Broken-Hearted

April 21, 2020
Day 40

The moment I read that the Hillel House had been defaced with antisemitic graffiti on Holocaust Remembrance Day, just minutes after I had posted a photo of me and Aviva from last spring at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrace Center in Jerusalem, my need to walk over to see it myself was visceral. It was as if someone had died and I needed to bear witness, to be physically present to the scene of the crime.

I walked listening to Shir Yaakov, whose music connects me to my Jewish spirit like none other. At first, I didn’t see it. Then I noticed spots of red spray paint peeling out from behind a banner with an Anne Frank quote: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

I felt tears choking in my throat, a wave of nausea. I texted a photo to Mani. She responded that she felt sucker punched, the blow palpable between us.

I continued walking, taking a right up Butterfield Terrace, a steep hill, the setting sun at my back. And suddenly I could not walk another step. Just as the entire country of Israel stands in silence for an entire minute while the sirens wail on Yom HaShoah, so I stood, stock-still and weeping.

The slaughter of my people, the deaths of so many thousands in recent weeks alone, the staggering loss of life, the rising up of hatred and violence against Jews, against Asian-Americans, the way communities of color are once again the hardest hit by public health crises, all of it came pouring out. There was no stopping it.

So I just stood there, sobbing in the way I did in the children’s room at Yad Vashem, barely able to breathe.

Time does not move linearly; it bends back over itself; it twists and tangles around our beating hearts; it does not let us forget who we are, where we came from, or how precious this very life breath is, each and every one. Time haunts and hunts and heals.

When I finally opened my eyes, I looked at my phone and saw that the song I’d be listening to was called "Broken-hearted," Psalm 147 set to music.

Healer of the broken-hearted
Binder of our wounds
Counter of uncountable stars
You know who we are

The sun was hitting the newly budding leaves in such a way that they looked almost neon. The cool air moved across my face. I knew in that moment I could never take a single day for granted, a day of wearing my Star of David proudly, a day of singing psalms, of grieving, of raising children who know their ancestors sing through them, of remembering my place in this ancient chain of survival.

To those who think they can silence us, know this: Our love, our faith, and the fury and fierceness of our broken hearts will always rise above your pitiful, shallow, hateful beliefs.

We are strong because we’ve been broken, and we are many, and we are not going anywhere.