“No one leaves home

Unless home is the mouth of a shark”

These words, from the poem “Home” by British-Somali poet Warsan Shire, speak to the many stories we witnessed during our visit to the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year. We participated in a HIAS-organized delegation of clergy to the southern border with the goals of witnessing, experiencing and learning about the complex and complicated policies that define our immigration system.

We toured shelters on both sides of the border, participated in a border crossing, visited an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center and met some of the individuals doing heroic work to support refugees and asylum seekers and to provide a sense of humanity to the individuals maneuvering this impersonal and often inhumane process.

We heard from a 25-year-old mother of three, ages 9, 6 and 3, who trekked to Tijuana from Honduras. On the journey, her husband was shot and killed by gang members demanding money to cross a certain area. Even though he was killed months ago, she found out that his body was recovered and buried just 10 days before our meeting. She has been waiting for three months for an appointment to cross the border. As she shared with us through tears, she pushes on because she knows this is her one option for herself and her children. Home is the mouth of a shark — she can only move forward.

During our shelter visit, we learned that a dozen individuals left the shelter the previous evening with a coyote, an individual or group promising border passage and/or guidance on the journey to the border in exchange for exorbitant fees and often abuse and inhumane treatment on the journey. Some political leaders say that asylum seekers need more patience, but how much patience can one have when they have already been waiting months or years, experienced a harrowing journey, and believe that safety is just on the other side of a wall? They are willing to risk everything for this slim chance of a better life in our country. Keeping the border closed to asylum seekers has devastating human consequences.

Much of the rhetoric around immigration policy uses language of xenophobia, hatred and fear.

This Honduran mother represents one of millions of stories. Unfortunately, under current policies, she and her children are highly unlikely to gain entry into the United States. Her family, alongside the many, many others who seek to enter the United States through the southern border, find themselves in a difficult-to-navigate system that unfortunately has not changed significantly even when the leaders of our government change. We sat in immigration court listening to a judge spend 45 minutes explaining forms and deadlines to an asylum seeker from the Middle East. Even with our own English skills and education, we were incredibly confused. We can only imagine the experience of the young man attempting to navigate this system largely on his own.

While the Biden administration utilizes gentler language, many of this administration’s policies, as well as many proposals currently being discussed in Congress, do not expand or simplify pathways for being granted asylum or entering this country safely. As one of the HIAS staff members expressed to us, the immigration system should be orderly and predictable. The United States is capable of processing the asylum claims of individuals arriving at our border in a just, compassionate manner. We just need to decide it is our priority.

Much of the rhetoric around immigration policy uses language of xenophobia, hatred and fear. It forgets the individuals at the core of the story. It forgets that so many of us in America once were these migrants who are yearning for freedom. It forgets that our country is better not in spite of our immigrant history, but because of it. There’s no reason for us to politicize and demonize those fleeing for their lives when they enrich our communities.

Asylum is a Jewish issue, and not just because of deeply held values and millennia of historical displacement. Millions of Jews thrive today across the U.S., Israel and beyond because of the 1951 U.N. framework establishing the right to seek asylum (among other pathways) in direct response to what happened to Jews in the Holocaust.

Exodus 22:20, in addition to many other places in Torah, reminds us, “You shall not wrong nor oppress the ger, stranger, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.” We know what it means to be the ger — the stranger, the foreigner, the outsider — and we know what it means both when we feel welcomed and when we feel ostracized.

May our history and our present compel us to remember the humanity of all those who seek to cross the border, especially asylum seekers who particularly need our voices and our protection now. It is our story — we cannot sit this issue out.

Rabbi Mona Alfi (Congregation B’nai Israel, Sacramento)

Rabbi Julie Bressler (Temple Sinai, Oakland)

Rabbi Chaim Koritzinsky (Congregation Etz Chayim, Palo Alto)

Rabbi Jill Perlman (Temple Isaiah, Lafayette)

Rabbi Jeremy Simons (Congregation Bet Haverim, Davis)

This piece expresses the personal opinion of the authors, not of their congregations.

In the heart of Golden Gate Park is a charming lake with a boathouse. It’s well shaded and a favorite spot for birdwatchers, casual walkers and boaters. It’s called Stow Lake, named for noted antisemite William W. Stow, the speaker of the California State Assembly in 1855 who, among other things, called for a tax on Jews designed to drive them from the state.

Obviously, it’s overdue for a new name.

Myrna Melgar, who is Jewish, has been the loudest voice on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling for the lake’s name to be changed. The District 7 representative first learned about the issue when J. reported on it in 2019.

On June 1, the lake, built in 1893, will be one step closer to getting a new name when a community meeting will be held on Zoom at 6 p.m. to discuss the matter.

Back in October, the Board of Supervisors issued a resolution calling for the name to be changed; however, only the city’s Recreation and Park Commission has the power to rename the 12-acre doughnut-shaped lake.  The June 1 meeting will be the first of three public meetings the commission must hold in order to move forward.

On the agenda for these meetings, of course, is choosing a new name for the lake.

“Show up and make a suggestion for a new name,” Melgar urged her constituents in her latest email newsletter, noting that “Blue Heron Lake so far is the leading contender.”

That name would be appropriate. Great blue herons have been nesting at Stow Lake for 30 years, according to the organization San Francisco Nature Education, whose volunteers spend six Saturdays each spring helping visitors view the birds and their chicks. The final 2023 session will be tomorrow, on May 20.

So, J. readers — what do you think?

Is Blue Heron Lake the way to go?

Or maybe you would prefer the restorative justice approach, naming the lake for a Jewish official from California history?

Of course, some of our early community pillars are out; remember Julius Kahn, the anti-Asian early 20th-century Jewish lawmaker who no longer has a San Francisco playground named after him because of his support for the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act? Or San Francisco Mayor Adolph Sutro, whose famous baths were segregated, resulting in controversy surrounding his namesake elementary school?

How about naming it Voorsanger Lake, after Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger, the early Congregation Emanu-El rabbi who founded this venerable publication?

Maybe there’s a long-serving city parks official who could be recognized?

Or could it be a revenue opportunity for the city: Treat it like a stadium and crassly sell naming rights to a different corporation every few years? Salesforce Lake, anyone?

