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December 04, 2008
A TRIBUTE TO THE JCC OF GREATER WASHINGTON
A TRIBUTE TO THE JCC OF GREATER
WASHINGTON
by Carolyn Horowitz Amacher
With the cut of a ribbon, the elders who built the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington revealed a new Jewish neighborhood which would shelter and enrich the generations of Jews who were to soon pass through its shiny revolving doors. It was 1969 in
Rockville,
Marylandand the JCC was immediately a crossroads of the new and the old, bridging the ‘shtettle’ of Silver Spring with its Kosher delis and butcher shops, the District with its classic Congregations , and the outskirts like Olney and
Potomacwith its sprawling subdivisions and newfangled malls.
The JCC sat stark against the still rural landscape, foreshadowing the suburban sprawl which was soon to come and jumpstarting the Jewish village which would be built along
Montrose Road.
Clutching the hands of my parents on that day in 1969, I sunk into the upholstery of the atrium, soon to become my extended living room, with its fixtures and sculpture as familiar as my Donny Osmond posters. In the ensuing days, months, and years, I made this place my home, traversing its hallways as freely as I roller skated along my suburban streets. In this Jewish village the JCC shopkeeper dispensed Kosher bubblegum like any mom and pop shop, the librarian nurtured her book collection like a mother hen, and the ‘ladies’ at the front desk barked out commands to us unwieldy children, and we understood that they did this out of love and that we were part of an extended family.
Everyone was welcome at the JCC, young and old, first generation American or fourth. Its doorways mirrored the ancient tents of Abraham, open at all sides. The earliest of visitors came in search of a safe place to shed their accents and Yiddishkeit, and the later generations came looking for these relics and reclaimed their heritage among collections of Jewish literature and art.
Later I would come to work for this JCC and would stumble everyday across a piece of my past, be it my own childhood memories of Israeli dancing and ‘ga ga’ matches, or a collective Jewish memory triggered by the perpetual symphony of Yiddish and Hebrew, of song and laughter emanating from every doorway. And every day I would give away and regain a part of my heart there, in the corridors -the crossroads of Jewish life where the young and old danced.
I learned at the JCC that life, even – and especially – Jewish life – was not easy nor simple, but was being repaired at the JCC. This JCC was the first to install devices to help those who were hearing impaired; to post flyers listing resources for Jews experiencing abuse or alcoholism; and to install a lift in the swimming pool for those in wheelchairs.
I understood through my supervisors and social work field instructors that Juan, the manager of the JCC print shop manager who I befriended as I learned to master the ominous folding machine, should be known as ‘hearing impaired’ rather than ‘deaf’ and why; I learned through teachers like Danny Siegel that Jewish women could indeed experience abuse contrary to popular belief; and I learned through my supervisors like Sara Milner that people in wheelchairs were merely in wheelchairs, not ‘wheelchair-bound’, nor ‘handicapped.’ I learned that a boy with Muscular Dystrophy could be pulled through the hallway on a wagon by an energetic camp counselor, unnoticed and unobtrusive in the most beautiful way – his pathway made clear by the compassionate and visionary atmosphere at this JCC. I learned that when I raised my voice with the children I was leading as Children’s Director, that my ‘field instructor’ Sara needed just to raise her head a bit in the most non-judgmental way. I learned and adapted and adjusted my behavior, if for no other reason than to be just like her and all of the other role models who surrounded me.
When I was a child my family spent many hours in the JCC swimming pool, where I learned to swim, communing there in the warm water. I found this to be a safe place, a place where I could practice strokes unselfconsciously, and learn how to take risks.
One afternoon as an early swimmer, I found myself in water over my head and realized I could not keep myself afloat. My mother was facing in the other direction and I knew she would not be turning back around. I figured I just had to float down to the bottom and bounce back up to get a needed breath, which I did, bobbing up and down. The only way one can do this is to be relaxed as I knew if I panicked I would loose these vital breaths. It was because I felt so safe, so nurtured in those waters and in that place – that JCC – that I kept going, trusting that I would be rescued. I soon heard a splash behind me, felt strong arms pulling me upward and out of the water, and a soft reassuring voice telling me I would be alright, and I was.
