“Be Safe”

Steven Tompkins, a man I don’t know, posted to Facebook this weekend that he and a delegation of “politically involved New Englanders” had arrived in Israel to meet with their Israeli counterparts to learn about each others’ political systems.  I learned that Mr. Tompkins is Sheriff (an elected position) of Suffolk County, which includes Boston.

Why did I see this post?

A friend of mine on Cape Cod is a friend of his, and so I was notified when she posted a reply, telling him that her friend (me), the former president of Cape Cod Community College, was also in Israel. More than 220 other people posted messages to this man, messages of encouragement and congratulations, cheering him on in his mission.

If you know Facebook, you know that this sort of interaction is quite common on the Facebook platform. So what struck me as remarkable about this one?

Of the 220+ replies, I would estimate that at least a third of them said, often among other words, “Be safe!” or variations thereof. That too is an interaction that is quite familiar to me. As I prepared to depart for my seven months at Tantur, my friends and family (too many of them to count) also said “Be safe!” and variations of it. Often they accompanied the sentiment with a promise to pray for me.

I came to understand these are expressions not only of caring for me, but also a signal that they believe Israel to be a place of uncertain safety. That people make the same comments to a man whose profession is public safety reaffirms my interpretation.

“Don’t worry,” I would reply, “I am safer there than in gun-crazed USA!”

Unfortunately my words turned out to be more prescient than I would ever want. Just in the two months since I came to Israel, the Las Vegas shooter killed dozens of people and injured hundreds more, and in a tiny town in Texas, a shooter killed 26 people as they prayed at their Sunday morning church service. And those are only the “big” ones that receive huge media attention. At the rate of gun deaths in the U.S. (more than 30,000 a year), another 5000 people, at least, have died by gun violence since I left the US in early September.

It’s interesting (in a macabre sort of way) to experience these incidents from afar. Over and over, I was asked by Israelis and Palestinians, and visitors here at Tantur from all over the world, “Why? Why does the US not do something, anything to stop this??”

I have no answer. By far, the US allows more guns in private hands than any other nation on Earth. By far, more gun deaths occur in the US than any other nation on Earth. It is a record that should shame us.

Some politicians and public officials rushed to say that the shooters in these two cases were mentally ill, and indeed they were. But the gun defenders offer this “excuse” as if we can’t prevent the mentally ill from “going off” on shooting sprees. First of all, this defames people with mental illness, the vast majority of whom are not violent at all. And second, it begs the question: mental illness exists in other countries too, yet they don’t have this shocking incidence of mass shootings, not even close.

We have to do better. The world is watching.

Author: kathleenschatzberg

I'm a writer, an educator -- 45 years in education, 35 of them in community colleges -- and a lifelong advocate for justice (community colleges are, in fact, instruments of social justice). I have always been passionate about learning, traveling, and understanding the world's religions and political systems. This "Crossroads" blog offers my reflections on living for 7 months as a volunteer at Tantur Ecumenical Institute. On a hill in Jerusalem, within sight of Bethlehem, Tantur hosts students, scholars, and seeker for interfaith engagement and theological and biblical study. View all posts by kathleenschatzberg