Let us know what you think Stow Lake’s new name should be by emailing me at david@jweekly.com. We’ll get back to you soon on the best suggestions we receive.

Sue Fishkoff has been very good for the Jews.

You won’t hear those words from her. In fact, retiring after 11 years as J.’s editor, Sue cannot bring herself to speak of her own accomplishments. She’ll talk around them, redirect and deflect. She’ll heap praise on the Jewish community and kudos on her staff. Anything to turn the spotlight away from herself.

It’s time to put an end to that modesty.

Sue came into the job on Sept. 1, 2011, with impressive credentials — JTA national correspondent, former Jerusalem Post reporter, speaker of French, Hebrew and Russian with a master’s degree in Soviet history, author of two highly regarded books on Jewish life, dynamic public speaker — and ready to embrace her new role in the trenches. “The Bay Area is where the Jewish future is,” she said at the time.

Those weren’t just flattering words — she believed them then, and believes them today. Sue has always been committed to making J. better, through the roller coaster that is Jewish journalism. She has refined the publication to engage more people, hired new talent and nurtured each person’s potential, and solidified J.’s position as a hub for Jewish life and record keeper of our history. All while upholding J.’s mission to “connect, enlighten and strengthen the multifaceted Jewish community.”

RELATED: Retiring J. editor Sue Fishkoff: ‘It’s been a wonderful ride’

And multifaceted it is. This makes the editor’s job all the more challenging — creating space for widely divergent points of view, listening to often competing voices; fairly representing the spectrum of Bay Area Jewish life, from Chochmat to Chabad, and making sure the community sees itself reflected back in J.’s content. Sue has done all that with equanimity and grace.

She is conversant with just about every Jewish issue, from education to social justice, from cultural trends to Israeli politics to synagogue life. Sue is also a fabulous writer with an innate curiosity, whether interviewing Jews huddling in a basement shelter in Ukraine in February, days after Russia attacked; or sitting down with an anti-Zionist Palestinian Israeli member of Knesset visiting the Bay Area. And she produced a sensitive, long-form article about a former 1970s camp director whose son accused him of sexual abuse.

She also authored many first-person essays on lighter topics, like the one about learning to play croquet in Florida, and she was J.’s official “Jeopardy!” beat writer whenever local contestants made it onto the show.

Sue has been a true leader during stressful times, most recently the pandemic. In an era of intense financial pressures, when newspapers have disappeared from the media landscape, she has been instrumental in making sure J. did not suffer that fate. She kept the newsroom on track and morale high.

In short, under Sue’s watch, J. has evolved into a more relevant, engaging, thoughtful and essential publication.

Sue is going out on a high, months after the launch of J.’s digitized archives (a cherished project she saw through by sheer force of nature), and weeks after J.’s newsroom won an astonishing 18 Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism. She has made a lasting mark. No one can argue with that, least of all Sue. She’d better not even try.

On March 11, J. broke the story that the Sierra Club had bowed to anti-Zionist pressure and had canceled its upcoming nature trips to Israel.

Almost immediately, friends of Israel sprang into action. And they did it the right way.

First, alerted by a mass email sent out to hundreds of Sierra Club trip leaders by outings committee volunteer chair Mary Owens, the news spread among club members. Messages began pouring into the group’s Oakland headquarters, excoriating the leadership for making such a misguided decision without input from stakeholders. In emails and on social media, members announced they were canceling their membership in the widely respected environmental advocacy organization.

Then a group of Bay Area Jewish organizations and elected state officials met with Sierra Club leadership on March 14 to express their concerns. As we reported, the club’s leaders listened, learned and decided to reverse course. Israel trips have been reinstated. An apology — of sorts — was issued, via a post on the website.

All is well. Almost.

First, this never should have happened.

A coalition of progressive and anti-Zionist groups was able to exert pressure on the environmental organization so as to convince some of its leaders that trips to the “apartheid” State of Israel were in contradiction with Sierra Club’s social justice values. And without fully investigating the matter, leadership canceled those trips “hastily,” in the organization’s own words. Not just canceled them, but literally erased Israel from the list of destinations on the website, reminiscent of maps where Israel does not appear.

Second, the written apology, while much appreciated, does not go far enough. It explains, and bemoans, the leadership’s lack of knowledge concerning the political realities in Israel and Palestine. Fair enough. But it also suggests that the Sierra Club’s business is environmental education and advocacy, not politics, as if that gets the leaders off the hook for their bad decision.

It doesn’t, any more than the International Olympic Committee should be let off the hook for permitting China to host the just-concluded Winter Games, on the grounds that sports are divorced from politics.

There is always a balance to be considered when following stated goals, be they environmental protection, excellence in sports, or anything else, while ensuring that social justice and human rights are not trampled in the process. This isn’t “politicization,” not if it’s done properly. It’s simply good judgment.

The Sierra Club’s reputation has suffered because of this incident. What is the compensation for the people booked on the Israel trip that should have departed this week? Will they, or anyone else, feel confident signing up for a club trip to Israel in the future? Will those members who have canceled their membership in the organization come back to support it?

More repair needs to be done. We encourage the Sierra Club leadership to continue mending these fences.

On Oct. 17, a couple got married in Davis. A typical wedding would not be cover-worthy news at J., but the couple who wed are members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, a community based in Dimona, Israel, with adherents around the world. J.’s editors saw the union of Micael Ben Shaleahk and Aminah Ha Rofah as a unique opportunity to provide a glimpse inside a “Jewish adjacent” community that many may not be familiar with.

Yet some readers found our coverage of the wedding to be strange, even offensive. They protested that Hebrew Israelites are antisemitic, that they are non-Jewish cultural appropriators who are trying to “erase” halachic Jews by claiming descent from the ancient Israelites — and that, therefore, we should not write about them. One person commented on Facebook, “I don’t understand why you would glorify a cult with an antisemtic reputation for a Jewish mag, a polygamous male-dominated cult no less.”

For over a decade, I’ve been researching and publishing articles about Hebrew Israelites in Jewish publications. I know this is a sensitive topic for Jewish readers, one that raises hard questions about identity, authenticity, race and communal boundaries. It is also a topic that requires readers to keep an open mind. There are extremists in the Hebrew Israelite movement, just as there are in every religious and spiritual movement, and unfortunately those extremists have largely shaped the public narrative about who Hebrew Israelites are and how they feel about Jews.

