30 Jul 2014

On the streets with Israeli mourners in Jerusalem

Tensions are high in Jerusalem as the period of mourning for the three murdered teenagers comes to an end. Inigo Gilmore joins the mourners where the mood is solemn – and angry.

In the Jewish faith, when a person dies, family and friends enter a mourning period after burial for 30 days, known as the Shloshim, writes Inigo Gilmore. A month ago, after three Israeli teenagers were killed in the West Bank, a country went into mourning.

On Tuesday night, Israel officially emerged from that period with a memorial service for the teenagers in Jerusalem. During those 30 days, more than 50 other Israelis have died, and over 1,200 Palestinians, in a bewildering surge of violence that nobody could have foreseen – and no-one now seems able to stem.

With the soft orange glow of dusk shrouding Jerusalem’s great synagogue, a throng gathered to commemorate the dead teenagers along King George Street, sealed off by police and turned into a pedestrian area for the occasion. The faces of the three teenage boys were everywhere: embellished on a giant banner and on stickers handed out to the crowd.

Hundreds came to watch the memorial projected onto the walls of the synagogue. They were there to pay their respects but also to show their solidarity with the Israeli government’s relentless pounding of Gaza.

There were old and young; black-hatted Hasidic Jews mingling with teenagers idly thumbing iPhones. Many were decked out in Israeli flags, blue and white ribbons and t-shirts bearing nationalist slogans.

The mood was solemn, tinged with anger and belligerence. Everyone we met was fully behind the military action in Gaza. It was Hamas who were the demons, we were told, and responsible for so many Palestinian deaths, claiming that they used Palestinian children as human shields.

‘Let them go till they clean them out’

Among the crowd was Joyce Boim who told me her son David was killed by a Hamas terrorist in 1996: shot in the head at a bus stop while traveling in the West Bank.

“Let them go, till they clean them out,” she said, referring to Israel’s ongoing massive military operation – Protective Edge. “It’s all our boys and we love them all dearly.”

Those gathered around her began cheering and she added, raising her voice: “if we don’t do it now once and for all, it’s never going to stop. We have the Lord above who directs us, and watches over us. We cannot show any weakness. We have a strong army and we have to stop it.”

Amongst the crowd, we found just a single dissenter. A young American who had been listening to our conversation with Joyce decided to speak up. But he was quickly drowned out. “We need to end the propaganda from both sides,” he suggested.

“Propaganda!? What propaganda!?” Joyce reacted angrily, shouting and jabbing her finger aggressively in his direction.

“What I’m saying is (that) the propaganda is a diversion from both sides that’s dividing…”

He tried to continue but the crowd had moved in: shouting from everywhere now, fingers jabbed in all directions. Arguments were being made, but they were virtually unintelligible in the melee.

“To criticise Israel is not necessarily anti-Israeli…” he said, trying to engage them in dialogue.

This did not go down well. He was now angrily questioned about his own faith.

“Are you even Jewish?” another woman waded in.

“No. I’m not”

“I figured. Your life is not on the line, kid. I would suggest you go and hang out in Sderot for a few days.”

The young man insisted that dialogue is the only way forward, but he was getting nowhere.

“Will you let me finish…?” he tried again.

But the anger in his direction was now close to boiling over. He shrugged his shoulders and walked off.

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