The month of Cheshvan is devoid of holidays, the odd birthday notwithstanding. Popular wisdom has it that this is the reason the month is also called Marcheshvan – read as Mar (bitter) Cheshvan. This turns out not to be true, as Marcheshvan is in fact the month’s original name, attested in cognate form in ancient Semitic languages such as Akkadian, and meaning simply “eighth month” – which it is, in the biblical year beginning from Nisan. (The mar’ch part is comparable to Hebrew ירח “yerach,” meaning moon or month, and the sh’van part is related to Hebrew שמונה “sh’monah” for eight, with some letters shifted in the borrowing process.) So, “Cheshvan” is, actually, a shortened version of the month’s technically correct full name.
As there are no holidays on the calendar for a while – and you already know all about Chanukah – I’ll take the opportunity to turn attention to other matters. Recently, we passed the third anniversary of the October 7th attack (as it seems history will label the event). The murder of 1200 Israelis and others – mostly Jews, and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, but including Israeli Arabs, Bedouin, foreign workers, tourists, and others as well – and on a Jewish holiday, no less, was certainly in itself a great shock to Jews around the world. The Israeli military response has been controversial in its choices, but the extreme hostility to Israel in the West, including some elements within this country, does not seem to me to grow out of Israel’s military actions alone.
The accusation of genocide, with absolutely no relation to the actual meaning of the word, was already circulating on October 8th, before the Israeli response even began. As it stands today, the genocide libel ought to be laughable, on the basis of the actual number of casualties in Gaza during the war, and the documented actions Israeli forces took to protect civilians, but instead is taken as granted in much public discourse. As an example, I have repeatedly seen the figure of “100,000 tons of explosives” allegedly used in Gaza as proof of genocide – but genocide is an attempt to eliminate a population, and a ton and a half of explosives for every death in Gaza (including combatants) hardly seems to show intent to eliminate the maximum number of Palestinians. In fact, it seems to show exactly the opposite.
If Israeli actions in Gaza do not account for the hostility and accusations (and renewed violence against Jews) in the West, what does? It seems to me that the fact that a Qatari propaganda outlet – Al-Jazeera – is treated as a normal part of the media spectrum, and extensive Qatari funding in western academia (up to $60B at over $1B per annum, says Google’s AI summary) and politics (up to $400B, including $30-60M p/a on political lobbying in the US alone, again per Google – for comparison, AIPAC is accused of “undue influence” for spending about $3M annually on lobbying) has a lot to do with it.
That said, there is no need for Israel to make it easy for the anti-Israel propaganda machine. By the time you read this, Israel’s election may already have taken place (October 27th). To my thinking, it is shameful that the government that was in power on October 7th has taken three years to submit itself to the judgment of the voters, regardless of other considerations. For three years, Israeli soldiers have gone into battle, in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, on the orders of a government that they hear ignored warnings prior to October 7th. They have been betrayed by a government including extremist ministers such as Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose openly racist comments during the war have reliably fed the genocide libel. And they have been misguided and misused by those same ministers in a government that has ordered them to abet criminal activity in the West Bank, so long as the criminals were Israelis vandalizing, destroying property, or committing acts of violence against Palestinian civilians.
Unfortunately, Israel has a complex and arcane political system in which backroom coalition negotiations often determine much more than the will of the voters, leading to shaky governments that are easily extorted by their own most extreme elements. I hope when the dust settles this time, Israel will find itself with a government of integrity, responsibility, justice (for all), and a sense of duty to the national interest over partisan or personal interests, wherever it may be judged to sit on a left-right political spectrum. A fellow can dream.