For the record: The African Hebrew Israelites — those who, like Micael and Aminah, follow the teachings of spiritual leader Ben Ammi Ben Israel — are not antisemitic, cultural-appropriating cultists who are trying to erase Jews. Most live in Israel, where their youth serve in the Israel Defense Forces. They attend Israeli schools and intermarry with Jews. They may have beliefs and customs such as the practice of polygamy that some Jews find uncomfortable or even repellent, but they are not trying to erase Jews or do us harm.

Meanwhile, Jews of color feel that coverage of Hebrew Israelites often comes at their expense. They grumble when the media shine a spotlight on Hebrew Israelites and ignore their stories and concerns. As UC Davis sociologist Bruce Haynes put it to me, “Normative Black Jews like [Forward editor] Robin Washington are not as sexy as Hebrew Israelites who curse at the Capitol Mall.”

Moreover, Jews of color already struggle to be accepted in Jewish spaces, and some argue that coverage of Hebrew Israelites in the Jewish press makes that process even more challenging because the groups can become conflated in people’s minds.

So why, given these fault lines, did we report on Micael and Aminah’s wedding? Because at J., we are tasked with exploring our Northern California Jewish community in all its complexity. It’s why we regularly write about Jews from every denomination, and no denomination. It’s why we have reported extensively on Karaite Jews, who have a community center in Daly City. And it’s why we cover non-Jewish religious communities that are connected to us in some way. For example, we recently wrote about a Messianic Jewish synagogue in Carmichael that was plastered with antisemitic flyers. We did so not because we accept Messianic Jews as being inside of our proverbial tent, but rather because as two small religious minorities in proximity to each other, we sometimes face similar challenges, from antisemites in particular.

The Bay Area is full of communities of people who follow different lifestyles and traditions. J. is a Jewish community newspaper, but Jews are not an island. In order to understand our place in the larger society to which we belong, we at J. believe it is important to understand the place of communities like ours, communities like the African Hebrew Israelites.

“The test of American unity is not that we should all believe, think and act alike, but that with our differences of tradition and outlook, we can still unite for the common cause of American service.”

That’s a quote from a 1924 sermon delivered by Rabbi Louis Newman of San Francisco Congregation Emanu-El, printed in this publication back when it was called the Emanu-El. Rabbi Newman was referring to the holiday of Thanksgiving, and his message of “unity with individuality” is as valid today as when it was first sent to the printing press 97 years ago. Nothing about 2021 suggests we have left behind fractious separation, and American Jews have always been concerned with how to be Americans, even on a holiday that descends from a Puritan tradition.

Or does it? Not according to a Sept. 18, 1896, editorial in this publication, which asked, “Where did the Puritans get their idea of Thanksgiving Day, unless it be from the Jewish feast of Tabernacles?” The same idea, that Thanksgiving was a rehash of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, was reiterated in 1930: “This is but one of the many instances where Israel has set an example which America has profitably followed.”

In other columns, however, the Bay Area’s Jewish newspaper avoided laying claim to this most American of American holidays. Giving, and giving back, is part of both the Jewish and the American ethos, enshrined in the Thanksgiving message. On Nov. 19, 1909, we recommended that “A good way of celebrating Thanksgiving is to give something to the poor or some worthy institution.” And in an article that combined the Jewish value of tzedakah with gratitude for our freedoms in America, on Nov. 7, 1941, just before the U.S. entered World War II, this paper reported on Jewish women planning to invite soldiers stationed at Moffett Field to their family Thanksgiving dinners.

RELATED: How Thanksgiving helped Jews carve out a piece of the American story

Continuing in the same vein and expanding on it, the Torah commentary during the week of Thanksgiving 1958 was written by Congregation Beth Sholom’s Rabbi Saul White, a former columnist for this paper. “When we lick our lips over the tidbits so lavishly served, and loosen our belts for greater comfort in eating, let us be mindful that at that moment two-thirds of the peoples of the earth are hungry for the basic necessities such as rice, bread and potatoes.” (He also went on to suggest that portion sizes at restaurants were too big.)

The venerable rabbi was probably right, but isn’t Thanksgiving also about having fun? And after the last year and a half, we deserve to loosen our belts a little (more). Why not follow the example of this 1897 Thanksgiving party that made our society page, back when that was often the first thing local readers would turn to.

Sounding a little wistful that he had not been invited, the society columnist wrote: “Other friends made their unexpected appearance and soon the spacious parlors resounded with the laughter and merrymaking of a jolly crowd … the amiable host and hostess conducted their guests to the dining hall where a sumptuous repast was awaiting them. The merry party broke up at a late hour.”

This year, let us keep in mind the sumptuous repast — both distant and recent — and celebrate with our families in a sensible, safe way, as experts are recommending. And let us be very, very grateful.

Covid infection rates are up. Covid infection rates are down. Now they are plateauing, but at a higher level than in the spring.

Vaccines protect us. But not really. We still need a booster. Or do we need to vaccinate everyone first, before anyone gets boosters?

Wear masks inside. Except where you don’t have to. Or should you anyway? Should you get on a plane? What about a bus or train?

Each time we think we have this Covid thing beat, or at least under control, something new pops up: the delta variant, other variants, new hot spots. Meanwhile, we struggle to get back to normal life, whatever that means.

Now it means life with Covid. We are no longer in crisis mode, trying to fend off the deadly virus with sword and shield. Now we have to learn how to live with it, maybe for a few years, maybe forever.

The Bay Area is in relatively good shape, experts say. But in California as a whole, new cases are on the increase, from a low of 5,000 per day to this past week’s rate of 6,000 a day. With winter’s colder weather approaching, more activities are moving indoors. The upcoming holiday season poses an even greater danger than last year, when many people canceled travel plans and large family dinners. This year, people are eager to be together after so much time apart.

RELATED: Herd immunity? ‘Not going to happen,’ says UCSF doctor

There will be infections. People will get sick. Some will die. Others will suffer the debilitating symptoms associated with long Covid, notably persistent fatigue, headaches, shortness of breath, weakness and the cognitive dysfunction that has come to be called “brain fog.” This thing is not going away.

