You are not alone if you begin to feel a little anxious when October rolls around. Many people experience year-end stress, whether because of looming deadlines at work, tax-related cut-off dates, anticipating a busy season of travel and social engagements, or simply the realization that another year is coming to a close and there’s not a lot of time left to check off items on the 2024 to-do list.
Kudos to the Jewish Community Center for stating a clear and thoughtful message regarding support for Israel. Rather than joining so many Jewish organizations by stating “We Stand With Israel,” its banner states: We Stand With The People of Israel.
Let’s face it — it’d be foolish to sum up the year 5784 with sentimentality. Many positive things occurred since last Rosh Hashanah, and it’s important not to dwell in pessimism, but I assume if we all condensed 5784 into one word, I wouldn’t be allowed to print it in this paper.
In my line of work, I see a lot of antisemitism.As the Jewish Community Relation Bureau | American Jewish Committee’s (JCRB|AJC) director of education and programs, I am likely more familiar than most with the history of antisemitism and various contemporary manifestations of it.
Resilience. Exhaustion. Pride. Sorrow.
These are some of the feelings I have in late September 2024, nearly a year after Oct. 7, 2023.
To each person who has lost sleep over the barrage of antisemitic words and actions these past weeks and months, feeling uncomfortably not okay at unacceptable acts happening near and far, this is for you.
After last Oct. 7, I was horrified watching the atrocities on the news and reading about how vulnerable Israel became.
This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with Hillel International, the world’s largest Jewish campus organization.
I’ve never felt more like a spy than when I was handed two folders of alien case files at the National Archives in Kansas City.
