How could I not tell you about Be'eri's buried?

Some 100 Be’eri people were slaughtered on Oct. 7; twenty kidnapped. We are still not certain of the exact number murdered because some were burned to ashes. One boy’s burned corpse had to be buried in borrowed clothes; his were incinerated, his ashen corpse lie naked. Yet, I have not been able to write about my visit to their temporary, temporary, graves in Revivim. But, aren’t we all temporary until the moshiach comes, when our bones will roll to Jerusalem?

Kibbutz Be’eri celebrated its 77th birthday Oct 6th. Named after the Zionist Berl Katznelson, Be’eri was one of eleven "seed” kibbutzim dispersed from its mother kibbutz, Revivim, once a meteorological center converted into a kibbutz in the late ‘30’s. Under Ottoman Empire rules, a community could be established by putting up a tower and wall, often done overnight.

Like a dandelion, Revivim sent off its seeds into the desert air which rooted itself stubbornly in the Negev barren soil, bordering Gaza, where Samson had his last stand. Samson’s penultimate words, locks shorn by Delilah, strength depleted, were, “O God, please strengthen me once more, so that I may avenge myself from the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). This I imagined some days later is my wish as I saw the Maglan boys preparing for Gaza. But, they must return. I want it all: destroy these Philistines, return our boy/heroes. The Gaza buildings, hiding places for Hamas rockets, should continue to collapse.

Nu (I slip into Yiddish at these moments, you note), enough history. What about Be’eri?

No graves in Be’eri now. The place is off-limits even for the dead, for sure for the mourning who are now, like dandelion fluff, dispersed around the land, many to the Dead Sea, lowest point on earth, beyond the reach even of the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Psoriatic Scandinavians flock to this salty lake annually as they can get relief from their skin pains without ffear of sunburn. Plaster the healing black mud on their bodies, their faces, blond hair sheeny, reflecting the sun’s rays as they lie in chaise lounges.

Yet, in 1947, the Be’eri and other ten seeds sprouted along the oref, the “neck” along Gaza. For a time, the kibbutz grew, then aged and few joined, many of the young left. About a thousand remained.

We arrive at Revivim, at the temporary special entrance to the graveyard for Be’eri. A Revivim vatik, “veteran,” perhaps in his fifties talks with the portable mike to describe Revivim and Be’eri, its offspring. I sit on the stone wall, closer to his flank to see and hear, but the words float over me. He explains that the graves are temporary, that there is a special religious ceremony to disinter them when Be’eri is safe again. But he also says that now the Revivim and other kibbutz residents know that they are on their own to protect the kibbutz. Self-sufficiency is not just for old-time Zionists; it is for today. Yes, they hope for protection from army, police. But first, they are their own protectors. Yes, they petition for water from the government, but first, they must make do for themselves. The Zionist love for the land is for today. The old song, “He’chalutz l’ma’an avodah; Avodah l’ma’an he’chalutz,” is contemporary: the pioneer is for work and work is for the pioneer. Now, they are all pioneers. Now, they are welcoming families from Russia, Ukraine…and corpses from Be’eri.

Nu, let’s hear about Be’eri’s dead. (Listen, Sh’ma Adonai!) But, words are too weak. Recall Lincoln’ felt words at Gettysburg, dashed off on the train ride from Washington: “

…we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work.”

And his penultimate words:

“…we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God…”

Listen again to Lincoln, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” What they did here, in Be’eri and its neighboring towns, is but be slaughtered, dismembered, incinerated, raped, beheaded. Ironically, it is Lincoln’s words we recall, jot the names of the dead. Here, here, let us recall the names of the slaughtered only because they were Jews.

Bettelheim’s major criticism of the word “Holocaust” is that its biblical, religious meaning is someone who has given up his life for the sake of God. But, Bettelheim continues, most of those who were slaughtered and sent up chimneys as ashes in the Shoah, did not “sacrifice” willingly. Certainly not the million and more children did not. This was murder most foul. Let’s not make some “religious” frothiness to decorate this terrible slaughter—this Shoah then, this Shoah now. This was, is, purest evil.