Last week we interviewed Dr. Bob Wachter, head of medicine at UCSF. When we spoke with him a year ago, he urged a very cautious approach to keeping ourselves and others safe, erring on the side of strictness. Stay away from others, he advised, as much as you can.

Now it has become increasingly clear that we will be dealing with Covid for the long haul. Kids are back in school, offices are reopening, people are flocking to restaurants, concert halls and movie theaters again. The challenge for all of us is to decide what level of caution we want to adopt, not just for this month, but for the foreseeable future, so that we live our lives while remaining cognizant of the ever-present danger of infection.

Wachter calls it a “five-year plan,” and he suggests we all draw one up for ourselves.

His key piece of advice mirrors that of every responsible medical authority: Get vaccinated. Get your loved ones vaccinated. And get your booster, because “fully vaccinated” people are still getting breakthrough infections, and while symptoms may be milder and deaths more rare, it’s no fun getting Covid. Not at all.

Certainly, wear a mask when you are in a crowd, or all the time if you feel more comfortable with that; but the vaccine is the single most important step you can take, for yourself and your loved ones.

If you don’t have your own five-year plan, make one now.

In this week’s print edition, we feature a story about a complex kidney exchange that linked six donors and recipients across Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Performed with the help of technology developed by an Israeli-born professor at Stanford, the life-saving exchange would not have been possible without the signing of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between the two countries.

The story is an example of the transformational effects of liberalized relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, not only for the economies of each nation, but for information sharing that can save lives. It’s also evidence of the tremendous role California plays — in fields ranging from medical science to consumer technology to agriculture — in supercharging the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Israel.

The California-Israel partnership should be considered a global model for diplomatic ties that not only benefit the economies of each, but facilitate innovations that benefit the entire world.

Stanford is at the center of that partnership. According to a recent report, “Silicon Valley to Silicon Wadi: California’s Economic Ties to Israel,” commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Breakthrough Foundation, Stanford leads Bay Area universities in the number of Israeli professors conducting research through what’s known as the ScienceAbroad program. Stanford hosts approximately 70 Israeli researchers, the report said, working in fields ranging from health to artificial intelligence to data science.

Most people are aware of the ways Israeli technology has contributed to consumer products across the globe by way of Silicon Valley. Like the navigation company Waze, for example, which Google acquired for $1.2 billion in 2013, or the work done at Intel in Israel, the country’s largest technology company, which produces chips and processors relied on by the world’s most well-known tech companies, from Apple to Amazon.

But lesser known are partnerships in fields many of us don’t touch or see everyday. Such as water treatment and conservation, cybersecurity and agricultural technology.

Considering the similarities in their climates, California and Israel face similar challenges in conservation and environmental sustainability. And they use similar strategies, such as water desalination.

In Southern California, the Israeli company IDE operates the Carlsbad desalination plant, which produces 10 percent of the water used in San Diego County.

In the Central Valley, almond growers are relying upon technology from an Israeli company called BeeHero, which helps farmers detect problems and improve bee pollination by monitoring hives with sensors.

In the burgeoning field of cybersecurity, the Israeli company SentinelOne, now based in Mountain View, boasts 1,000 employees and was valued at over $1 billion when it went public earlier this year.

Throughout the state, just six Israeli companies employ nearly 5,000 Californians, the report found, and jobs boosted by their economic activity number nearly 10,000.

In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement to develop joint projects and conduct research mutually beneficial to California and Israel.

Today we are seeing some of the benefits.

We applaud such efforts. We also urge countries that remain resistant to establishing ties with Israel to think long and hard about what they might be missing, both in the way of economic development and by way of benefits from life-improving, or even life-saving, innovations.

The two-year battle over California’s ethnic studies curriculum is approaching an inflection point as Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Oct. 10 to sign, or veto, legislation requiring such a course. 

In the home stretch, Jewish groups are lining up on both sides of the argument. Vitriol is flying, and temperatures are rising. At issue in the latest version of the model curriculum is the fact that it does not have to be used. School districts can design or adopt whatever ethnic studies curriculum they choose, although the bill establishes several “guardrails” that aim to block bias in locally developed curricula.

An emotional response to a certain brand of anti-Israel ideology — including some of what has reared its head during the ethnic studies debate — is indeed warranted. There is no excuse for educators demonizing the Jewish state in high school classrooms, calling it a “white settler state” bent on expansion “by any means necessary,” or attacking Jewish institutions like the JCRC and the ADL. That’s what a breakaway group of ethnic studies educators is promoting for an alternative curriculum, and it must be opposed. 

And yet, sometimes the best response is to take a deep breath, and look at the big picture. To many Jews, demonizing Israel is an attack on our safety (and may simply be ahistorical). Some have painted our state’s ethnic studies debate as an existential one on which the lives of millions of Jews around the world depend. That is patently untrue. 

When we poke our heads out from the trenches and look at the world, what do we see? 

This week, the U.S. House voted by a count of 420 to 9 to fund Israel’s powerful missile defense system, the Iron Dome, to the tune of $1 billion. Rep. Nancy Pelosi called its success evidence of “the great unity in Congress on a bipartisan and bicameral basis for Israel’s security.” An even more lopsided victory in support of the funding, part of a larger military aid plan to Israel, was expected in the Senate.

Looking abroad, there is cause for optimism, too. Israel has a new governing coalition, an ideologically diverse one led by Naftali Bennett, that has opened high-level contacts with Palestinians that were verboten during the Netanyau era. In the past year Israel has normalized relations with Sunni Arab states that were, historically, bitter adversaries.

While acknowledging the ongoing threat posed by Iran and Iran-backed actors and, of course, by the Palestinian conflict, Israel is arguably more secure today than it has ever been in its 73-year history. No high school course in California is going to change that. 

We would do well to maintain our perspective within this debate, and to take stock of advocacy wins Jewish community groups have already achieved — like the removal of BDS from the model curriculum, and the addition of lessons on Jewish Americans. We will remain vigilant, of course, but must choose our battles carefully.

With wildfires raging across Northern California, the last U.S. troops pulling out of Afghanistan without being able to take thousands of at-risk Afghans with them, and Covid-19 keeping a tenacious and deadly grip on our nation, it seems somewhat tone deaf this week to say “Happy New Year.”

Nevertheless, at sundown on Sept. 6, Jews around the world will welcome in a brand new year, 5782. And how can we not wish, fervently, that it will be a good year, a shanah tovah?

