Much ink has been spilled about the awful similarities between the Simchat Torah Massacre and the Yom Kippur War. Fifty years apart almost to the day, both entailed catastrophic failures of intelligence, our enemies' exploitation of a Jewish holiday, and casualties on an unbearable scale. They will be remembered as the twin fiascos of contemporary Jewish history.
But the Hamas atrocities recalled events further back: The Holocaust, the pogroms, the gruesome violence visited upon the Jews in medieval times.
On the Gaza periphery, entire families were butchered in their beds. Some managed to hide in their bomb shelters, only to be flushed out with smoke. Children were tied up and tortured to death. Women were publicly defiled before being executed or carted off like trophies.
Learning of all this, I was suddenly 16 again, raptly listening to radio reports on the Eichmann trial and taking in the graphic accounts of Nazi mass-murder. The survivors' testimonies there had special importance, for me, as they did for so many of my generation. My parents had left Poland for the Land of Israel before the Nazi onslaught. But my grandparents, and most of the rest of my family, did not. I had been denied information on their fate, as at the time Israel's struggle to survive left little room for retrospection. The Eichmann trial was my first Holocaust education, my first communion with lost kin I had never known. And not until more than six decades later, with the hell that was Simchat Torah in our southern communities, would I feel plunged into the horror in the same way.
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We are "Am HaNetzach", the Eternal People. That means not only an age-old bond with the Creator but also a constant reckoning with those who seek to destroy us in the most painful ways possible.
Perhaps Hamas knew this when they launched their attack. Perhaps – despite their official policy of Holocaust denial – they studied the methods of the Nazis, and then replicated them, on-camera, for instant mass-promotion. Perhaps they believed that, like the Nazis, they would succeed in driving away those Jews they did not manage to murder.
But this new foe failed to understand the new Jew of Israel, of our ancient homeland, reborn and never again to be abandoned.
Israelis did not rush to board departing flights. Instead, extra planes had to be made available to accommodate all of the IDF reservists coming back home to fight.
Unlike in the Holocaust, when our people disappeared as ash in the wind, we now locate and identify all final remains of every last victim, to ensure they are buried in dignity with names known for eternity.
And unlike in the Holocaust, when we were adrift and alone in an indifferent world, today's world leaders are lining up to make solidarity visits, despite the threat of rocket barrages, and to wish us victory.
And victorious we shall be.
Given the astonishing waves of volunteerism and mobilization, from every corner of the world and to attend to every need of this nation's lovely citizenry, there can be no other conclusion. As a long-time philanthropist, I find myself moved more than ever before by how much can be given, even by those who have so little.
Because while we are products of our history, we are not bound by it. The Start-Up Nation will now rise up. And though our weapons are modern, though our warriors are blessed with all of the education and values of the 21st century, not to mention iPhones and AC, they will take with them the High Priest's benediction from the Book of Deuteronomy:
"Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."
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