Elahanon, our guide, explains that after we enter, the four guides will station themselves at various graves and tell of the lives of those buried there. We can wander as we wish or pause to listen.

I choose Elhanon’s station for two reasons. First, because I learn so much from him. Second, yes, second but perhaps more importantly, this station is the site of four graves of one family. Two survived because the eldest son, sixteen, through his body across his two younger brothers and was riddled in machine gun fire instead. Elhanon continues in an almost whisper, a murmur, as if not to wake the dead.

Even, Stone. The Even family lie here. Aba Even, Papa Stone, was known as the fixer of things. Nothing should go to waste. Broken faucet? Fine Aba Even. Tractor not running? Even. And if the tractor after several decades was stone-cold, not fixable, Aba Even would paint it and turn it into a sculpture, perhaps for the kids to clamber upon. Ima Even, as I recall was the ugia baker, cookie maker. Also, she advocated for Palestinians in Gaza to come work on the kibbutz; drove them to Sorokoa Hospital for medical care, waited there, and drove them back to Gaza; a proponent of peace between two peoples, Abraham's children. (No Schadenfreude here, no judgment of her.) and the two boys, sixteen and fourteen, were…just two boys who deserved to live. One boy, as he lay dying, asked to be buried with his surfboard.

I recall my dear friend, the poet Eliaz Cohen once taught me about the intense meaning of the unique Hebrew phrase, mishpachat shekulah, an orphaned family. This applies to those families who have lost a son or nephew or father in the wars. Eliaz and his red-haired brother had such an uncle who fell in ’48. Well, the mourning of the mishpachat shekulah, is like an India ink stain spreading on a glistening white linen tablecloth. It spreads wide with time. The center is black as hell, the edges begin to fade. But, the stains the family saying of the dead eighteen-year-old: Now, he would have graduated University, now he would have married, now his first child and now and now and now. Never-ending now’s.

Why, you rightly ask (or in the French, demander), why have I taken so long to write about these one hundred slaughtered? Waited past the end of this trip. Keep forgetting to write this. Until I spoke with Gal Meiri, a physician in Soroka Hospital in the ER on October 7th. More on him later. But, his memories and feelings evoke an avalanche of feeling and memory.

On the stone matzevot, tombstones, all dated with the same death date, Jews place small stones, a ritual you may recall from Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, the true survivors lined up and each gently placing a stone on Schindler’s tomb. I hesitate. I recall that on David Ben Gurion’s tomb, overlooking the barren wilderness of Zin. You may recall Zin, where Moshe kept the Jews wandering for forty years so that the slavish Jews of Egypt would die out and a new generation of stronger Jews, Jews who never knew slavery would better be able to settle this land of milk and honey. On Ben Gurion’s tomb was nothing…no stones. I looked again and saw that the stones of visitors were at the tomb’s side, between David and his wife Paula, as if not to deface the tombstone.

So, I hesitate to deface the Even family’s tombstones, all four. (And what of the two surviving children, will their hearts turn to stone?)

But, more difficult to write, is that I hesitate for Elhanon and others to see the silent tears flowing on my cheeks. No sobs. No histrionics. But unstoppable tears. As if, as if what? To irrigate this barren ground. As if, as if to wash away this heart’s deep sadness, these losses. Tears that stream like the winter floods in the wadi Zin, carving it deeper. Carving my cheeks, carving my heart.

We have wandered for two millennia. new generations have sprouted in this hostile land. When can we live in our promised land without being slaughtered?

This India ink stain on linen begins to spread with the dead of Kibbutz Be’eri. Now, I am their family, their linen remnant. Those around me at the too numerous graves. The children of Israel. Jews of the world. We are stained by their deaths and the stain will spread, perhaps fade, but spread with the years.