What constitutes a good year? It doesn’t mean a year filled only with happiness. That is a fairy-tale version of what “good” means.

Does it mean a year in which good things outweigh the bad? That’s reductionist, and, more to the point, rather impossible to quantify.

From the perspective of Jewish tradition, one might say that a good year is a year devoted to doing good deeds. Doing mitzvahs. This is an idea worth exploring.

Let’s take the wildfires, which scientists attribute to several causes, chief among them being our ever-warming planet. Climate change is real, and it is exacerbated by human activities. It can also be mitigated by human effort. In this new year, doing good might involve taking steps to decrease our own contributions to climate change by, say, cutting down on our electricity usage or reducing our carbon footprint. We might get involved politically, pushing for legislation to help the environment. We might give tzedakah to groups doing that work.

Turning to the tragedy in Afghanistan, it’s too late, and not helpful, to complain about whether the exit and evacuation could have been handled better. That’s over now. The last U.S. military planes departed Kabul.
What we can do, however, is reach out to help the nearly 7,000 newly arrived Afghan refugees in our country. In the Bay Area, Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay and Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley have resettled nearly 100 Afghan refugees over the past month, people who feared being targeted by the Taliban had they stayed behind.

These organizations need volunteers, they need donated clothes and household items, but most of all they need money — some of it to keep their own operations going, but a lot of it to directly assist the new arrivals, in the form of gift cards the people can use to buy what they need. Helping a new immigrant settle in this country is a powerful way to make this year a good one.

When it comes to Covid, get vaccinated and wear a mask.

So, as an old year passes into history and a new one approaches, think of how you can make it a truly good one. A year filled with mitzvahs and making our world just a little better.

With all our heart, we at J. wish you a Shanah Tovah!

In a 1963 speech in Chicago attended by Martin Luther King Jr., theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously described racism as an “eye disease, a cancer of the soul … making us see the generality of race, but not the uniqueness of the human face.”

The two men met at that assemblage, and from then on, King embraced the Warsaw-born rabbi and writer as an ally in the civil rights movement, calling him “one of the truly great men” and a “great prophet.” In March 1965, they marched together from Selma to Montgomery in support of the constitutional right to vote in the face of racial injustice and segregation.

Heschel said afterward that it felt like his “legs were praying.”

Today many American Jews hold up Heschel as an example of a proud tradition of political activism against anti-Black and other forms of racism. In the summer of 2020, local rabbis continued that tradition by kneeling outside San Francisco City Hall, some wearing tallits and kippahs, during a public protest after the police murder of George Floyd.

But as a new national study commissioned by the Bay Area’s Jews of Color Initiative and released this month shows, American Jews still have plenty of work to do in our own synagogues, schools and community centers.

For us to live up to Heschel’s example, we must start with ourselves.

As J.’s culture editor Andrew Esensten reported last week, the new study found that  a vast majority of the more than 1,000 American Jews of color from across the country who filled out the online survey — 80 percent — said they had experienced some form of discrimination in Jewish spaces, be it “microaggressions” or “overt challenges” to their Jewish identities.

One respondent said she felt like she “stuck out” in her predominantly white Jewish community. Another said he felt compelled to keep his “defenses up” in mostly white spaces, preventing him from connecting spiritually as much as he would like. Another said she had to “compartmentalize” sides of herself in white-dominated Jewish places as a mixed Native American and Jewish woman.

Here in the Bay Area, we are lucky to have one of the most racially diverse Jewish communities in the world. And the news is not all bad. The survey also found high levels of connection to Jewish values among Jews of color, and it showed most respondents saying they still feel “a sense of belonging among white Jews.”

Even the existence of Bay Area–based organizations such as the Jews of Color Initiative and Be’chol Lashon (both JOC-led) shows progress, and there’s also a willingness from Jewish philanthropists to back diversity-supporting organizations. The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation took a positive step this summer by welcoming four Jews of color to its board of directors.

And yet clearly, work remains to be done.

Describing racism as an “eye disease,” Heschel said it produces strange symptoms; that those of other races, specifically Black Americans, are a “stranger to many souls.”

Based on the survey results, it’s clear that the American Jewish community is not inoculated against this disease — we feel, at times, like strangers to one another.

As a community, we must actively, not passively, embrace who we are as a people and take personal responsibility for welcoming, and including, Jews of color at every level of the Jewish collective.

As Heschel said, “the most practical thing is not to weep, but to act …”

The 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, which conclude this weekend, will be remembered by Jewish sports enthusiasts for many things. First, for taking place in 2021 after being delayed a year due to Covid, and for the mostly empty facilities where the events were held.

Second, they will be remembered for the powerful moment of silence during the opening ceremony in honor of the 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team (six coaches and five athletes) murdered at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich. For years, the International Olympic Committee rebuffed calls to pay tribute to the victims during an opening or closing ceremony, insinuating that it would detract from the pomp and circumstance. It seems to have taken a global pandemic, and an already subdued atmosphere in Tokyo, to change their minds. (Sadly, it was hard not to think about antisemitism during these Games, especially after the opening ceremony’s creative director, a Japanese comedian, was fired after it was revealed he made a Holocaust joke in the 1990s.)

Perhaps less memorable — though no less inspiring — were the accomplishments of Israeli and Jewish athletes from around the world. Israel won its second-ever gold medal, courtesy of men’s gymnast Artem Dolgopyat in the floor exercise competition. Meanwhile, Avishag Semberg, 19, won Israel’s first-ever medal in taekwondo (a bronze), and though Israel’s fearsome judokas stumbled in the individual judo competition, they showed their mettle in the team competition, taking bronze.

Jewish athletes from outside of Israel also medaled in kayak slalom and canoe slalom (Australian Jessica Fox) and gymnastics (Russian Lilia Akhaimova). And while the Israeli baseball team’s Cinderella story failed to end with the players standing on the podium — they were tabbed to possibly win a bronze but lost four of their five games — the team, including Bay Area products Joey Wagman and DJ Sharabi, still made us proud.

