Grief in Times of Tragedy
An American Jewish mother discusses tragedy grief through the lens of October 7, 2023: "I don’t necessarily know where we go from here and that’s where the grief settles in."
Ed. note: Thank you for bearing with me as Dirt Nap rested for the past two weeks. We’re back, we’re energized and we have some great topics lined up starting right here…
September 11, 2001 was my generational tragedy12. I vividly remember the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion3, but at 8 years old. It didn’t crush my dreams of becoming an astronaut4 and I think I was too young to appreciate the broader impact of the moment.
Unlike others, my connection to 9/11 is tangential. My cousin was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center that day. He and his boss defied the official advice that everything was fine, left the building, and got out of the tri-state as quickly as they could. That was as close as I got to the WTC5. Someone I went to grad school with died in the Pentagon. I didn’t know him personally6, but I was still shocked when I read his name among the alumni who perished.
The attacks turned into something of an obsession for me, as much as I get obsessed about anything. I went on a reading binge about Islamic terrorism as a weapon, the events leading up to the day, the lives of the terrorists, and the day itself. I have been known to self-flagellate by relistening to 1010 WINS coverage or rewatching TV coverage of the day’s events. I have no good reason why. I think it was part of my tragedy grief. I didn’t lose anyone or anything tangible on 9/11, but our collective national grief and shock was the marker that directed me down this road.
Tragedy or trauma grief is an outgrowth of complicated grief, the ache of loss that is prolonged and doesn’t go away for a long time. I have this fixation with wanting to know the why to understand it better, thus my binge reading. I started a Substack about death and grief after a family member died. I guess it’s how I subconsciously cope.
I wasn’t born into tragedy or the threat of it. This sort of privilege is something I have reminded myself of since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel and provoked7 the current conflict that enters its fifth month. But, this isn’t the first Palestinian-Israeli conflict, nor is it the first time Jews have been attacked for being Jews.
I watched the events of Oct. 7 as a global news event. I have friends who saw it as a threat to their very existence (a popular quote I’ve seen misattributed to many people is “If Arabs/Hamas/Hizbollah put down their weapons, there would be no war. If Israel put down their weapons, there would be no Israel.”). I have the privilege of compartmentalizing this as a global happening. I don’t know what living under a bullseye is like because of how I was born89.
(This is as good of a place as any to say that I believe that Gaza needs to be freed from Hamas and Israel must be freed from Benjamin Netanyahu. I believe the Israelis were justified in their counteroffensive, though I would entertain the argument that it has been a little more forceful than necessary in some instances. I don’t believe this is a genocide; this isn’t Rwanda, Armenia, Guatemala, or Europe in the late 1930s. I believe Hamas has abandoned those in Gaza to bear the brunt of the retaliation for its attack. I believe a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas should be contingent on all hostages being released, and a third-party monitor (not the U.S.) should be there to call bullshit when Hamas breaks the peace, as they have previously.)
Go on any social media platform and you will find Jews in pain. They ache for the hostages being held and grieve those killed. I see this in the Instagram stories of my Jewish friends, who post that they cry for the children separated from their families and the women that have been tortured and raped. Moreover, they weep for the fact that most seem to care more about the Palestinian victims of the Israeli response than the Israeli victims of the Palestinian attack. Their tears and pain come from something many of us cannot relate to. Being Jewish is not simply an identity; it’s embedded in the DNA of people who have been under attack for thousands of years.
Coping with Tragedy
SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, has a guide to coping with traumatic events and disasters. It’s a lot of what you might think: there’s no wrong way to feel, take care of yourself, avoid alcohol and drugs, talk to friends or family, connect with your kids to see how they are feeling, etc. The guide reads primarily for someone who might be in a place where a mass shooting or hurricane took place10.
One entry I take issue with:
Limit your consumption of news. We live in a society where the news is available to us 24 hours a day via television, radio, and the Internet. The constant replay of news stories about a disaster or traumatic event can increase stress and anxiety and make some people relive the event over and over. Reduce the amount of news you watch and/or listen to.
