From Pittsburgh to Colleyville and Beyond

I was recently speaking with a friend of my children. She grew up in Dubai, knowing little about the Jewish community.

After spending a lot of time (much of it on Shabbat) at our house, she commented about how much she learned and how our history of persecution came through (more frequently than we realized). Day to day we don't realize how our collective trauma comes through, even in well-adjusted families.

Although she was commenting on the ability and strength it takes to continue life positively while facing our history, it made me think about how antisemitism is ever-present.

I started this entry following the third yahrtzeit of the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. I stopped shortly after starting, not having the words for everything I was trying to process.

The Tree of Life attack took place on October 27, 2018. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in America. Exactly six months later, on April 27, 2019, a shooter walked into the Chabad in Poway, CA killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounding three others. Then two weeks ago, a man walked into Beth Israel in Colleyville, TX, allowed the rabbi to make him a cup of tea, and took Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others hostage. Full details are still to come, but it seems this man believed Jews could control America, so, Jews are the means to getting what you want. Even more so, he had Rabbi Cytron-Walker call Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, a rabbi in New York, to make it happen, implying that we somehow all know each other. Since Rabbis Cytron-Walker and Buchdahl both graduated from HUC-JIR, it was possible for Rabbi Cytron-Walker to reach out to Rabbi Buchdahl. Did the terrorist know that, or did he really think Jews all know each other? Did he know that Rabbi Buchdahl was a Reform rabbi who would use the phone on Shabbat? I wondered what might have happened if he wanted to call a Conservative or Orthodox rabbi who didn't check messages until after Shabbat.

In the aftermath of this, other events made national news. For eighteen years, a group has protested Israeli policies outside a synagogue on Shabbat mornings. For eighteen years, the city of Ann Arbor ignored the antisemitism inherent in what claimed to be political protests. Whatever one might believe or feel about Israeli policy, the act of choosing the synagogue on Shabbat mornings is antisemitic.   

Big moments affect us, like any major event. People will remember where they were when JFK was assassinated, when Reagen or John Lennon was shot, when the space shuttles exploded, or 9/11/01. We carry the trauma with us. The trauma of generations: slavery, expulsions, attacks, and murders. Most days, I don't realize I am touched by antisemitism, however clear it may be to others. But there are days it cannot be avoided. The yahrtzeit of the shooting at Tree of Life reignites my fear that a peer, friend, or student of mine or a friend of my children's might have been a victim froze my heart and does so each year. When I was a seminary student, Matt Eisenfeld and Sarah Ducker, fellow students, were killed by a terrorist's bomb. Though I didn't know them well, I am forever changed by their presence in my life. If you've never been to a Jewish funeral, we bury our own. That day we, their family, friends, and peers, buried our classmates with our own hands.

There is so much talk now, as there should be, of security for the future. This terrorist act, like Pittsburgh and Poway, will affect us. I cannot stop that. I can, however, choose how I change. Much like Rabbi Cytron-Walker, I refuse to be cowed. I have generations of those who came before who continued to act positively, who continued to be welcoming. Though there have been multiple attacks (three in five years), I will not allow this to change who I am. I will protect myself and my community. And, through it all, I will continue to be me. I hope others will walk this path with me.