One of the best parts of the Olympics is the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood that it brings out in the competitors. A wonderful example was when the Iranian-born judoka Saeid Mollaei won a silver medal and dedicated it to Israel. The backstory: Mollaei fled Iran after his coaches forced him to throw a match to avoid facing Israel’s Sagi Muki in the final of the 2019 World Championships. Mollaei subsequently became friends with Muki, and he is now competing for Mongolia. “Thank you to Israel for the good energy,” he said after taking the silver. “I hope the Israelis are happy with this win.”

Despite those positive vibes, politics weren’t entirely absent from the judo competition, notably when Algerian Fethi Nourine withdrew from the Olympics rather than face Israeli judoka Tohar Butbul. He and his coach, who supported Nourine’s decision, should be barred from international competition. 

The Games also inadvertently highlighted internal Israeli social issues. After the Ukrainian-born Dolgopyat won his gold medal, his mother spoke out about how he is unable to marry his fiancée in Israel because only his father’s side of the family is Jewish. (Marriages in Israel are controlled by the Chief Rabbinate, which enforces strict Jewish law.) Hopefully his newfound fame will focus public attention — yet again — on this disastrous policy.

We hope, however, that the spirit of inclusion and fraternity that was on display overall in Tokyo pervades other aspects of life and reminds us how nations — people, really — can come together.

You’re deep in the frozen-food aisle, standing in front of a gleaming, 6-foot-tall freezer stocked with pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in devilishly enticing flavors. Next to them is an equal number of Häagen-Dazs pints.

Which do you choose? And does it depend on how you feel about Israeli policy in the West Bank?

The fervor surrounding the Vermont-based ice cream company’s decision to “end sales of our ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” starting in 2023 speaks to just how personal, and visceral, our food choices are.

What we buy says something about who we are and the values we support. This is particularly true for American Jews, whose food choices have been inseparable from our cultural and religious identities since the first appetizing store opened on the Lower East Side.

Food choices do get politicized. Look at last year’s hubbub over Goya, a billion-dollar producer of Latino food products. After the company’s CEO praised Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden, a battlefront opened up in the culture war, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisting she would be making her own Adobo from scratch, while Ivanka Trump posed holding a can of frijoles negros and tweeted, “If it’s Goya, it has to be good.”

Calls to boycott Sabra hummus pop up all the time, mainly on college campuses, where anti-Israel activists point out that it is co-owned by the Strauss Group, one of Israel’s largest food and beverage companies. Pro-Israel activists respond by asking supporters to consciously buy Israeli food products.

While one half of the country boycotts, the other half buycotts.

The Ben & Jerry’s decision has left Jews divided. Some tossed their pints in the trash, and several U.S. kosher grocery stores announced they would no longer sell the product. Meanwhile, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, defended the move, calling it in part “principled and rational.”

So, where does this leave us? In many ways, confused. Ben & Jerry’s brief statement, posted to its website on July 19, leaves more questions than it answers.

It does not make any demand, nor does it specify where the ice cream will disappear from, only “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” (Does that include Palestinian cities?)

It does not say how Ben & Jerry’s will continue to be sold within the Green Line after ending its decades-old relationship with its Israeli factory (“We will share an update on this as soon as we’re ready”). It doesn’t even say why it made the decision, only that selling its ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is “inconsistent with our values.”

And yet with those six sentences, Ben & Jerry’s planted a flag, a very uncertain flag, in one of the most knotty and, for many Jews, existential political debates of the last century. We wish they had thought a little harder before doing so.

There was a time when the only way to get Jewish news was by reading a Jewish newspaper.

Today, with broadcast news, streaming services and social-media platforms, that is no longer strictly the case — even though media reports on those platforms don’t look at Israel, or world Jewish affairs, from a Jewish perspective.

And sometimes, that is the perspective that Jewish readers want and need.

The most recent example is the horrendous tragedy in Surfside, Florida, where part of a residential building collapsed on June 24. Officials announced yesterday that they have given up hope of finding survivors.

The world media is reporting nonstop on the rescue and recovery efforts, as well as interviewing survivors and the families of the victims.

But there are particular Jewish angles to the disaster, as well.

More than 40 of the victims were Jewish: Who were those people, and what were their stories? What is the impact of this loss on the local congregations? The Israel Defense Forces sent in a rescue team: Why, when the majority of those buried in the rubble were not Jewish?

We have been giving you those Jewish angles to the story thanks to coverage from our partners in the national Jewish media. Both JTA and the Forward sent reporters to Surfside, and have made their material available to us for distribution to our readers.

That’s how it works for most Jewish news, be it national or global.

J. doesn’t have reporters on the ground in Israel or even in Florida, so we collect and curate news outside the Bay Area from our media partners.

But when it comes to local Jewish news, the only place you can find that is in J.

In recent days — and this week’s print edition — we have told you about a groundbreaking move by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation to diversify its board, we describe how JCCs and Moishe Houses are getting back on their feet, and how a new, Jewish adult-learning initiative is trying to fill the gap left by the dissolution of HaMaqom.

In culture news, we have given you an overview of the upcoming San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (including a weekend of in-person screenings at the Castro!), with more reviews to come, and kvell about the arrival of delights from Los Angeles’ famous Canter’s Deli on the Peninsula (takeout and delivery only).

And, of course, we provide spaces for your opinion, via letters and op-eds, and we bring you the only calendar of Bay Area Jewish events.

We think we are doing a pretty good job of it all. And the American Jewish Press Association agrees — it just handed us 19 Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism, the most we have ever won in a single year.

The best part of those awards is their variety: news, culture, commentary, advertisements, headline writing, personality profiles — the list goes on. And so many people had their work recognized, including several freelancers and every staff writer and editor in the newsroom.

We are a team, working together to bring you the Jewish news you want. And you are part of that team, through your subscriptions, your donations, your advertising, and your letters and opinion pieces.

We do it for you. And we couldn’t do it without you.

It’s time to say a Shehechiyanu.

The prayer helps mark time, take a beat and acknowledge milestones. It thanks God for giving us life, and for bringing us to the present moment.

After more than a year being cooped up in our homes and tied to our computer screens — one of our only sources of connection to the Jewish community — many of us are gradually peeking our heads out from our burrows and reengaging with the world. In person.

We got tested. We socially distanced. We wore masks. (We are still wearing masks.) We sheltered-in-place. We got vaccinated. And now, thanks to our collective efforts, and an unprecedented national investment in vaccine development and distribution, we can reap the benefits.

