“Last time I wrote about Resilience, it was for the Fraenkelufer community in Berlin.
Where I heard for the first time the term “Resilience” in the context of Jewish people.
The Festival of Resilience, organized by Rabbis Rebbeca Blady and Jeremy Borowitz from Hillel Deutschland, to gather survivors of different antisemitic and racist attacks, celebrate life and resilience.
I went alone to the festival. It was Sukkot. I was feeling a heavy weight, a deep sadness in me, in the preceding days, and I didn’t know why that was. It culminated with learning that people were attacked with a shovel outside a synagogue in Hamburg just now in Sukkot.
I went, because I wanted to connect with my community. I needed a space where I could talk about what had just happened, these attacks on our people, and why? Just because we are Jewish.
I realized much later, this deep feeling of discomfort and pain, it happened on the week of October 9th. Exactly a year after the attack on a young delegation to the Halle synagogue.
I will never forget the shocked gasp from my mother’s room. I will never forget learning about the shootings, about the survival of our friends, and deciding to go to the synagogue nevertheless.
Police all around the synagogue.
People are still fasting.
Prayers end, we are all under a state of shock, we go to break the fast, people are talking about the attack, but no one is saying something publicly. I want to participate but I am not. I am 16.
I go to school, I made sure my friends will know of the attack.
No one shows empathy, no one gives support.
They don’t understand how personal this attack was to me.
I need to talk about it. But no one is bringing it up.
When I do, choking on my tears, i get a “it’s horrible. But that’s the world”.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone.
What do you do when your leaders are broken?
When you see them cry outside the Sukkah?
Alone.
Confused.
Broken?
Then time passes, you get distracted. But a year later you feel this pain again. Spontaneously.
You go join the community.
You are asked “what is resilience to you?”
You never thought of this question before. Why would you? In what context?
The Sukkah was built in the middle of Berlin. Public.
Public jewish life, that’s what we want.
We want to be able to be jewish publicly.
No shame, no fear.
Last Chanukkah, people started hiding their Chanukkiot again. 2024.
This is unacceptable.
2023, 2024, and the world changed again.
2021, it was almost the same.
What I learned, from these strongest of people, is that Jewish Joy is Resistance.
And I will take this with me everywhere i go.
Go on, make it your whole personality.
Bring about fun facts about judaism.
Tell you friends about your reality.
Have shabbat dinners with them.
Fight for your people in University.
On the streets.
In the EU.
Why do we always have to talk about resilience, as Jews?
“Because as Jews, we don’t like to lose, to anybody” (N. Erez)
We don’t like to lose. We survive. We adapt. We continue. We prosper.
” חי -‘ cela veut dire ‘nous vivrons”
“Chai : this means, we will live.”
Francophone Jews wear this beautiful inscription by Johan Sfar.
To symbolise hope, carry our resilience with us.
Show it to the world.
I have met people, so inspiring. So brave. So strong.
Where they live, it is an act of resistance just to leave home as a jew.
They are terrified, but they do it anyway.
They educate jewish kids, so that they can teach these practices to their parents.
They fight against antisemitism, against racism, they show themselves and create human connections.
We stay Jewish.
We persevere. Through it all.
Strasbourg, Paris, London.
Walking on the street, seeing posters ripped.
Tag wars, too painful to bear.
You are so strong.
So strong to endure all this every day.
To continue leading, leading your people.
Giving a voice to us who are suffering, threatened.
It costs so much.
Our families far away, giving from themselves. Giving their soul, their health, their life.
Our families, laughing, saying Hakol Besseder, it just looks worse from outside.
Yes…
We persevere.
We go on.
Breathing, laughing, praying.
We go on,
Resilient, even if we don’t always want to be strong”.
© Maayan Degani Gabba
Maayan Degani Gabba est PrésIdente de la Section Orléans-Tours de l’UEJF
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