I Miss You, My Brother

At the end of the road I see you, standing tall. Why are you fading?

From We Are Not Numbers

Mahmoud Alyazji

Gaza Strip

Mohammed and Mahmoud. Photo provided by Mahmoud Alyuazjji

Before I sleep, I have this image of your body under the rubble.  Then I pick up my phone and go to our photos.

Today, I ate ice cream. It’s been a long time since I did. I know you’re in a better place, but I wanted you here with me. I wanted to buy you the chocolate flavour that you liked; it would be my treat.

When coming from my exchange program in the United States, I wanted to bring you that Barcelona T-shirt you liked, and heavy winter gloves because your hands are always cold in the winter.

I’m trying to heal, my friend. I go for long runs. At the end of the road, I see you, standing tall. You don’t seem happy though. You’re making that face you used when complaining about your unhappy times.

Why are you fading? I’m coming. I’m running faster. I can hear your “Jadah ya Hoda  —  you’re a strong and great person, Hoda.” You always told me this.

Before I sleep, I have this image of your body under the rubble. It flashes into my mind and makes my heart sink. Then I pick up my phone and go to our photos. I look at you carrying the watermelon on the beach and smiling, in hopes it will wipe out the cruel image of your cold body buried under the rubble. But my chest is so tight. I am angry. I want to get on top of this world and scream loudly — loud enough for the whole world to hear me. I want to burst their ears. My scream would echo pain and draw a rainbow of blood.

Mohammed, did you die while holding your mom? Your mom used to cook for us and insisted that we eat. Or in your dad’s arms? The last time we had a barbecue together, he taught me how to do it professionally and called you to take a picture of me doing it.

Last week I told my brother, Ahmed, about you. Ahmed mostly doesn’t cry, but I heard him sniffing down the phone. My mom cried, too. She remembers that you loved her mahashi. My whole family loved you, even my cat, Bsbs. You were our brother.

You were that friend who was always one call away, always helping and giving. A month before I left Gaza, you and the two Khalids would come to my house every day. I used to tell you jokingly to go home. “I’m travelling, not dying.” But you insisted on coming, and we would sit, talk, and joke while drinking tea and eating bzr (sunflower seeds).

When I video-called you online, you said, “Hoda, it doesn’t feel the same without you.” I said it was only a couple of months till I’d be back. I said we would go for shawarma and eat luqaimat. I never thought I would not see you again!

You made a special video before I left to tell me how much you would miss me. I’m looking at each image, tears running down my cheeks, heart burning, hands shaking as I write these words. I miss you, my brother.

I never thought I’d lose you like this. I’ll never forget that you and your family were killed by an Israeli airstrike while you were sheltering under your grandfather’s roof.

I want to reach you. I want to see you, my friend, so bad. I want to give you one last hug.

I’ll miss you calling me for a walk just to talk and talk. I never thought twice before telling you anything, and I am sure you didn’t either. I’ll miss you in my classes. I remember the countless times we laughed, and nobody understood why but you and me. I’ll miss you showing me your wonderful translations. You were so talented and hard working. I’ll never forget your smile, dreams, voice, positivity, generosity, and kindness. You and your family were a second family to me.

I love you so much habibi Mohammed Zaher Hammo. I love you, and I’ll remember you until the day I die.

Allah Yerhamko – may you rest in peace.

Watch this essay in video. Read other tributes to Mohammed Zaher Hammo.

Mentor: Umi Sinha

‘...where ignorant armies clash by night…

I don’t really want to be part of the conversation around what’s happening in the Middle East. I don’t have to, actually. I’m not a public figure. I live in London. No one is after me. My relatives got out of Kiev two generations before I was born a Jew.

I go to sleep at night after yet another glance at the headlines, wondering what the score will be in the morning: how many dead will be Palestinian, how many Israeli. At times, it feels like watching a scorecard, bloodsoaked but distant. I check in with friends and relatives who have family in Israel. I text my Palestinian contacts, hoping to get through.But I’m having a hard time seeing this as a real event in real time. I’ve become inured to what’s reported to be real, what’s actually happening, what my opinion is supposed to be.

Mostly, I rage, filled with contempt for what Hamas has done and terrified at the vengeance Israel will exact. There are no winners. There are just dead people, enraged and bloodthirsty people, grieving people. And lest we forget, there are stupefying responses from world leader people.