Shehechiyanu.

This is not to say that Covid-19 is behind us, or that its effects won’t be felt for years to come. In the United States alone, approximately 300 people are still dying each day from the disease, and more than 11,000 cases are being diagnosed daily.

Yet that represents an overwhelming drop from a high of more than 4,000 deaths and upwards of 250,000 cases per day earlier this year.

The Bay Area, with some of the highest vaccination rates in the country, has nearly stamped out the disease. On June 17, San Francisco County was reporting only about a dozen new Covid-19 cases per day and negligible deaths, while Alameda County was recording an average of one death per day.

Across the state, new cases and deaths have been falling steadily since mid-March. And on June 15, California finally reopened after well over a year of intermittent lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders.

Three days later, on a Friday, Congregation Sherith Israel, one of the largest synagogues in San Francisco, held its first in-person, indoor service since the pandemic began. Wearing masks, congregants embraced heartily inside the sanctuary. They had survived a great ordeal that was somehow both defined by loneliness and isolation, and yet completely shared.

The joys of coming together were perhaps no better expressed than by kids at Jewish summer camp, as they reunited for the first time in two years. Campers jumped into one another’s arms, danced and sang. They had a lot to catch up on, after overnight camps were shuttered last summer, many for the first time since their founding.

Ari Vared, the executive director of URJ Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, described the return to camp as “pure magic.”

As the Bay Area Jewish community grapples with a new, post-pandemic normal, it will require some experimentation, and some patience. Some congregations, such as Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, are taking it slow — finding online events sufficient, safer and more accessible, at least for now.

But as we begin to feel comfortable venturing out again, sharing a hug, or even experiencing the simple pleasure of sitting down inside a coffee shop, unmasked for the first time in over a year, a prayer, a meditation or a simple expression of gratitude is certainly in order.

The 11-day war between Hamas and Israel has ended, but the reverberations are being felt not just within Israel, where tensions in Arab-Jewish cities are still smoldering, but also in the Bay Area.

In the early days of the fighting last month, rallies in support of one side or the other were held in several local cities. They were relatively peaceful, although the pro-Palestinian rallies included anti-Israel slogans, some calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.

More alarming, along with the rallies came a big spike in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity; some 222 antisemitic incidents nationally were reported to the Anti-Defamation League between May 10 and May 23, an increase of 75 percent over the prior two weeks. Some of the incidents were local.

A Chabad preschool in San Francisco, for example, was vandalized with hateful graffiti on May 14, including the words “Death to Israil” (sic) on a wall where children could see it. And on June 6, antisemitic and anti-Israel graffiti was scrawled outside Manny’s café in San Francisco.

Moreover, the San Francisco teachers’ union passed a resolution on May 19 supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, and calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Two weeks later, anti-Israel protesters prevented an Israeli shipping company from unloading its cargo at the Port of Oakland.

This publication has reported on those incidents, but there have been many, many more. It’s clear that the Israel-Hamas conflict has invigorated anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred that has long been there, but now is coming to the surface and being given public expression.

It needs to be called out and resisted.

Speak out. Act righteously. Be proud to be Jewish.

Thankfully, our Jewish communal organizations have risen to the challenge without delay.

The regional office of the ADL and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council held a virtual, public debriefing on the Gaza conflict in which they discussed the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel and Israel-bashing. It was part of a national “Day of Action Against Antisemitism” organized by the ADL in Washington, D.C., which featured political leaders and celebrities, most of them not Jewish, denouncing anti-Jewish hatred.

Most recently, on June 4 the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, together with the JCRC, sent out a “call to action,” asking people to report antisemitic incidents, to speak out against the San Francisco teachers’ union resolution and to actively support anti-hate legislation in Sacramento.

We support this call.

Taking action and speaking out are the correct responses to these public expressions of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred. They don’t go away on their own.

We can do even more than that; we can set personal examples.

The JCRC’s Middle East director, Karen Stiller, suggested during the virtual forum that local Jews get more involved in local politics, show up at board meetings, and volunteer at food banks and homeless shelters. And, she said, we should do this “as a Jew — bring it all forward, your Jewish values and your Jewish identity.”

Speak out. Act righteously. Be proud to be Jewish.

This week’s print edition of J. includes our annual “Salute to Grads” section, featuring congratulatory ads from local Jewish schools and related stories. The section carries a special poignancy this year, particularly for high school seniors who were denied the usual experiences American teens look forward to — and look back on — from homecoming to prom to simply being with their peers in the classroom.

Some high schools, including Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto and Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco, did allow students back in the classroom for part of the year. But no one pretended it was the same as a “normal” year. Masks, distancing, restrictions on clubs and after-school events and myriad other safety measures ensured that.

Prom was a bust this year as well. The city of San Francisco declared a ban on “dancing in the traditional sense,” which meant no holding your partner close. High schools within the San Francisco Unified School District responded by canceling proms altogether, substituting other in-person events.

Other schools and cities responded differently. Notre Dame High School, an all-girls school in San Jose, held an outdoor “prom” for juniors and seniors at History Park San Jose, with dancing and lawn games and trolley rides, although students wore masks and couldn’t bring dates. Downtown Pleasanton opened its streets to graduating seniors from three local high schools; they were invited to stroll together in their gowns and tuxes. And at least one school, Lincoln High in San Jose, parents decided to throw their own prom for the new graduates.

None of it is the same. But students interviewed at some of these alternative events put a brave face on things. They smiled, they spoke about how happy they were to see each other again. They took selfies with their friends, they laughed and joked together.

Like last year, our Bay Area Jewish schools once again are holding creative graduation ceremonies, as we describe in our story this week. With more time to plan than in 2020, they want to make sure their middle-school and high-school graduates have a day to remember.

We also checked in with some students we featured last May as they were about to graduate, worried that their college or gap-year plans would be derailed. All of them managed to enjoy worthwhile experiences, either on campus, on a kibbutz or via social-action projects.

The optimism and can-do attitudes our young people are demonstrating is heartwarming. It’s been hard on them, we know. We salute you, class of 2021! May you go from strength to strength.

Weeks of protests and clashes in Jerusalem, missile strikes from Gaza and retaliations from Israel, and spasms of ethnic violence throughout the country led Israel to the brink of war.

