Our children, Our Worry: A Shared Jewish Story
Friday mornings in Israel have a meaning rarely understood by the outside world.
The front door opens, and there they are. A duffel bag slung over a shoulder. An army uniform slightly wrinkled from the journey home. A little thinner than when they left. A little older. A little more tired.
In that instant, you exhale.
This weekend, my niece and nephew came home from base. My own children are grown now, but when you help raise your baby sisters and watch them build families of their own, the children become more than nieces and nephews. They become extensions of your heart.
The first thing we do is what families have always done when the people they love come home. We ask if they’re hungry. We start a load of laundry. And when nobody was looking, I placed a hand on my nephew’s shaved head, feeling the tiny growth of hair that wasn’t there two weeks ago.
It’s such a small thing. A few millimeters of hair but to us, it is proof that he has been away. And proof that he has returned.
The world sees a soldiers, we see the little boy and girl who once sat at our kitchen table. For forty-eight precious hours, the house feels complete again.
Then Sunday arrives. The uniform goes back on. The bags are packed. The hugs linger a little longer. And the ache returns.
For Israeli families, this rhythm is part of life, but as I watched them leave, I found myself thinking about Jewish parents thousands of miles away whose children are not heading to military bases. They are heading to college campuses.
They are walking into classrooms, attending student meetings, riding buses and trains, wearing a Star of David, speaking Hebrew with friends, and simply living openly as Jews.
Yet many parents now find themselves asking questions they never imagined they would ask in democratic societies.
Will my child be harassed today?
Will they be threatened?
Will they come home safely?
A mother watches a Jewish student surrounded by an angry mob and wonders if that could be her daughter. A father sees a Jewish teenager assaulted on a city street and imagines his own son.
The fear that once belonged primarily to soldiers and their families has begun creeping into Jewish homes throughout the Diaspora.
Perhaps that is a reminder of a deeper truth: more than ever, our destinies as Jews are intertwined. The fears felt by a family in Tel Aviv can be understood by a family in Toronto, Paris, Melbourne, or New York. The safety of one Jewish community affects the confidence of another. What happens to Jews anywhere reverberates among Jews everywhere.
The story of the Jewish people has always been one of resilience. We have survived exile, persecution, and every attempt to erase us. Generations before us dreamed of a world where Jewish children in all countries would be safe and proud.
That dream must not become a casualty of our time.
Because every Jewish parent deserves the peace of knowing the child you love has come home safely and no parent, anywhere in the world, should have to wonder whether that moment will arrive.