First, it flies in the face of what you’re supposed to do in times of disaster — stay tuned to media for emergency updates. While I don’t disagree with the science that a constant stream of bad news can worsen anxiety and stress, you can’t just bury your head in the sand either. I understand that I’m a news-obsessive but ignoring or limiting the amount of news you let into your life doesn’t seem to be healthy either. Finding a livable mid-ground where you can gain useful information without revisiting the incident seems like a better bit of advice.
Of course, if you’ve been directly affected by a disaster, the amount of news you consume seems like a trivial sacrifice to avoid reliving the event. That’s a coping cycle your brain will put you through anyway. It seems like that’s where the Disaster Distress Helpline or a trauma professional would be of greater service.
Now this is where I would ordinarily quote a Jewish social services organization as a source from an article that might be headlined “How to Cope with What You Saw on October 7,” but there’s nothing out there. I’ve sat here and wondered why.
Could it be that these organizations prefer to handle things 1-on-1?
Do they want to limit what they say to temper antisemitic rhetoric?
Are American Jews so conditioned to being on the defensive that they already know what to do?
The Times of Israel published an interview with neuroscientist Talma Hendler explaining how the brain reacts to trauma like Oct. 7. She said that most people will come down from the trauma-induced anxiety caused by tragic events, causing poor sleep, hypersensitivity, and emotional outbursts.
Hendler encourages people to find a balance between the negative pathways by employing relaxation techniques and the positive pathways by connecting with loved ones over good thoughts.
That’s all well and good, but every time I searched Google about coping and grieving the events of Oct. 7, the first result was this:
Dirt Nap Q&A: Jane Ginsburg
Jane Ginsburg and I are former colleagues. She’s always been patient with me when I ask questions about Judaism, and she extended her grace to me in answering some questions about her life since Oct. 7, 2023.
I asked Jane some questions and her response was more of a single narrative. Rather than break things up as a Q&A, I’m going to offer her thoughts as she sent them to me.
My response on October 7 was fear, shock, terror, anger, and terrible, horrible, deep, deep grief, for the families that were directly, indirectly, and even more indirectly affected, my family included. The realities of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments are not lost on me/us, but the scale of the brutality against Jews is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime.
I am married to the grandson of Holocaust survivors. They aren’t the kind of Holocaust survivors who experienced inhumane, inhuman and depraved things and never spoke about it, but the kind that fought their enemy as partisans in the forest and in Russian fighting groups, blowing up German trains and attacking when they had to and, most importantly, surviving. They and their friends, who were also literally and figuratively family, talked about their experiences. They told their stories. It was a rare gift, but my husband grew up in a family who knew what it was to be hated so deeply just because of their beliefs, heritage, and identity. Now in each branch of his family, one is more proudly Jewish, and Zionist than the next.
I grew up differently. My family had been in the United States for generations and the horrors of the Holocaust were stories heard while at country clubs playing tennis or boating, or maybe in hushed conversations, but wasn’t something that they acknowledged nor was it central to their lives. I came to be much more Jewishly identified and sought a much more actively Jewish lifestyle than I was raised.
And that brings me to your questions of grief. The grief that I have felt for so long is that so many in my generation, the generations after me and before me, have just forgotten how much people hated us and what happened when others turned a blind eye.
My kids have been raised as proud Jews, who immediately after October 7 started wearing Jewish stars daily. They made sure their closest circle of friends understood what was actually happening and what was at stake. I don’t think that I can put into words how proud I am of them and yet how scared I am for them at the same time.
Have they forgotten intentionally? As I said, it wasn’t talked about in my house. Most of our generation believed that post-Holocaust people just accepted Jews. Or they choose to ignore the overt antisemitism they experienced. The biggest issue — the root cause — is that so many families, and so many Jewish and non-Jewish institutions, missed or intentionally ignored opportunities to teach the realities of the Holocaust or antisemitism. It was easier to just gloss over it because it was painful and disgusting and abhorrent and unimaginable.
Or maybe people feel strongly about forgiving and forgetting. Or they may believe peace is possible if we just focus on peace, rather than address the deep hatred that clearly, sadly, still exists.
I’m part of some online book clubs. When anyone reads stories about the realities of the Holocaust, whether they be about the concentration camps or the resistance, people are shocked. They’ve never heard these stories and I’m always amazed. But then I go back and I think about my upbringing. I think about my family never talking about it; not because they didn’t care but because they really didn’t know. I made it a priority of mine many, many years ago to learn everything that I could, and promise to never forget and do everything I can to perpetuate a proud Jewish legacy.
