When a picture is worth just one word
Anguish
This week, I wrote about the pain many of us have felt over the past four weeks, at the indifference, even contempt, for the babies and children who were murdered in Israel on October 7th, and those who have been kidnapped into Gaza, and have not been heard from again.
There is scant demand for their release, nor concern for their safety and wellbeing. Personally, I have thought about little else.
The fliers that have been posted around the country are one of our only reminders of these missing innocents, but even those have been repeatedly, violently torn down, a revictimization of sorts, leaving many Jews feeling more alone and anguished than ever.
Read my op ed in the Post here or scroll down for the slightly longer, submitted version that includes the original title below:
”No Empathy for the Unluckiest Children in the World”
In 2015, the world was collectively spellbound by a photograph of a young Syrian boy who drowned on a Turkish beach. His family had been trying to reach Canada, to escape the brutal Islamic State in Syria.
Articles that included the photo warned that the image was distressing.
The world responded with profound empathy, flooding relief organizations with cash and removing immigration hurdles for Syrian refugees.
Save the Children’s CEO, Justin Forsyth, said: “This tragic image of a little boy who’s lost his life fleeing Syria is shocking and is a reminder of the dangers children and families are taking in search of a better life. This child’s plight should concentrate minds and force the EU to come together and agree to a plan to tackle the refugee crisis.”
More than a year later, outlets were still writing about the impact of the photo. It even inspired a study which demonstrated via behavioral data that “an iconic photo of a single child had more impact than statistical reports of hundreds of thousands of deaths.”
People who paid little attention to Syria’s rising death toll, suddenly cared.
One photograph of a single dead young child mobilized global empathy and concern, bringing record donations - at least for the immediate period after its publications- to support Syrian refugees.
Back then, people found it difficult to distance themselves when coming face to face with a photo of a dead child.
And yet, today, after the Hamas progroms in Israel where thirty Jewish children were brutally murdered and nearly thirty more dragged into Gaza by violent terrorists who raped, murdered and burned their families, there is no global outcry for these children.
There is a dearth of empathy.
Instead there are celebrations, on college campuses and around the world, calling for wiping Israel of Jews from “the River to the Sea.”
In other words, ethnic cleansing.
From New York City to Amherst, to Los Angeles and Oakland, fliers that feature faces and details about the kidnapped are being violently, repeatedly torn down. Some claim they are keeping the city tidy and such fliers are not permitted, but they don’t seem to mind the Yoga Studio or Handyman fliers left behind.
There is no empathy for the missing Jewish children.
On the eve of the October 7th attacks, former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren spoke with journalist Bari Weiss about the hundreds of Palestinian children Hamas “uses and loses… digging tunnels (into Israel)... Child abuse on a massive scale.”
There is no compassion for these children either.
Could it be that empathy for innocent child victims is now politicized, too?
Have we become a society that can no longer express empathy for children unless they are on the right side of the political battle du jour?
Syrian child: good. Israeli child: bad.
My own child, not typically prone to sentimentality, recently passed a shredded flier a few blocks from home.
“That was a picture of a four year old!” she said.
I couldn’t tell if it was horror, disbelief, or just a moment of deep awakening about the depth of contempt for our missing Jewish children.
A visit to the Save the Children website seems to express support for both “Israel and Gaza,” but a closer look reveals, the only children they care to save are Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, not Israeli children in Israel.
And certainly not Israeli children - if they are still alive- captive in Gaza.
There seems to be little interest in saving these Jewish children, some as young as nine months old (or ten months, now three weeks after the massacre).
At an age where there is an overemphasis on social emotional learning, an enforcement of acceptable values across every sector- in education, corporate and arts institutions - there seems to be an absence of empathy for the innocent Jewish children who are lost.
And it isn’t because their faces are hidden from view. They are seemingly ubiquitous, on every street corner and on social media.
But instead of eliciting normal emotions, like empathy and concern, they have whet the whistles of, not just antisemites, but people who did not previously take notice of Jews or Israel, who are now demanding a full ethnic cleansing “From the River to the Sea.” They rally by the thousands across the globe. They celebrate the violence. They are ready for Jihad.
We are witnessing the madness of crowds, psychopathy on a grand scale - the inability of the masses to empathize, to consider the humanity of innocent lives is lost. For now they merely celebrate the violence, but what comes next? And who will be the next target?
In an age where our schools emphasize social emotional learning and t-shirts are emblazoned with the word “Empathy” we need the real deal more than ever, but there is a dearth of it going around.