How to keep your heart tender
Publisher: Atlas Contact
A call for the radical middle in times of war
October 7, 2023, was the day the world changed for many people, including Natascha van Weezel. In her family, scarred by the Holocaust, Israel was always seen as a safe haven, a refuge in case things went wrong again in Europe. Now, she questions her love for the country under Netanyahu’s rule, and her heart bleeds for the many deaths in Gaza. In today’s polarized reality, you are almost forced to believe that those two things can’t go together, that you must choose either Israel or Palestine. Yet Natascha continues to seek a connecting position in the middle. That position between two fires comes at a cost: she encountered fierce anti-Semitism, received threats and lost friends.
In How to Keep Your Heart Tender she asks: Can choosing a middle position also be radical, a constructive force that contributes to improvement? For Natascha there is no other way: she remains hopeful and determined in her pursuit of mutual understanding, of the recognition of each other’s humanity, and she emphasizes the importance of tender forces in a harsh war.
‘In this overwhelmingly honest essay, the reader sees and experiences the Israel-Gaza conflict through the eyes of a brave, critical and sensitive young Jewish woman, who faces the complex issues with an open mind. After reading the courageous How to Keep Your Heart Tender, I would like to say to her: Please keep going, Natascha, continue your fight against ignorance, thoughtlessness, and polarization. You fight for the only hopeful thing we have left: the dialogue.’ – Chaja Polak, author of Letter in the Night
