The Courage of Joy

Why the Saddest People Always Try Their Hardest to Make People Happy

Because when I came across this Robin William’s quote it struck me in the gut.

I felt like I could see this truth in his eyes. How his blue eyes crinkled when he smiled as if to say, “Just smile, at least you can be happy.” Who would have thought Robin Williams fought so hard for his own happiness. He lost the battle in the end, but he made millions laugh. Despite his own sadness he shared joy.

I relate to him. I am fighting for every smile. Yet, when I’m with people it is easy to smile. I want them to be happy.

It’s hard to be happy with the news. Why is it always on Shabbat — Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, the best day of the week (because my phone is off). I turned on my phone Saturday night to the news of 12 children killed in Madjal Shams in Northern Israel by a Hezbollah rocket. Druze children playing soccer. I watched a clip of the heart wrenching funeral procession, a little girl in the line of children holding flower wreathes weeping. unable to wipe her eyes because both hands were holding the wreathe. The strong line of men, arms linked, singing in Arabic, singing what, I don’t know, but it was strong. It was grief. I’m sure it was anger too.

How to respond?

I reach out for wisdom. I remember a quote of Turkish author and activist Elif Shafak, from a podcast episode I really loved (here if you want to listen too). I put it on Instagram. A warning.

Despite this wisdom I have to admit the world newspaper headlines leave me numb with fear. The boy’s grief leaves me numb with sorrow. Twelve Druze children and teens bombed on a soccer field leaves me numb to my bones.

All of Israel is reeling, numb, but we cannot afford to be numb. We cannot afford to be silent. We need to speak up against the Islamic Terror Regime, who in the name of Allah kill innocent people. Who in the name of Allah hide behind innocent civilians when Israel retaliates. As Mansor Ashkar an Israeli Druze activist blasts here on Instagram the Iranian Islamic Regime backed Hezbollah as the Faction of Satan - Hezzb-il-Shetan not what their name means Hezzbollah - Faction of Allah, because as Mansor asks, which God, which religion would celebrate the murdering of innocent children on a soccer field?

It’s hard to be happy when I receive the New York Times headline in my inbox on Monday and it reads:

Fears of war between Israel and Lebanon after a deadly strike

Western diplomats were scrambling to prevent a surge of fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border after a rocket from Lebanon killed at least 12 children and teenagers at a soccer field in an Israeli-controlled town on Saturday.

There is so much wrong with this headline and description. You have to read between the lines to understand that it was a Hezbollah (Hezzb-il-Shetan) terror attack which hit a Druze community in Israel. “Israel controlled” town? Why that language? Like the Druze are occupied by Israel? That somehow this rocket is also Israel’s fault.

We need to speak up against our journalist ‘truth tellers’ who bend the truth in support of terror organizations. If they believe in terror organizations like Hezbollah (Hezzb-il-Shetan) they should be up front about it. They should not relate very simple facts in an opaque fashion that makes one wonder who committed the deadly attack. Unprovoked, Hezzb-il-Shetan has been rocketing Israel since October 8, a proxy of the Iranian Islamic Regime. Last week a boy whose parents were killed in the North by rockets asked why Israel bombs the Houthis in Yemen when one man is killed by a Houthi drone in Tel Aviv. Why didn’t Israel respond when Hezzb-il-Shetan rockets murdered his parents in the North?

Let us remember the aim of terror is to steal joy. To steal normal life from every day people. Let us remember that there are over 100,000 displaced Israeli people from the North in their own country since October 7. What is the aim of The New York Times? The Washington Post headline was even worse. As if this Madjal Shams’ Arab Druze photo of terrible grief is in Lebanon and not Israel. Like it’s Israel’s fault.

For the sake of my joy sometimes I think it’s better for me not to read the news. It’s better for me to focus on interviewing Iraqi Jewish women who describe their childhoods in Iraq. A simpler time when the main means of communication was the radio and local gossip at the cafes over games of backgammon for men. For women, around the kitchen table.

Israelis know the cost of war, that is why we want to grow dove’s wings.

This week an injured small, young laughing dove appeared at my cafe. Its back wings were ruffled, its white inner feathers stood out, wounded, bleeding from the back. Like another bird had attacked it, or a cat. It perched on the wooden plank floor and just looked at me through its small black eyes. It held its beak up, defiant, “I am still alive.”

Twelve children aren’t alive. It was hard to sit and enjoy my coffee. I always said when a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate can’t lift my spirits anymore that is when I’m depressed.

I may be depressed.

I speak to my son on the front in Gaza.

