Tag Archives: October 7 attack

Remembering and Looking Forward 

7 Oct

The Anne Frank Center and Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim

When we drove from Asheville to Charleston, before the hurricane, friends of ours who live in Charleston suggested we stop at the Anne Frank Center located on the campus of the University of South Carolina. 

I never expected South Carolina would be the home of one of four Anne Frank Centers in the world, and the only one in the United States, in partnership with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  I contacted the Center before our trip and was able to make an appointment to tour the exhibits.

So today, on October 7, 2024, I feel that I must remember the distant past of Jew hatred as we mourn the one year anniversary of the vicious attack on Israel.

The Anne Frank House does an excellent job recreating the feeling of the hidden annex.  While touring the exhibit, visitors will enter a display of Anne Frank’s diary written in many languages on a wall of bookcases.  Not surprisingly one bookcase opens allowing visitors to enter a darkened room that helps tell the story of the Annex.  Having visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, I was amazed about how this small display harkens to the feelings I had in Amsterdam.

Besides the onsite programs, the Anne Frank House also offers traveling exhibits that can be sent across the USA.  They teach local high school or college students to serve as the guides to the 32-panel exhibit. I would love to see this exhibit in my home community!  Our tour at the Anne Frank Center was led by a college sophomore who was doing her first tour for us and her dad!  Emma did a great job. I could see that she related to the world of Anne.

Going to the Anne Frank Center and remembering her words of hope help me see hope in the situation that we have in the Middle East today.  There are good people who want this violence to stop.  Who want terrorists to end their campaign of hatred.  No one wants innocents, like Anne Frank, to suffer or die.  So I have to believe there will be peace.

My feelings of hope continued in Charleston where we visited the 275-year-old Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue, founded in 1749. It is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the United States. The current building dates from 1841, after a fire in 1838 destroyed the second building.

 Originally a Sephardic synagogue with the bima in the center and balconies above for the women, it changed in 1879, when the bima moved to the front and women joined men in siting for services. Later, after the earthquake of 1886, the balconies were destroyed and were not replaced.

Standing in a building that has housed a congregation since 1840, almost 190 years, and knowing that the congregation itself is 275 years old gives me hope. This congregation has survived the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WW1, WW2, antisemitism, the creation of the State of Israel, the rise of the alt right in the south, and more.  The fact that it continuous to be an active congregation gives me hope.

Today, I remember my feelings on October 7, 2023, when my daughter called me from Israel to say she and her husband were okay, but that the situation was very bad. The entire country was in shock.  Everyone knows someone who died.  For me, although I knew no one, I do know people who lost family members and friends.  The past cannot be forgotten. However with education, like that of the Anne Frank Center, and endurance like that of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, I believe we can look forward with hope to the future.

https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/education/partnerships_outreach/anne_frank/index.php

https://www.kkbe.org

https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/education/partnerships_outreach/anne_frank/index.php

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How A Mother Suffers

1 May

“How a mother suffers!” My mother would moan every so often when one of us got sick, or misbehaved, or had an accident.  Sometimes she would say it in jest when we were all teasing her.

How a mother suffers.  These are words that take on so many more nuances when your child lives in a war zone.  Or when your child is called up to serve in the military. Or when your child is hurting.  My mother-in-law would say, “You are only as happy as your most unhappy child.”  That is also true.

In the past two years I have gone from the highs of motherhood to the lows.  And as a mother I am suffering a bit.  I say a bit because I know there are parents who are suffering way more than I am.  There are mothers whose children are forced to fight for their country against terrorists.  There are mothers of children who are taken hostage and have not seen them for six months.  There are mothers of children in Gaza who have perished as Israel fights for its existence and Hamas refuses all negotiations, using the people of Gaza and the hostages as shields.  Forcing many more mothers to suffer.

My suffering is minor compared to theirs.  But it still resonates in my heart.  When I get off an airplane and turn my phone on to a multitude of messages, including one from my daughter saying, “We are fine. We are in our safe room (bomb shelter).”  When I see the news that Iran is bombarding Israel with 340 missiles, drones and bombs.  When I feel that rise of panic and bile in my throat because I honestly do not know if she is safe.

Too many times in the last 12 years I have woken up to the same message. “We are fine, we are in our safe room.”

Hamas has been targeting Israel with bombs all these years.  Every year, every month, 100s and 1000s of rockets. Because their aim is the total destruction of the state of Israel and the death of all Jews.  All Jews.   And when Hamas is not bombing from the south and west, then Hezbollah bombs from the north. And their rockets are move sophisticated.

Now I see college campuses with ignorant students calling out “We are Hamas. Free Palestine. All Zionists should die.”  Without ever mentioning the fact that Hamas started this war. That Hamas raped, murdered and brutalized 1000s of people. That Hamas took hostages. That Hamas send over 20,000 bombs into Israel. That Hamas does not really care about their own people feeling that they should be martyrs to the cause. Hamas leaders have actually said this! Definitely not mothers.

This mother, who has a master’s degree in journalism, suffers when she sees that the media does not report equally on what Israel has suffered giving more coverage to Gaza.  That the media uses information provided by Hamas to report on what is happening.  That they believe the lies of Hamas, which we have seen over and over again. And when found in a lie, then puts the truth buried on back pages and not the front pages where they put the lies. When they report what Hamas says and not what Israel says.  I find this type of media coverage despicable. And I wonder what happened in the world that the news is so biased. What happened to reporting equally on both sides and not putting personal opinion or bias in the reports.  There are members of the news media who turn my stomach, I can’t imagine why they are allowed on the air.  The BBC is one of these media outlets who actually fired some of their so-called reporters because of their biases.

I think of October 7 and the mothers that I know who really suffered.  I think of my daughter’s friend whose cousin was murdered at the Nova festival.  Three girls went together and only one survived.  The one who survived only did so because she hid under the bodies of the DEAD.  The last time Jewish people had to do that was in the Shoah.

How a mother suffers!  She suffers through the suffering of her children.  She suffers through the suffering of the mothers she knows.  She suffers from the callousness of others who say thoughtless words.

This mother is angry that any mother has to suffer.  But is also angry at the mothers who did not teach their college-age children about right and wrong.  Did not teach them that terrorist groups are not the heroes, they are the villains.  A sovereign country has a right to exist. And through all the suffering initiated by Hamas, we will survive. 

A mother suffers.   A mother is only as happy as her most unhappy child.  Many times a mother suffers in silence, not wanting their children to know how much they hurt and worry about them.  But this mother is strong, supportive and will survive and can speak out for what is right. 

 I say Israel has a right to exist.  Hamas is a terrorist group whose goal is destruction. No mother should have to suffer because Hamas/Hezbullah/Iran started a war. Anti Semitism is alive on college campuses and in the news media.  We all have to speak out. Enough is enough.

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