No occupation can be enlightened

The article opens with a personal note about the Hebrew feminine form for God, saying writer and former Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Naomi Gal coined the word “Elohima” in the 1990s, first using it in her book “Lilith.” Gal explained that she chose that form, not “Elohima,” because motherhood is an important part of feminine divinity.

From there, the piece turns to Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and retells a Talmudic story about how his life was shaped by his father’s militancy. As a child, Elazar was fed by his mother while his father hid from the Romans and took the boy with him into a cave for 13 years. The author argues that this forced intimacy with his father made Elazar even more zealous and damaged his life.

The central talmudic episode describes Elazar later joining Roman authorities as a trapper of thieves. He devises a method for identifying criminals by watching who drinks wine and dozes in a shop around the fourth hour of the day. A Roman official adopts the method and appoints him to the job. When a laundroman calls him “vinegar son of wine,” Elazar has him arrested; the man is later hanged, and Elazar stands beneath the gallows and weeps. The article stresses that the story satirizes everyone involved, including Elazar, the Roman officer and the authorities.

The essay then links that ancient tale to the recent killing of Palestinian infant Sam Abu Heikal in Hebron. It says footage of the baby learning to walk, and his mother calling him “habibi,” made the loss unbearable. The writer notes that if a Jewish baby had been killed by a Palestinian, the media would have called it a murderous attack, but because the victim was Palestinian and the shooters were Israeli soldiers, the coverage used the word “killing” and added “by mistake.”

The article says the soldiers allegedly fired at a vehicle and, according to suspicion, none of them called for help. It warns against treating the case as only the fault of soldiers in the field, arguing that occupation itself corrupts, normalizes violence, and turns society into “moral zombies.” The conclusion is that there is no enlightened occupation and that both occupation and violence must end.