I feel a bit more depressed. Although I need to rally my joy.

The week before I picked grapevine leaves from the community garden and blanched them, filled them with a mixture of chopped onion, parsley, roasted pine nuts, lemon, mint and soaked basmati rice, rolled them, and cooked them like my Iraqi Jewish grandmother did in a big saucepan layered with tomatoes and lemon underneath so it wouldn’t burn at the bottom. It took me a whole day. It staved off sadness.

We, parents of soldiers may feel sad, but we know what is at stake. We do not want the rest of the world to be sad. We do not want our children to be sad. We do not want the innocent people of Lebanon to suffer either under Hezzb-il-Shetan. We want the end of Islamic extremism, and their ideology of hellbent hate to destroy Israel, America, the West and establish an Islamic Caliphate. We know their God is not of moderate Muslims.

It’s when you are saddest that you realize how precious life is. My favorite sight is to see a young mother pushing a pram with a little girl skipping down our street. The little girl tells her mother that she saw a picture of herself once in a pram like the baby.

This made me think of all that is precious. Our children.

Once upon a time you were safe in a pram.

Or maybe you weren’t safe in a pram.

But you were a baby deserving of love and safety even if you didn’t get it.

One of the most hurtful blood libels against Israel is accused of is that it kills children. When pro-Israel peace activists lament the Druze children they are accused of ignoring the Gazan children. But Hamas is using them as human shields. Hamas is trying to amplify the numbers of Gazan dead for world sympathy and to vilify Israel. Every Gazan child who dies is on Hamas’s evil head and I weep for them too.

As a mother I don’t understand how mothers can allow their children to be educated to hate? How anyone could use women and children as human shields instead of doing everything, but everything to keep them safe?

These questions are hard. They steal joy. Just the way terrorism intends.

Yesterday I bumped into my neighbor walking her dog. She is worried. “Give me joy,” I feel she is asking me, as she says, with all the rockets she’s not coping with her daughter serving in the North in intelligence. I don’t have much joy to offer, but I rally, I rally all the faith I have. “We have no choice,” I say. “We need to defend our borders. We have to believe they will be safe, because being sad serves nobody, protects nobody.” I take my own advice I send my son serving in Gaza vibes of joy.

I feel my Iraqi Jewish grandmother who knew what it was to be a refugee, whispering in my bones, the way through frozen depression, “Joy, joy, joy, the answer is joy.”

The answer the saddest people already know.

Notes:

I loved sharing the Middle Eastern Jewish experience in this podcast conversation on The JW Show with my dear friend Joshua Washington, Executive Director of the institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI), and talented professional musician and composer - Here. And do subscribe to his wonderful Substack.

Israel Talks Podcast with Paushali Lass - I really enjoyed having this honest conversation about the Middle Eastern Jewish experience and living in Israel with speaker, author, and entrepreneur Paushali Lass. Paulina wrote:

“Through my interview with the lovely @sarahsassoonwriter I learnt so much about the Iraqi Jewish experience, the #Farhudpogrom , a mother’s coping mechanism with a son serving in the #idf and much more!

This is an especially important episode for those who want to learn more about the Jews of the #middleeast and for those who may have always heard that Arabs and Jews always lived in peaceful coexistence until the modern state of Israel was established!”

This is Not a Cholent Book Review - I’m so chuffed with this insightful review in Harif in the Harif blog Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab and Muslim Countries, by the wonderful Lyn Julius a leading Jewish Middle Eastern activist and the author of “Uprooted: How 3,000 Years of Jewish Civilisation in the Arab World Vanished Overnight” (highly recommended if you want to understand the Middle Eastern Jewish story).

Jewish Kids Book List - It was wonderful to see This is Not a Cholent on this book list of Jewish kids books that bring Jewish Joy in this wonderful article by Audrey Barbakoff - Here.

Wishing you a week of blessings. And yes I write this even as my friend messages me from Tel Aviv wondering if tonight will be a rocket filled one from Hezzb-il-Shetan.

And yes I don’t want to write about war anymore…

Sarah

For more about me and my writing visit my website www.sarahsassoon.com

To support my work please consider buying my children’s books, the award winning Shoham’s Bangle, and my latest This is Not a Cholent. My mission is to spread and educate about Jewish Middle Eastern culture.

Read my free online, award winning poetry collection, published by Harbor Review - This is Why We Don’t Look Back.

Note - My Substack will be fortnightly. Maybe more often…maybe less, I appreciate all comments, all conversations, and all sharing.

Further - All mistakes are proof that I am human, and this is not an AI publication.