I was going to do a scathing review of the new
report by Lean In & McKenzie but given the events
of last Saturday this seemed inappropriate.
Through out history people have taken stands
against antisemitism and good people have come
to the aid of Jews all over the world.
On facebook I said "if I am not safe in my pew you
are not safe in yours"
Since then many of you have posted and sent me
your thoughts and your feelings about this.
Your comments and feelings have helped me and
my family immensely.
As you can imagine as soon as we could we called
both of our sons and our daughter in law.
Charlie said it has made him identify more as a Jew
and that he is following the example of the
people of Israel to continue his life as planned
so as not to let a domestic terrorist win.
Megan, our daughter in law, said "it takes seconds
to create a wound and years to heal from it. We
have a very long road ahead."
Both of them are right. We Jews cannot ever allow
any terrorism against us or others to stop us
from our very full lives. Nor can we allow it
to stop us from helping oppressed people
in the world.
On the other hand it will be a "very long road ahead."
This e-mail from a Women Moving Forward®
graduate has helped me heal and I hope it
will speak to you as well.
In the middle of the din and fear and anquish
Marygrace Horner gave me a gift and now I pass it along to you:
"Susan, I have been thinking about you since yesterday. I want to share this story that I just posted to Facebook:
Early in the 20
th
century parts of Poland were under Russian rule. The people responded with riots, protests, and strikes. To deal with the threatened revolution, troops were being sent in.
Catherine's family wanted to get their 16 year old daughter far away before the Russian army came through.
They wanted to send her to America but could not without a sponsor on the other end. So they sent her to England. I don't know how long she was there or where she stayed. But finally she was connected with a family in Bloomfield New Jersey who hired her as domestic help. They were Jewish. By all accounts they treated her wonderfully and stayed in contact after she finished her contract and married.
I only learned this story a couple of years ago. Catherine was my great grandmother. She had five children and each of them had several children and so on. So a lot of people were blessed by this Jewish dentist and his family.
I don't know the name of this family but they had a very significant place in my family's history.
So, my non-Jewish family is in the US because 100 years ago a Jewish family accepted a Catholic teenager fleeing violence into their home.
And yesterday someone shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh. How dare he.
I'm not really sure why I am sharing this. But year by year I recognize how PRIVILEGED I was to grow up in a part of the country with lots of Jews. I am at a loss as to where this individual's thought process came from.
I want to offer my support to the many Jews I have known during my life. This is a really sad time.
"
Marygrace Horner
