I’ve allowed myself to wrestle with a number of half finished posts for a while. Today the news has me so overcome with sadness that I have no choice but to post something. Earlier today, an anti-Semitic terrorist burst into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shouted “death to all Jews” before gunning 10 people down, all on a Shabbat morning.
All of this happened after an especially tough week, one in which an old friend became horribly sick and home just seemed too far away again.
It could have been my family today.
I’ve spent the last two years digging deep into my ancestry, uncovering the towns from whence my great great grandparents came. They escaped the pogroms of Russia and Poland only to create the seeds of a better life here in America. Now it feels like we’re right back where they started.
We were already dealing with the boys having to grow up with drills in school in the case of active shooters. Now they need to learn that there are people who simply want to kill Jews wherever they are. How did we get back to this place?