In an increasingly polarised world, political divides can feel like yawning chasms, with no common ground on which to find mutual understanding. Nowhere is this more true than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where the ossified opinions borne of intergenerational trauma are reinforced by closed information networks that prevent each side witnessing the suffering of the other. And since the horrific attack committed by Hamas on October 7 and the beginning of Israel’s brutal and bloody assault in response, the remaining space for nuance has been obliterated.
Yet Chaja Polak’s essay A Letter in the Night, written in the wake of October 7 and now in its fifth printing in her native Netherlands, seeks to bridge the gap and show the humanity on both sides of this seemingly intractable conflict. A Holocaust survivor, Polak has an intimate relationship with loss and violence and argues that empathy in the face of others’ suffering can and must replace the wish for revenge. A recognition of the pain and dislocation of the other is the only path to reconciliation and, ultimately, peace.