Massacre of the Soul
Mural outside the Tops supermarket where the May 2022 massacre took place. (Photo: Steve Peraza)
It’s been more than a month since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In that month, I carried on with my day-to-day activities albeit with a heavy heart for the victims of the war. The officials and military combatants are not at the center of my thoughts and worries – the civilians are. Before the attacks, they bore the brunt of the war and terror in the region, and for decades after they will, too.
Traumatic memories
I have no context in my personal life for what Israelis and Palestinians are experiencing. What I do know personally is what happens in the aftermath of a massacre, because my town, Buffalo, New York, had a terrorist attack kill 10 people in 2022. You know what happens – nothing. The officials forget, the terrorist disappears, and people are left behind to pick up the pieces and to feel the un-ease of hatred and violence.
Images from a tour of the site of the May 2022 Tops supermarket massacre in Buffalo. (Photos: Steve Peraza)
This is the massacre of the soul, the spirit which loves life and mourns death. When the soul of a people dies in the violence of the time, what remains is anger and a desire for retribution. Killing the enemy becomes the only goal, and those who speak compassion or who express empathy for civilians in the crossfire become targets too. Peace is no longer in the realm of possibility; there may be calls for a “ceasefire,” but not for peace. Sometimes, folks in conflicts like the one that has Gaza in flames want to pause fighting only to find out who to kill next.
The scars that remain
Gaza is so far from Buffalo, yet news of the Hamas attack and the Israeli ethnic cleansing that followed it has hit home in scary ways. I have pacifist, non-confrontational friends screaming kill, kill, kill – kill everyone until the hostages return. I have other friends throwing up their hands, saying ‘what do you expect will happen to a colonial power’ with their heel on the neck of a colonized people? Then, I have friends from both sides of the conflict mourning because their family members are gone, dead, killed in an ongoing conflict that continues to massacre innocent people with no concern for the human and psychological costs of violent death.
Weave it into action!
It’s easy to feel helpless when reading about traumatic violence in the world. Here are some concrete steps you can take to turn your concern into action.
The City of Buffalo is soliciting designs for a permanent memorial. Buffalo residents can submit designs until December 1, 2023. See https://www.buffalony.gov/1609/514-Memorial-Commission.
Get involved with Jewish Voice for Peace-Buffalo or the Western NY Peace Center.
Contribute to the Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund.
In Buffalo, to this day, there are members of the East Side community who refuse to return to the one supermarket in their neighborhood knowing that a white nationalist terrorist went there and killed civilians indiscriminately in the name of white power. They would rather travel miles and miles out of their way for groceries – rather than relive the trauma of the Tops Massacre. Folks with whom I work and recreate in the East Side community are preparing for war, still, that is, making sure if another terrorist comes shooting, they will be ready to shoot back. It’s been two years, and Buffalonians, white and black, cannot stop the bleeding from a scar in their soul that was created by a terrorist attack stamped with the history of racism in the United States.
This morning, as I write, I mourn for the men, women, and children, Israeli and Palestinian alike, who will carry the hatred of these terrorist and genocidal acts into the future like my fellow Buffalonians have carried fear and anxiety since May 14, 2022. I don’t see peace any time soon. I don’t see a ceasefire either. All I see is the trauma that massacres the souls of the millions left mourning by the conflict.
