October's defining dates - comment

The first anniversary of the October 7 massacre has understandably and naturally completely eclipsed the 51st anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began on October 6.

The pain of one event – October 7, 2023 – is raw, exposed, and felt by the entire nation. Its ramifications are tremendous, and the aftershocks are potentially as great as the initial shock, still reverberating across the nation, the region, and the world.

On the other hand, October 6, the Yom Kippur War, happened over half a century ago.

The pain of that event is carried by those who fought in the war and those who lost a loved one. For them, the pain remains real but less searing – time has a way of dulling even the most intense hurt. For the rest of the nation, the event has largely receded into memory and history, as all moments – even the most dramatic – eventually do.

The back-to-back anniversaries – October 6 and October 7 – beg for comparison. Both were preceded by runaway Israeli hubris, intelligence meltdowns, over-dependence on physical barriers – the Bar-Lev Line in the Sinai, the barrier around Gaza – and stunning defeats in the initial hours.

Both were also marked by quick military reversals.

Yom Kippur War

In October 1973 the IDF reached the gates of Damascus and Cairo in three weeks. In October 2023, within three days, the IDF cleared the south of terrorist invaders and took the fight into Gaza. Within a year, Hamas, as a military force capable of another October 7-type raid, ceased to exist.

There are numerous comparisons to be made – and will be made down the line in books and scholarly articles – between the two dates and the two events: about accountability, or lack thereof; about taking responsibility, or not; about the power and limits of protests; about Israel’s standing in the world as a result of the crisis; about the impact events of this magnitude have on the country’s political landscape.

Another comparison worth keeping in mind, to put October 7 in some type of proportion, and perhaps help understand where Israeli society, so bruised and battered right now, will go from here, is to look at fatality rates.

Part of understanding the weight of these two events lies in the sheer human toll they exacted on the nation.

In 1973, the population of Israel stood at approximately 3.3 million people. Two thousand six hundred fifty-six soldiers were killed in that war, or about one Israeli for every 1,242. The number of soldiers killed in proportion to the size of the population, and the impact that loss had on the nation’s psychology, was astounding.

In addition, also weighing heavily on the nation’s psyche, 295 IDF soldiers were taken prisoner. Dozens of others were tortured and killed.

BY CONTRAST, just two weeks before October 7, 2023, Israel’s population stood at 9.8 million. Since then, 1,697 people have been killed – 885 civilians and 812 soldiers and security forces. The scale of civilian involvement in this tragedy is stark: 255 people were kidnapped, 91% of them civilians. A year later, 101 remain in captivity, with only half believed to still be alive.

The circumstances of the fatalities are completely different. All of those killed in the Yom Kippur War were soldiers, while more than half who have been killed since October 7 are civilians. Plus, there is no comparison between prisoners of war and civilian hostages – including babies in their mothers’ arms – kidnapped from their homes.

Yet the psychological impact on the country is the same – the mourning, the heaviness, the loss, the pain.

Comparing figures like this may seem callous, but it is not meant to be, nor intended in any way to minimize the nation’s horrible losses since October 7. It is meant only to put those losses in the wider context of Israel’s history.

Though it seems unfathomable, Israel has faced catastrophes of similar, even greater proportions in the past – the war that began 51 years ago on October 6 – and survived. Nationally, this offers some solace. Yet, for those who have lost loved ones since October 7, or have relatives languishing in Hamas’s dungeons, there is little personal consolation.

Not only did the country survive October 6 and the Yom Kippur War – and the nation was much smaller then, had far fewer resources and fewer friends around the world – but afterward, it was able to find its footing again, made peace with its greatest enemy at the time, and grew economically and militarily in ways few might have dreamed back then.

 October 6, 1973, marked the beginning of the Yom Kippur War – a conventional war. October 7, 2023, was a pogrom – a conventional pogrom, with medieval fervor: raping, mutilating, burning, looting, and everything associated with the worst pogroms in 20th-century Poland, 19th-century Russia, 14th-century Germany, and France.

On Monday, October 7, the nation is commemorating and mourning this latest pogrom. But that is not the end of the story.

October 7 was followed by October 8. October 7 was the pogrom. October 8 was the day after the pogrom. And here is where Jewish history took a twist into new territory.

In the past – before the Jews had a state – the day after a pogrom was marked by counting the dead, sweeping the streets clear of debris, burying the fallen, and wondering where to flee to somewhere safe.

On October 8, Israel counted the dead, began mopping up the terrorists, and buried the fallen – but then the Jews did something unprecedented in Jewish history: they responded to the pogrom with fierce might.

The Jewish state fought back with a fist of steel and tremendous force. It chased the enemy across the border and hunted the pogromists down in their holes, and it struck – and continues to strike – at anyone who lashes out.

October 7 was an all too familiar moment in Jewish history, a cruel flashback from the past. October 8 was unique.

On October 7, that – too – bears remembering.