“The Leaving” by Laura Nathan, textile artist
We respond to events through the filter of our life experiences, and our perception of reality.
One year ago, on October 7 in Israel, Jews were killed, tortured, taken hostage, men and women, young and old, children, more in number than at any time since the Holocaust.
Since then Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran circle Israel, sending drones and rockets raining down death over the 8,630 square miles (21,671 square km.) that is Israel.
In their response, Israel has wrought destruction on Palestinians in Gaza, attempting to root Hamas out of their tunnels and now in Lebanon, decimating Hezbollah leadership, bringing death to civilians.
We mourn the dead, we hold our breath, What will happen next with Iran? What about the nuclear option?
Here in Phoenix, I watch and ponder the endless suffering and the horror of a seemingly, unsolvable problem….
One day before the remembrance of October 7, 2023, a good friend, Amy Williams, landed in Tel Aviv to begin her residency, studying Jewish History at Yad Vashem.
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem | Photographer: Amy Williams
Already, there in Jerusalem she has discovered a Kindertransport list of 58 children that joined the train in Köln on the evening of Monday, July 24th, 1939, and she sees my name among them.
The list is from the Dutch archives because the Dutch government wanted to know which children were passing through their country on their way to Britain from Germany.
I look at my name on the list,
48. Zack, Johanna 18. 2. 32 Bonn 8814 Hosp. London
Again I face my own backstory, my parents, my aunts, close friends, our little Jewish community, the events leading to World War 2 and the devastation that followed and the responses of the world to the Jewish problem.
An email from Bernd, lands in my Inbox, he is a close German friend. Writing from Berlin,
…here in Germany we are dismayed that antisemitism again is on the increase also in our country. We have no excuses…I have had much contact with the Rabbi of…. he and his friends are facing more antagonism than ever before…
I read a couple of Opinion article in the New York Times.
How Oct. 7 Changed American Jews, tells the story of the day Abigail Fixel got back to her dorm room at Barnard College in New York and found a small Palestinian flag slapped onto her door frame, where her mezuza should have been.
Mezuza on my own wall.
A mezuzah holds a tiny handwritten scroll, beginning with the words,
Hear O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One. And thou shalt love the L-rd thy G-d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
from Deuteronomy 11:13-21
Then she found her mezuza, a symbol of Jewish faith, drowned in her sink.
The Year American Jews Woke Up.
Written by Bret Stephens, who is a descendant of a Holocaust Survivor, his mother came to the USA after World War 2.
He remembers the history of Jews in America and searches for answers to the rise of antisemitism today.
One sentence jumps off the page,
When people argue that education is the answer to bigotry, they often forget that bigotry is a moral failing, not an intellectual one—and few people are more dangerous than educated bigots.
I am reminded of the painful, questioning response to the current rise of worldwide antisemitism by a British historian and author focused on modern German history. He said, My life work has been based on the foundation that education will solve the problem of hatred…
Today, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, I look at my own heart and pray with the words of David, the Psalmist and King,
Search me O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 139
Holocaust Memorial Berlin | Photographer: Thomas Cogdell