Nessa, at 95, has a question for me.
“What are you going to do about it?”
She’s talking about antisemitism.
That isn’t surprising. When Nessa was a girl, she lived in Warsaw, Poland. And because of Hitler she was moved, along with her dad, sister and mom and 400,000 other Jews, to the Warsaw ghetto. Only Nessa and her dad survived.
“The United States used to be magic,” Nessa says. “Now, it reminds me of 1938.” She isn’t worried for herself––she’s worried for me. For us. For everyone with plugged ears and averted eyes.
She asks a second time, loud for a woman her age: “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”
What indeed? The fact that we are the target of so much hate, generation after generation, defies logic.
Do I believe the world is capable of another Holocaust against the Jews? Yeah. I do.
The capability of evil cannot be ignored. Nessa deserves an answer––not just from me, but from us. If we cannot accept the present, we must respond to it. What am I going to do about it? What are you?
I answer Nessa with a promise to do the only thing I can: EVERYTHING in my power. I will speak up, speak out, activate, donate, lose sleep and build a strong community of protectors and supporters. And I will keep going until the world feels safe again.
We can’t assume the best, and God knows we can’t accept the worst.
Archie Gottesman is the co-founder of Jew Belong. wwwJewBelong.com
