(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

By Emma Lebwohl
on behalf of Shalom Somerville

Since October 7, 2023, the Jewish and Israeli communities have been reeling from the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. The attack was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists murdered over a thousand Israeli civilians and brutally raped Israeli women. They took over 250 hostages, including small children. The trauma from October 7 continues to this day. A few weeks ago, we learned that Hamas murdered six young hostages, including the Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in a tunnel beneath Rafah.

Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas has resulted in the loss of innocent Palestinian lives and displacement of Israeli and Palestinian civilians. As bombs fall in both Israel and Gaza generating constant fear, here too we are worried for the safety of our family and friends abroad, but also fearful due to the hateful rhetoric being spewed locally.

Rather than coming together to comfort each other in this shared grief, our Somerville community has been awash with divisive rhetoric and hatred including a rise in antisemitic and anti-Israeli incidents. For instance, an Israeli family seeking refuge from the war came to Somerville and enrolled their children in Somerville schools. On the first day, someone removed one of the children’s bags from his locker and replaced it with a drawing of a Palestinian flag. The family decided that Somerville was not safe for them and moved.

In another school-related incident, a 2nd grader told his Jewish friend they couldn’t be friends anymore because “his people weren’t friends with Jews.”

In a third incident, a “Stand with Israel” sign outside the home of a Holocaust survivor was met with a note from a self-identified Nazi who was offended by the “Jew sign.” The note ended with “Heil Hitler.”

Many people in our community are now reluctant to wear or display symbols that may identify them as Jewish or express their connections to Israel due to this rising antisemitism.

These are just some of the antisemitic incidents plaguing our small city. The obscenities mentioned by Somerville for Palestine in its August 2 article in Cambridge Day must also be condemned. What happened to the Somerville full of signs stating “Hate has no home here?” Jews and those with connections to Israel in our community have also been accused of being “complicit in genocide” for supporting Zionism: the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Framing the conflict as “genocide” paints those with broader and nuanced perspectives as complicit and worthy only of hate, and is used as a cudgel to silence any discussion or dialogue.

The civilian deaths in Gaza are tragic, but they are not genocide. Hamas’ intentional tactics of embedding itself within the Gazan population and fighting from schools and hospitals makes civilian casualties inevitable. The bodies of the six hostages tortured and murdered just hours before they were found had been held in a Hamas tunnel under a children’s yard in Rafah whose walls were decorated with Disney characters. This dichotomy points to the struggle many of us feel with this war.

There is, in truth, very little that anyone in Somerville can do to end the conflict in Gaza. But, we can reduce the turmoil here. We can listen more and shout less. We can learn from each other, rather than demonize each other. We can think critically, disagree civilly and even vehemently, without demonizing each other. In the process we can forge a stronger community. Once we get past the slogans, we certainly won’t agree on everything, but we may find that we agree on more than we realize.

As we approach a year of war in Gaza, we all wait anxiously for the release of the hostages, an end to the fighting on all borders, the rebuilding of a Gaza where its citizens can prosper, and an ultimate resolution that ensures safety and security for all. Unfortunately, that doesn’t fit well on a bumper sticker.