I Am The Outcry

I don’t know where to find the words, yet all I feel like doing is writing. Over the past couple of weeks we have cried together and seen hostages come home. It is the release of the bodies of the murdered hostages who are also coming home that has me torn up. Where is the outcry?

The incredibly brave men and women somehow with a strength stronger than any of us will ever have, survived in conditions that animals should not be in, made it back home and now have to go on without husbands, wives, and children. Families that were once whole, now have holes in their hearts and have to live lives that they did not ask for. Where is the outcry?

Where are people marching for them?  Where are people putting together protests for them? Where are the shouts so loud we can hear them through the streets for them? Where is the demand of justice for every victim of October 7th, the families, Israel, and to be honest all acts of anti-semitisim that takes place every day? Where is the outcry?

I forgot for a split second, there is no outcry because they are Jewish. We are Jewish. I am Jewish. I also thought we were human. Humans are supposed to be treated with dignity. A word that does not exist if you are Jewish. Humans are not supposed to be taken from their homes, from festivals, tortured, raped, chained up, starved, killed simply because they believe in something you do not. 

So I ask? If the world does not want to see then why have eyes? If the world does not want to feel, then why have a heart? If the world stays silent, then why have a voice? I can wrap my head around a world that is complex. It will always be filled with evil and good. We know that from the Torah. I will never be able to wrap my head around that evil has become the side so many gravitate towards. Senses have become skewed. Eyes have blinders, hearts are cold and voices are programmed. 

How can I remain hopeful?  אנחנו אחד  We are one. I believe in us. I believe our senses are aligned in a way that keeps our hope alive. It is the very core of who we are. With my eyes I see sadness, but I also see resilience. With my heart I feel heartbreak and the moments that keep it beating. My voice will never be silenced. It will speak for those that can’t and those that won’t. 

I am the outcry.