If I follow the dominant narrative, there is no question as to how I am to respond: Israel must be defended at all costs. She is in danger from an enemy who will destroy her. Countries which dominate the world outperform one another by beating the drums for more munitions, more fightback, more revenge. There is little to no talk of restraint, to consider carefully how to respond and what it will mean to bomb innocent people in retaliation for terrible atrocities committed by a crazed, religio-fascist, Jew hating armed force.

What can I add to the conversation? I don’t know. I’m unwilling to root for the Israelis over the Palestinians. This is in no way to diminish the brutality of Hamas, an embodiment of masculine, blind, indiscriminate blood lust. Their world view places them, as men, in a position of dominance over anybody they see as weaker. There are no leavening influences, no feminine input to temper testosterone rage. They are as wild as men when they clubbed their first bear cub to death. That’s Hamas.

But what of my people, what of us Jews? Who are we in this combat? Alas, we are also filled with blood lust, our warriors ready to destroy first and ask questions later. It’s ironic that at this moment, much of the world is on ‘our’ side. Go, Jews. Ironic given our place in world history as expendable humans. Now it’s the Palestinians who are expendable. As we were vermin to the Nazis, they are animals to far too many of us.

The situation will change. It always does, as it has over centuries. Wars come and go; peoples come and go; the villains and the good guys change places. Jews and Palestinians have both been around a long time. Once upon a long time ago , they lived compatibly in surroundings near to one another. Perhaps they will find a way to do so again. But right now, it’s hard to see the cycle of violence receding.

…………

The title for these remarks is taken from Matthew Arnold's 19th century poem, Dover Beach. Below are selected stanzas.

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

....

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

...

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery;

...

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Rose Levinson is the founder and managing editor of Emerging Voices. Read more from her here

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Update on Rachel Jacobs’ Future Machine

Rachel Jacobs, a contributing editor to Emerging Voices, first wrote about Future Machine in March, 2020. She has contributed ongoing updates on her work as an artist, thinker, climate activist, and academic. You can read other posts at

Conversations on Crises

This latest update provides insight into where Rachel is now, mirroring both her optimism and her challenges in being part of the urgent conversation around climate change.

2023 has been an inspiring yet difficult year as I accompany Future Machine on its uphill climb into the future. The climate modelling at the heart of this project appears to have been proven right, even understated. The tipping points and uncertainties of climate change are happening sooner than expected. Now the sea ice in the polar regions is melting faster, and the Arctic and Antarctic are warming up more quickly. At times, the rise is 35 degrees above their average temperatures.

Meanwhile, in England 2023, we had both a heatwave and a drought in June. Then we were on the cooler side of the increasingly confused Gulf stream. In September, a heatwave returned. My mum recently found a diary entry from the 1970s, noting that 21 degrees was too hot to walk up mountains. Over the last few years, I have become used to walking in the mountains in 25 – 28 degree heat.

The world suffers fires, floods, unbearable heat, earthquakes. Despite all that is happening, Future Machine is having a quiet year. Funding and partnerships are increasingly hard to secure. Cuts to public funding indicate major changes in the way art and research is valued in England--very little. With all this in the background, Future Machine has continued its journey across England.

In February, a small cardboard Future Machine maquette went for a walk with my collaborators Juliet Robson and Glenn Bryant along the lanes of Rotherfield Peppard village as Winter turned to Spring, meeting villagers and a donkey along the way.

In April, the Nottingham local council did a brutal clearance of the shrubs and flowers that were our friends in Nottingham’s Christ Church Gardens, where we had worked with the local primary school after lockdown in 2020. Then ‘something amazing happened’. We met under the blossom trees, with a visit from Mr X, an artist from London who has been collaborating with Frank Abbott, my collaborator in Nottingham.

Mr X's amazing artwork on wheels appeared under the blossoming trees, the first time he and his work had been out of London. Alongside Future Machine and Mr X's appearance, Frank lit up the year 2023, beacons cut out of huge cardboard boxes. We ate samosas and drank tea and coffee as people spoke to the future via Future Machine and listened to messages from its past as we walked through the park.

On Saturday, November 11, Future Machine will celebrate the season in north London's Finsbury Park. All are welcome. For more information and to learn more about Rachel and her Future Machine, go here.

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