"From, To,"

This was a tough read. It's not a situation I'm familiar with, yet it's a topic that is on the foremost of everyone's minds, and it also is touchy in my personal situations. It's '"From, To," by David Bezmozgis, published in The New Yorker on April 6, 2025.

This is a story about Vadik, whose Russian-Jewish family immigrated to North America when he was a child. The story begins with him receiving a phone call from his Aunt to tell him that his mother had died in the summer after the October 7th attacks in Israel, while his 18 y.o daughter, Mila, is living in an encampment at her university, protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. His younger daughter 10 y.o Lily still lives at home.

It tells of his reactions after learning of his mother's death, and how he felt a tad at a loss, not knowing what to do first beyond calling Mila to come home and calling the funeral home to arrange for necessary retrieval and the traditional Jewish service the next day. He and his ex-wife Daniela had attended Hebrew school, but they opted not to extend that education to their two daughters. There were fraught emotions. All the unspoken disagreements hang in the air, between the words.

Once it is all done, he and his daughters pass between the ranks of those who remain, some of whom have enough Jewish education to recite the ancient benediction: “May the Almighty comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” He wonders what Mila makes of it, the many liturgical allusions to Israel and the Children of Israel. Does she number herself among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem?

The author explained his choice of the title of this story. He said,

The prosody of the slogan “From the river to the sea” activated the part of my brain that is compulsive about words, language, and meaning. The combination of the two prepositions—“from,” “to”—evoked something greater and more poignant. The prepositions, combined in this way, can be spatial or temporal or, for lack of a better word, interpersonal.

In an interview, the author speaks about ancestral and adversarial pain. He also decides to write from Vadik's perspectives, although he points out that there are other perspectives from Mila, and her younger sister Lily, and other people too. 

Vadik notes (though he can’t say it out loud) that it pains him that the painful past of his family doesn’t pain his daughter. Do you think that pain and trauma should be transmitted across generations? 

I think that ancestral knowledge should be transmitted across generations. Some of that knowledge includes pain and trauma. But I think what pains Vadik is that—in his estimation—Mila privileges adversarial pain over ancestral pain. And he believes that doing so will harm her people and her, too. It would be just as bad to use ancestral pain to justify hurting others—which is what Mila accuses Zionists (and him) of doing. The challenge is to not be dismissive of anyone’s pain. Neither masochistically nor sadistically. Again, the sparsely populated middle.

Mila's girlfriend Farah came to the funeral and the gathering too. Farah is the only Arab in a roomful of Jews. Vadik was thankful that the relatives spoke in Russian, and the younger girls couldn't understand it. Farah didn't wear a kaffiyeh, but she wore two buttons; one is a Palestinian flag and the other a rainbow.

Even without the buttons, Farah would attract attention. She is an Arab in a roomful of Jews. Not just Jews but Zionists, with the claws and fangs. If there is a hostility toward her, there is also a fear. Fear of this slight, young woman who has elected to come in a show of sympathy and respect. She should be the one to feel intimidated, and probably does. How little it takes for people to feel “unsafe”—that glib euphemistic construction. The opposite of safe is not unsafe, as the opposite of love is not unlove. What capacity is there for variation or dissent? It’s just a choice. Everything is a choice while you live. The only immutable thing is death. They are now under the shadow of its wings. It will last for only a brief time. Can they make anything good of it?

No real estate lawyers in the world could mitigate this dispute in Gaza. No lawyer or politician could negotiate a settlement. This issue affects every family. Vadik, his elders and his peers hold a certain line of thought. Mila obviously thinks differently and holds a different perception of '48 from Vadik. To him, it was impossible to carry on a conversation with his daughter about this 'conflict'. To Mila, her dad belonged to the impossible generation of bigots who advocate for war.

“It was basically zero. So here is the truth: the Jews of Europe would have traded places with the Palestinians of Gaza in a heartbeat and called it salvation.”

“Wow,” Mila exclaims. “That’s fucking gross.”

“Is it? What part?”

“The part where you’re O.K. with the killing, you’re just upset with the terminology.”

“There’s a lot of killing in the world.”

“This is being done by us.”

“Who is us? Are you part of us?”

“If that’s how you define us, then, no, I’m not.”

“Well, they’ll kill you anyway,” he says.