In the Face of Tragedy: A Jewish Voice Reflects on Gaza

In my reading journey, I often seek books that represent perspectives different from my own. Understanding begins, I believe, with listening—even when the speaker stands across the chasm of pain.

That’s what led me to pick up a book whose title struck me powerfully, Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, by Jewish-American author Peter Beinart.

I initially approached it as an intellectual document—a view from “the other side.” I wasn’t expecting the level of moral honesty and courage I encountered in its pages.

Beinart, a well-known political thinker and writer, doesn’t defend Israel. Instead, he confronts it—and us—with hard questions: What does it mean to be Jewish today, after Gaza? Can silence ever be justified in the name of solidarity? And where do Jewish values stand when lives are destroyed in the name of identity?

He writes not with hostility but with sorrow. He doesn't attack Judaism, but how it has been used to justify policies far removed from its ethical teachings of compassion and justice.

In his chapters, Beinart explores how the narrative of Jewish survival after the Holocaust has turned, for some, into a justification for excessive power. He questions the role of major American Jewish institutions in enabling war and siege. But he doesn’t stop at critique—he offers a vision: a future beyond ethno-nationalism. A single, democratic state for all—Jews and Palestinians alike.

What struck me most was not just his political stance, but his willingness to confront his history, his community, and his moral heritage.

To be Jewish—or Muslim or Christian—is not to justify violence. It is to refuse it.

In an age of noise and division, voices like Beinart’s are rare—and needed.

In an age of trenches, he chooses to build bridges. In an age of excuses, he decides to ask questions.

And maybe , that’s the most important lesson of all: to be human—before we are anything else.