Tensions first erupted in the Holy City. In the days leading up to the conflagration, while Israelis celebrated Jerusalem Day to mark Jewish control of the city since 1967, Palestinians protested Israeli legal proceedings to evict several families in East Jerusalem. Clashes ensued, including inside the holy al-Aksa mosque.

To those who live in Israel, every time the violence erupts it’s more of the same, albeit soul-crushing.

Jerusalem has been one of the world’s most volatile and most treasured cities for some 2,000 years. The present conflict over its control is part of that long history. The city will, of course, be a focal point of any future peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Agreement on its status has been put off time and again by both sides, shoved off to some “later date.” It’s increasingly clear that it cannot be put off much longer, not without more bloodshed.  

Since taking control of the Old City after the Six-Day War, Israel has, for the most part, administered Jerusalem fairly, allowing safe access to holy sites for Muslims and Christians. That’s why scenes of violence at al-Aksa were so jarring.

Some Israelis assert claim to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which Jordan occupied after the 1948 war. As Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King said, if “someone was squatting on your property, wouldn’t you have the right to take him from your property?”

The problem is, asserting claims to regions that fell into Arab hands in 1948 is a slippery slope and a dangerous precedent, as are Palestinian claims to land that has been part of Israel since 1948. Both present serious obstacles to peace. 

Violent extremists in Hamas present an equal or greater obstacle. In the face of rocket attacks from Gaza, launched by forces bent not on “reclaiming” land but destroying Israel, Israel has every right, and every responsibility, to defend itself. That is beyond question, and beyond qualification.

Jews have a strong historical claim to Jerusalem; the ties that connect us to the city are ancient and spiritually resonant. When we were once again able to pray at the Western Wall in 1967, it was not only a homecoming but a reunification with our origin story.

Unfortunately, however, there is an extreme nationalist faction in Israel, supported by some Jews in the diaspora, that celebrates Palestinian suffering and sees compromise as weakness.

Ultimately, the Old City of Jerusalem will have to be shared peacefully. 

Meanwhile, we support Israel in its struggle to defend its people, we mourn the casualties among Palestinians as well as Israelis — and we are relieved by the cease-fire.

Are you vaccinated? If so, you are in the majority. More than half of all Californians 16 and older are now fully or partially vaccinated, according to the state Department of Public Health; as of midweek, 30 percent had received their full vaccine doses against Covid-19. The numbers are significantly higher in the Bay Area.

So, are you vaccinated yet? And is everyone in your family also vaccinated?

We all know by now that masks are essential. Physical distancing, too. Staying away from people not in your household is an important safety step, as is proper ventilation of indoor spaces.

But as leaders of Bay Area Jewish institutions were informed in a recent Zoom session organized by the Jewish Community Federation, the only thing that guarantees protection from the deadly coronavirus is that jab — or two — in the arm.

As we reported last week, Dr. Bob Wachter of UCSF’s Department of Medicine provided advice and answers to those  looking to reopen agencies, JCCs, schools and synagogues safely. Will we be able to hold High Holiday services in our sanctuaries? Can we have a choir? Can we resume in-person visits with social service clients? When, how and how much?

There are no hard numbers on how safe or unsafe various practices are, Wachter said — communal singing, outdoor vs. indoor services, how many people can safely gather in a room, how much ventilation is required. It’s about assessing the risk and finding your comfort level.

If you’re a leader in the Jewish community, whether the CEO of an agency, a congregational rabbi or the president of your college Hillel, you want to take responsibility for yourself, your institution and your people.

Given that the only safe gatherings are those where everyone is fully vaccinated, how can we be sure that our Jewish communal spaces provide that measure of safety? Should there be a “vaccine passport,” written or digital proof of vaccination? The proposal has raised alarms among those who see parallels with the Nazi mandate that Jews identify themselves with a yellow star.

That argument needs to be put in its place right now. It is not the same, not even close. This isn’t about singling out an ethnic or religious group for persecution; it is about a community looking out for the health and well-being of every single person.

One staffer at a local synagogue who attended the Zoom session shared that some of her congregants are established “anti-vaxxers” who refuse to have their kids vaccinated against the usual childhood diseases. She is certain they will also refuse Covid-19 vaccines. So how can this congregation protect itself, she wondered, while still respecting individual rights?

As Wachter puts it, when a decision not to get vaccinated could lead to the transmission of a potentially fatal virus, that decision is no longer an individual one, it’s a communal one.

And the community has the right, and the obligation, to ask: Are you vaccinated?

Lockdown. Masks. Zoom. More Zoom.

Sitting at home. No going to school. No going to the office. No getting together with friends or family outside of your immediate household.

The restrictions of the past year have taken a toll on all of us. But as we report in our cover story this week, it’s been particularly tough on teenagers, who are at a critical stage in their emotional and social development and missing key milestones.

Teens aren’t doing the normal things teens do, from sports and other extracurriculars to socializing with their peers. Face-to-face interactions have been replaced by virtual ones almost exclusively, and while teens report positive feelings about connecting with friends via technology, the same can’t be said for how they experience online school. Being isolated in general is producing anxiety, depression, feelings of hopelessness and anger. One teen described it as a persistent “numbness.”

Experts who spoke with us said they’ve never seen anything like it. UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland reports twice the usual number of teens hospitalized for eating disorders, and a 75 percent increase in adolescents seeking urgent mental health services. A San Francisco clinic that offers free mental health help to young people has a waiting list for the first time. And those are just two examples.

Even with the good news about vaccinations and the promised lifting of lockdown restrictions, many teenagers can see only the day-to-day, and that hasn’t changed much if at all. They are still home, wearing masks, missing school and attending milestone events virtually that should be held in person. It’s no wonder they feel they’ve lost a year. They have.

In the coming months, our Jewish community, along with the rest of the country, will be dealing with the logistics of reopening. Two other stories in this issue examine aspects of that reopening — one looking at how synagogues are slowly resuming indoor worship, and another celebrating the return of in-person family visitation at our Jewish senior homes.

We’ve all experienced the pandemic differently,  depending on our age and stage of life. When life gets back to some semblance of normal, it’s not a given that we will quickly return to who we were a year ago. We are resilient, but we are also vulnerable. This is what our teens are telling us, and we are listening.