And that brings me to my kids. You ask about how my kids are handling it. They’re 16 and 18 years old and, man, do they see and feel the antisemitism and the anti-Zionism. My kids have been raised as proud Jews, who immediately after October 7 started wearing Jewish stars daily. They made sure their closest circle of friends understood what was actually happening and what was at stake. I don’t think that I can put into words how proud I am of them and yet how scared I am for them at the same time.
Every day, the hatred and the vitriol found online and in person railing against Jews is so pervasive that I am sometimes numb, sometimes motivated to act and speak up, and, sometimes, I just cry.
I run an organization that prides itself on serving all people, regardless of background, but guided by Jewish values. Those are the values of caring for one another, treating each other respectfully, and trying to repair the world one person at a time. We will continue to do so. But the fact that so many people are wishing death and destruction on Jews and the Jewish state while we’re focusing on compassion (acknowledging the horrific attacks on October 7 and that so many terrorized and innocent individuals are still held hostage) is so painful it’s almost paralyzing, but only almost.
When it’s not paralyzing, is when many of my family and friends are fighting, speaking up, writing to our elected officials, supporting Israel, and trying to educate those who will listen that Hamas is a terrorist organization. The movement to destroy Israel has been done so systematically; it is, embarrassingly, so deeply rooted in American culture and educational systems. But the ignorance of the true history of the region and the soundbites, aggression, and now accepted exclusions (“no Zionists allowed”) is frightening. It’s like we have regressed three generations.
I don’t necessarily know where we go from here and that’s where the grief settles in. The grief felt on October 7 was beyond description. The anguish felt for the lives lost, rapes perpetrated (learned then by the bloody pictures with details that came out in subsequent weeks), and the hostages taken was and remains unreal. Sadly I know many people who lost loved ones, either permanently or who remain in captivity. But the grief we are feeling is so much more than the pain felt that day.
There is a funny, not-so-funny joke about so many Jewish holidays that goes, “They try to kill us, we won, let’s eat.” And we can say it sometimes with a laugh. Living it right now is not at all funny, and living so within the lifetimes of those who experienced it in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s is just beyond...
When it’s not paralyzing, is when many of my family and friends are fighting, speaking up, writing to our elected officials, supporting Israel, and trying to educate those who will listen that Hamas is a terrorist organization.
The fact that there has been so much misinformation about what Palestine or, really, the British mandate of Palestine was like before 1948, and what Israel has meant as a democracy in the Middle East cannot go unmentioned. And let me be clear, I know that there is also a reality to the Palestinian grief of feeling wanted, never feeling like they have a place.
But, the gaslighting has been truly astounding. And the grief just swells.
Share your story
Not all grief is about the death of a person. A Griever’s Digest can be about the loss of a relationship, a job or something meaningful but inanimate. Consider sharing your grief with a bunch of strangers. Email me at jaredpaventi@substack.com.
Final thoughts on finality…
“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
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Gen X could claim the Space Shuttle Challenger, Hurricane Katrina, or Columbine, as could many generations. I’ll give my father the JFK Assassination (he was 16) and, take 9/11 as mine, and we can share the others.
I don’t count the Covid pandemic and related shutdown as a generational tragedy. That was globally defining. All 7.8 billion of us shared that, whereas I think 9/11 had a more indelible impact on people of a certain age.
Donlin Drive Elementary, Mrs. Wilson’s third-grade classroom. She shut the TV off after it exploded and did her best to redirect us, but the other classes kept watching and she eventually put the TV back on.
I was still planning to supplant Bob Costas as the world’s eminent play-by-play announcer.
Well, that and the radio on my desk where we listened to national news coverage.
The Maxwell School ran a mock government during its summer term for Masters of Public Administration students. Newhouse students would attend their assembly meetings and shit-stir as members of the press. I was one of those quasi-reporters. If I remember correctly, Brady was president.
My word. I’m pro-Israel on the matter, though I have opinions about tactics and the people in charge.
“The way” I was born will be revisited in future editions.
And, yes, the reality isn’t lost on me that the same could be said about the innocent Palestinians caught in between.
It's an odd mix to lump all trauma into one pile, but okay.