Living in the Atlanta Jewish community, we’re blessed to have access to the incredible services of the Consulate General of Israel Southeast USA. Whenever we need anything at all, we make one phone call or email and it magically happens. The Consul General, Anat Sultan-Dadon, and her staff have been so incredible to OVS and the broader Jewish community. We’ve had the Consul General at numerous programs, and when she was unavailable, they sent other high placed officials to join us.
As Jews, we recognize from our earliest memories that our experiences in America are not the same as those of our non-Jewish neighbors. We recognize the risks we take when wearing Jewish identifying jewelry that no one wearing a cross would deal with. We know what it means to show up to a synagogue or Jewish institution and wait to be buzzed in or go through security screening. The same is seldom true of our non-Jewish neighbors. We know what it means to forego many items in our institutional budgets because of the excessive costs of security we must have. I’ll again assert that few of our neighbors and their organizations deal with this in their budgeting process. To be a Jew is a gift and it’s also a constant realization that the age-old hatred called antisemitism is, has always been, and will likely always be, part of our national experience.
Last night before going to bed, I was sitting at my computer trying to figure out an article for this week. I went to a news website to clear my head and there was the report that there had been a shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum. As the hours moved on, we learned the two victims had been murdered at close range. As the hours moved on, we learned the two victims were staff members of the Israeli Embassy. As the hours moved on, we also learned they were a couple, preparing to build a life together beginning with an upcoming trip to Jerusalem to get engaged. As the hours moved on, we learned the name of the murderer who came from Chicago to kill Jews. As the hours moved on we found out he waited for police to arrive while he was being comforted by the unknowing attendees of the event and when the police arrived he admitted to being the shooter and that he did it for Gaza and Free Palestine.
We’ve all attended events with staff members from our local consulate. We’ve walked through the security. We have all shaken hands. We always know that security is not just there as some sort of prop, but are there to protect since we are all targets. The security that’s present is there because our world has been unable to shake its oldest hatred. It’s been unable to come to terms with the Jewish people having its own country in our ancestral homeland. The world has yet to be able to come to terms with our people who refuse to accept the world as it is and demand that it be better.
As the hours will move on, they’ll turn into days and those days will turn to weeks, and then months, and then years. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim won’t be here with us as that time moves on. They won’t be able to marry, they won’t have children, and they won’t watch those children grow up. Their families will grieve and mourn and wonder why. Their families will be inconsolable and they’ll demand answers. The world will move forward and Sarah and Yaron will tragically become a political fight. They’ll lose their personhood and become symbols of what hatred and violence has brought upon us. We all must know better. We all must know the people who work on our behalf as workers for the State of Israel. Each one of them is a person. Each one of them has a name. Each one of them is someone who’s bravely defending what we love.
May we never lose sight of who these beautiful people were and who they are. May we never accept the enemy’s false narrative that Israel is the evil murderer. May we never allow their hatred to move us from our mission of being a light unto the world and driving away darkness. And may we always hold on to the greatness of hope and never give into despair.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Hearshen
Weekly Service Times
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