The Beautiful Fifteen

Last night I sat next to my sister
in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall,
close to where we once sat as little girls,
wide-eyed, watching the Australian Ballet
with our mother and grandpa.

We were there for the National Day of Mourning
for the victims of the December 14 terrorist attack.

We passed the mounted police,
the rows of cops,
the black tent bag-check,
the metal detectors and X-ray machines,
and climbed the familiar wide steps
toward the auditorium.

We ran into childhood friends and family,
and Shabbat candles were thrust into our hands
by enthusiastic young girls.
I was introduced to community leaders and politicians
from the world my sister swims in,
as a leader of the Australian Jewish community.

Behind us sat the surf lifesavers in yellow and red.
In front, the uniformed St John Ambulance workers,
the same people who had run toward danger that day.
And who can forget the paddle out?

The ceremony was moving, heartbreaking, uplifting.

Families and friends of the fifteen murdered
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, men, women and children
lit candles for them.

I was thrust back to my home in Ra’anana,
the funeral procession for Natan from up the street,
the plaque for Sivan from my son’s school,
the homecoming of Naama from around the corner,
the empty space where Almog
from my children’s Krav Maga class never returned.

All this because we are Jewish,
on one side of the world and the other.

I cried for the fifteen,
watching stories of these ordinary, extraordinary people
who all put family and love of life first.

I cried for the ordinary, extraordinary Australians
who helped us,
that they were all there in the hall beside us.

I laughed because Hebrew rose from the Opera House stage,
because we sang Am Yisrael Chai,
because we took back the Opera House from hatred.

Earlier this trip I visited Bondi:
the bridge, the candles, the flowers, the stones.
I helped with the Bondi Flower Project
to make the suffering shift
into a woman-created monument.

Last night at the Opera House
I had cultural confusion, crisis, overlap, a mash-up.
What a moment, what a night.
Meeting all the proud Jewish Australians
and the many, many friends of our community
who care and stand up and fight
for our right to be we, not you.

The candles were lit.
Our hearts were seared.
The songs helped heal
and the Chabad rabbi’s speech
was powerful, accessible, universal.

There my two selves collided and fused,
right by beautiful Sydney Harbour.
What a moment to be reminded
that this place is mine too.

We are welcome. We are wanted. It is our home.