerusalem and enrolled in an institute of Judaism, or yeshivah, to study sacred texts. As Marc\u2019s involvement with yeshiva life deepened, so did his passion for living his life according to every Jewish law. Called a ba\u2019al teshuvah<\/em> or returnee to religion, he refused to eat from our parents\u2019 non-kosher dishes. He had to ask his rabbi for permission to kiss and hug me. After his wedding, he and his wife moved from the hip side of Jerusalem to a run-down, crowded neighborhood, where many staunch English-speaking \u201creturnees\u201d to the Jewish religion live.<\/p>\n Over the years, Marc\u2019s political views formed and crystallized. A believer in Greater Israel, a term that denotes the Biblical boundaries of the Land of Israel, he does not agree with any leader who wants to give up or exchange land for peace.<\/p>\n The New York Times, September 29, 1995<\/p>\n MIDEAST ACCORD: THE OVERVIEW, ARAFAT AND RABIN SIGN PACT TO EXPAND ARAB SELF-RULE<\/p>\n Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the P.L.O., signed an accord today that transforms their reconciliation into a concrete plan to transfer much of the West Bank to the control of its Arab residents\u2026.Under the agreement, the Israelis will withdraw their troops from most towns and villages of the West Bank\u2026.and relinquish control to a new, elected Palestinian council, with more territory to be transferred later\u2026.The accord\u2026spells out in intricate detail\u2026the withdrawal of Israeli forces from much of the territory\u2026.<\/p>\n When Rabin was killed, Marc didn\u2019t shed a tear. His murder was one of many things my brother and I could not discuss in any rational way. While he rejected the secular leadership of the state he inhabited, I embraced it. I believe that if Israelis want to achieve peace with their Arab neighbors, they will have to compromise, make a daring move. Rabin was the first leader that I remembered in my lifetime to advance toward peace.<\/p>\n Rabin\u2019s courage had given me hope. Pregnant in Israel in the spring of \u201893, my dreams for my unborn child were connected to the cautious optimism that infused the country for the first time in decades. I was carrying a boy, and all I could think about was his having to serve in the Israeli army. Now, maybe he wouldn\u2019t have to. Just because I had decided to live in the Holy Land didn\u2019t mean I would be ready or willing to sacrifice my child, something that every proud Israeli parent does, but something I wasn\u2019t ready to embrace.<\/p>\n The long, hot summer of swollen feet and What to Expect When You\u2019re Expecting<\/em> was also a season of political dialogue, peace talks, agreements and accords. As my pregnancy progressed, the Oslo Accord unfolded. When I returned home from the hospital with my newborn son, the excitement of motherhood almost matched the excitement of the news blanketing the airways. My mom, visiting from California, reached down to turn on the television.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen\u2019s Judy coming?\u201d she asked, fiddling with the channels.<\/p>\n \u201cAny minute. Is it on?\u201d<\/p>\n The doorbell rang and in walked Judy, my childhood friend who lived an hour south of us. She scooped up my baby, cradling him close. Her long, tight ringlets flew in his face. \u201cCan you believe he\u2019s yours?\u201d she asked. I turned my head quickly to nod in her direction, but couldn\u2019t take my eyes off the TV.<\/p>\n \u201cShush,\u201d my mother said. \u201cLook.\u201d<\/p>\n With Benjamin in her arms, Judy sat down on the carpet next to me. My mom plopped herself on the crazy-colored couch. We watched together with the rest of the world as I began to wind myself tightly in a cocoon of illusions.<\/p>\n BBC, September 13, 1993<\/p>\n RABIN AND ARAFAT SHAKE ON PEACE DEAL<\/p>\n Yitzhak Rabin, and\u2026Yasser Arafat have shaken hands before cheering crowds on the White House lawn in Washington\u2026.The handshake – the first ever in public between the two former arch enemies – marked the signing of a Declaration of Principles for peace between the Arabs and Israelis\u2026.Under the terms of the deal, Israel has agreed to withdraw its troops from Gaza Strip and West Bank by April 1994. Elections will be held in the territories to allow the Palestinians some form of self-government.<\/p>\n This morning, en route to my nephew\u2019s circumcision in Jerusalem, we had picked up my husband\u2019s brother, Yvan. Disheveled as usual, he squeezed his body into the backseat of the car with the kids. His energy woke us up like a shot of coffee.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got a good one for you,\u201d Yvan said. \u201cYou know how it\u2019s Yigal Amir\u2019s baby\u2019s brit <\/em>today, right? Well, some journalist ran into Amir\u2019s father in a bakery while buying challah for Shabbat and they started talking. Apparently they knew each other and the journalist asked about the baby\u2019s name.\u201d Yvan was smirking, waiting to tell the punch line of a joke. \u201cThe father said he hopes they name him Shalom, after Yigal\u2019s grandfather. What do you think?\u201d We laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t get it,\u201d the kids said. We tried to explain the irony. In Hebrew, shalom means peace. An odd name for the son of an assassin.<\/p>\n I knew better than to ask my new nephew\u2019s name. In Eastern European Jewish tradition, a baby boy\u2019s name isn\u2019t announced until the circumcision. For seven days, he\u2019s an empty slate as parents discuss who he looks like or whose grandfather\u2019s name needs to be carried on in memory.<\/p>\n Seated in synagogue, we all become quiet, eagerly waiting to hear the father utter the child\u2019s name. My brother whispers to the mohel; the mohel speaks quickly. \u201cDid he say it?\u201d I ask Gloria, whose Hebrew is better than mine. \u201cDid you hear the name?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShalom Simcha,\u201d she says. I tell Gloria that my mom, who wasn\u2019t able to attend, will be very happy. Simcha was her father\u2019s Hebrew name.<\/p>\n After the meal, Marc stands up and thanks all of us for coming and sharing in his family\u2019s celebration. Then, in his usual sermonic way, he explains his son\u2019s name comes from the root word shalem<\/em>, which means \u201cwholeness.\u201d Apparently, the baby\u2019s name Shalom has nothing to do with peace.<\/p>\n I shiver as I sit in my brother\u2019s synagogue this sunny November morning, contemplating the arrival of new life, the departure of lost life. I am struck by the synchronicity of events. For me Shalom means peace. But, for both the murderer\u2019s son and for my nephew, who will forever share a birthday and most likely that name, peace has nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n Politics invade every aspect of daily life; Israelis eat, sleep and breathe war, danger and the possibility of annihilation. I wonder if Israeli-born citizens experience this as intensely as I do, or if I feel it more acutely because I am American. Maybe they\u2019re numb because, as they say in Hebrew, cacha ze<\/em>, it is what it is. Tragedy strikes. War happens. Life goes on.<\/p>\n Until I moved to Israel and opted for citizenship, I had led a typical American life, coddled by a sense of security, protected from war. The suicide bombings, the hatred between Arabs and Jews and their inability to coexist peacefully were nothing more than stories in the media. Then I chose to live among them, to become Israeli. Now, twenty years later, no matter where I live, I am deeply affected when catastrophes occur in Israel. I will always remember November 4\u2014when Yitzhak Rabin was murdered, when his murderer\u2014and my brother\u2014celebrated the circumcisions of their new baby boys. And shalom didn\u2019t mean peace. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I shiver as I sit in my brother\u2019s synagogue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/1256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lang_NameofPeace\"](\"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Lang_NameofPeace.jpg\" "\\"Lang_NameofPeace\\"")
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