Longing for hope, 30 years after the AMIA bombing killed my mother

Sitting in darkness, longing for hope

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the AMIA Bombing in Buenos Aires. In honor of my mother, Julia Susana Wolynski Kreiman, one of the 85 victims. 

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Earlier this year I visited Buenos Aires. I hadn’t been there in more than a decade, and I haven’t lived there in close to 30 years. I visited Barrio Once, the Jewish neighborhood where my mother’s old workplace once stood. The Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) remains the central organization of the Jewish community in Argentina, but the building is new. I walked around Calle Pasteur, the street where saplings – now grown tall – had been planted for each of the 85 people killed when the original building was bombed in 1994.

As I walked, searching for my mom’s tree, I looked at the faces of middle-aged women who walked by, fantasizing that I might spot her, still aged 48 — younger than I am now — strolling down the sidewalk. I imagined  she would meet me, recognize me, and embrace me in a hug. Instead I found her tree, and her name on the memorial plaque.

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Julia Susana Wolynski Kreiman was not only my mother; she was a dedicated wife, friend, educator and social worker. She loved her job leading  the employment office at AMIA, where she spent her days helping people find work. She’d often come home hungry after a full day, despite having brought her lunch. Many times, she’d have a client who hadn’t eaten in days, so she would share her food. In the evening, telling us about it over a meal at home, she always expressed gratitude for the blessings of her own life.

It is now 30 years since a Renault Traffic Van full of explosives was detonated in Pasteur 633. This act of antisemitism, the deadliest terrorist attack ever in Argentina, injured more than 300 people and turned a six-story building to rubble. I can still hear the voice of my friend yelling, “Claudia, volaron la AMIA, volaron la AMIA” (they blew up the AMIA), as I stood in my kitchen, holding the phone, trying to make sense of those words. That moment was the beginning of the most horrific period of my life. It took a week until my mother’s body was found. Seven days after the bombing, we buried her.

Her death was a turning point for me. I left the country, moving to Israel and eventually the United States. I became a rabbi and educator, an activist and pursuer of peace, dialogue and social justice. I had been heading in that direction, but the killing of my mom further shaped my values and my determination to live a meaningful and intentional life — a life dedicated to the belief that humans can do better, that violence and hatred are not the ways of the world.

From that moment, I committed myself to living joyfully and seeing light in the midst of darkness, beauty in the midst of ugliness. I vowed to respond to hatred not with more hatred, but with love and acts of lovingkindness.

Most importantly: I told myself to seek humanity even when it is hard to find.

Following Hamas’s deadly and brutal attacks on October 7th, seeking light, joy, and humanity has become much harder for me, and the clarity I once knew has been existentially shaken. The ongoing captivity of the hostages in Gaza, the enormous devastation, death, and humanitarian disaster in Gaza, the suffering of the Palestinian people, the dangerous extremism of the Israeli government, and the rise of antisemitism around the world has left me hopeless in ways I never before experienced. I struggle to believe there will be healing and peace and resolution. I struggle to see beauty in humanity, to be joyful and trust that we humans can do better, can be better. I have sat in darkness, with a broken heart, not knowing if there will be light.

Thirty years after the death of my mother, I no longer know what it means to miss her. I have learned to live with the void and the emptiness. Never having had a mom who knew my spouse or my daughters, or who knew me as a grown woman, a mother and a rabbi, I can’t imagine conversations with her or what it would be like to have her in my daily life. I don’t know what it means to miss her, but right now what I miss is hope. I desperately long for hope and the certainty that even in the midst of darkness, we will find the way, I will find a way.

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When you long for something, you don’t give up. Longing makes you keep going. It was longing for my mom that helped me continue finding meaning and joy in the midst of my mourning when I was 20 years old. Longing and a broken heart somehow lit the way to hope, to possibility, to love and beauty. Now I must learn again how to sit in the darkness and allow hope and light to rise. Somewhere deep inside, I still believe that humans can be and do better, that the world can be a beautiful place. As I commemorate 30 years since my mom left this world, I remind myself that I can persevere with a broken heart — indeed, it is the only way.