I spent Sunday morning watching “Pourquoi Israël,” Claude Lanzmann’s 1972 achingly beautiful documentary about migration to the country during the hope-filled years that followed the Six-Day War in 1967.

It reminded me of what Israel meant to Jews before the Hamas attacks that began last week: a locus amoenus that offered safety and security despite the horrors of the past and the terrors of the future.

Those idealisms were shattered with the advent of “Israel’s 9/11,” as many Israelis have called it.

To my comrades who have chastised me for my support for Israel, please give me and people like me a moment to feel our grief for those who have died and continue to suffer — Israeli and Palestinian.

Please try to wrap your mind and heart around the fact that many of the Jews that have died in recent days looked like me. They talked and prayed like me. They lived and loved like me. Many of them grew up as my neighbors in urban Chicago where I was born and suburban California where I grew up.

Please know that I am fully aware of the plight of the Palestinian people and their oppression at the hands of my fellow Jews.

Please remember that the “original sin” of the post-1948-Arab-Israeli-War era doesn’t paint all Jews of the same stripe. Most of us weren’t even born when Palestinians were expelled from their homeland. Many of us have continued and will continue to speak out against subjugation and advocate for peace and dignity.

Please keep in mind that we are well aware of what is about to transpire in Gaza and the inhumanities that will be revealed.

But please, please, please also just let us be human beings who mourn the loss of life and hope.

May G-d bless all those who are suffering and continue to suffer in Israel and Gaza. Let us all pray for peace.