Showing Up and Standing Strong
On Sunday morning, I awoke from a deep, spring-forward, slumber to the radio on my Sony Dream Machine. Though a little discolored, it has been my trusted alarm- clock since I received it as a Bat Mitzvah gift in 1983. I awoke to the alarming news that more JCCs had received a new wave of bomb threats.
Suddenly, I was transported to a 2014 conversation my husband and I had with a French couple while we were in Israel. The couple explained how anti-Semitism in France, including acts targeted at Jewish schools, impacted the couple’s decision to move to Israel.
As we listened to their hardship of moving to a foreign country, leaving others behind and learning a new language, I glanced at my own children and felt fortunate to live in America, where we felt safe and free to practice Judaism.
It has been two years since we met that French couple in Tel Aviv and in the past two months over 100 threats to Jewish Community Centers, Jewish schools and acts of vandalism to other Jewish establishments have occurred here, in America. Like the alarming news which literally awoke me on Sunday, perhaps we are all waking up to a “real problem” which, until now, many of us have not experienced.
At times, I feel unsettled, concerned and powerless and I wonder, what can I possibly do? However, I recently discovered that together, we can take a stand against hate by just showing up.
The JCC has always been an important part of my life. Just last week, I discovered a cookbook that I made as a child at a JCC cooking class in Cleveland, Ohio. As a child, I attended JCC Day Camps and as a teen and young adult I worked-out at JCC fitness centers. Leotards, leg-warmers and step-aerobics in the 80s. Cut-off T’s, mesh shorts and a Sony discman in the 90’s. Sound familiar?
Decades later, I brought my children to the J for mommy and me classes, swim lessons, and summer camps. The J has always been there my family, there is no better time than now to be there for the J.
JCC Chicago offers high quality programing open and available to everyone. In addition to its preschools, summer camps, enrichment classes for all ages and the brand new, state-of-the-art fitness center, the J offers Jewish arts and culture. This week happens to be the 4th annual JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival. When we attend even one of the 25 films, we not only demonstrate support for the JCC and the Jewish community, but, together, we stand strong against hate.
As I reflect upon a particularly Jewish and busy weekend which included lighting Shabbat candles, attending a Bat Mitzvah, a Jewish film and a Purim party, I realize that by showing up and connecting to the Jewish community in ways that we find meaningful, we are not without power.