I went into Shabbat - as I am sure many of my colleagues did - hearing the first hints of the Paris terrorist attacks, and after Shabbat learned of their severity. Tomorrow I will walk into class and I do not want to simply pick up where I left off with my high school Navi class without making reference to the headlines that they are all aware of.
On the one hand, there are few direct links between what happened in Paris and the Jewish community. On the other, it is the same hatred that our brothers in Israel have been fighting for decades that has now reached out to murder dozens of people in Paris.
My Facebook feed is full of comparisons to terrorism in Israel. Everything ranging from cynically suggesting that France negotiate a "two state solution" with their Muslim minorities to questioning why Prime Minister Hollande threatened a merciless response, rather than a proportional one. And, of course, there were the voices that connected this with the recent EU decision to label Israeli products whose origin is "the occupied territories."
To tell the truth, I am somewhat sympathetic to these posts, but I think that at this time it is inappropriate to make political points when the victims are still bleeding.
So I am back to my original question: What do I say to my students, who are certainly aware of these events and probably want to discuss them in the context of a Jewish viewpoint?
My thanks for your input and suggestions,
Eliana
EF