My memory of that JCC is sensory and visceral, above all. I remember the smell of the paper mache in the art studio where I attended every drop-in arts and craft session, which was of great benefit to my working mother who found solace that her children had a safe haven just ten minutes from home. I still remember the stench of chlorine, so intense at the indoor pool, and the sound of the remarkable new microwave oven of the early 70’s warming my bagel in the snack bar, with its aroma of instantly-heated shrink-wrapped kosher meals, and the sound of the “Doors” and “Three Dog Night” blaring from the youth lounge where I wandered freely, playing bumper pool – always a couple of tables away from my older brother, who had found his own constellation of friends, and of community, at the JCC.
Growing up in the 70’s in Washington, D.C., I found myself immersed in the civil rights activities emulated by my parents, my rabbis and my teachers, and the JCC was often the staging place for sojourns down to the Soviet Embassy, where we stood vigil even in the dead of winter, and rallies to inspire us to continue to rescue those held captive in Jewish communities we knew nothing about, in places like Iran and Ethiopia. The JCC served as a launch pad for social justice. As the gates of the
Soviet Unionrelaxed, I would later, as a worker, include and sometimes inject Russian children among the Americans, who soon found a common language embedded in their baseball cards and soccer balls.
The places of the JCC that were the most meaningful were often the most mundane, corridors and passageways which offered unbridled safety where a teenager could lurk among peers, where we were felt virtually unsupervised yet knew a grown up was not far if needed. One of those places was the gymnasium, where I practiced and performed as the co-captain of the JCC cheerleaders, and where we played host to basketball teams from
Baltimoreto
Boston, cadres of teens spending Saturday nights competing and then communing. The banners of the two championships won by the JCC of Greater Washington Maccabi Basketball Team still hang in that gym, testament to the reverence for which we hold our cherished memories. A recent reunion elicited laughter and wistfulness as we reflected and reveled in the past.
While the JCC’s Nautilis and squash gave way to Cybex and Spinning, the bumper pool gave way to Play Station, and the print shop gave way to Pagemaker, the co-mingling of sports, culture and education has never stopped. The sound of Seniors tap dancing above my youth department office in the mornings was followed by the blaring of drums next door in the afternoons – once an annoyance and now music to the ears of my memory. It is this music I remember the most.
The 300-seat theatre was a laboratory for creativity, and when its lights dimmed, anything could happen. A cacophony of sound spilled out of the theatre doors – from Klezmer to classical – nearly everyday – and the most beautiful sound was that of violin bows guided along strings by students gaining mastery of Mozart, some alone and some part of a grand symphony.
In that theatre magic was made - somehow Ronald Reagan appeared, after being airlifted to the JCC roof, as did Simon Wiesenthal, miles of stantions corralling the throngs that came to hear him.
Sitting next to my father in that theatre so many years ago, I was stunned by images flashing across a screen of children my own age and their poetry and paintings, children who were ripped from the world just two decades before I was born. As I watched “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” I saw my father’s tears in the darkened room and knew that he was grateful I was learning in such a sensitive way the stories and the horror he could not bring himself to tell me about.
It was on the stage of that theatre that I gained grandeur, glory and thus self esteem as part of the cast of ‘Oklahoma’, frolicking through an entirely Hebrew script of songs – the memory of the words to ‘Poor Jud is Dead’ in Hebrew lingering much longer than algebra equations and much more relevant to my future life than the manipulation of the slide rule.
I literally danced and sang through the JCC, which was a meeting place for all things Jewish. In the JCC spaces my Midrasha Hebrew High choir belted out ‘Machar’ – singing of a hopeful tomorrow in Israel; my synagogue confirmation class rehearsed ‘Shalom Rav’ over and over again, and my Israeli dance instructor Rocky Korr barked out commands and cat calls to us – ‘Yeminite right! Yeminite left.’
When I came to work at the JCC, I merely knocked on the door and found my way home, never looking back again to my newspaper career I left behind. The post-college years of political advocacy and journalistic quests were quite provocative and seemed at the time to be earth-shaking, but by no means gave me the real tools to shape the world. What I found was that the world is shaped by certain tools that I already held in my hand and in my repertoire, tools I had learned to use in the living spaces of the JCC. Those tools were paint brushes, soccer balls and rolling pins.
Those tools and the skills I had learned at the JCC were the only tools that worked and it was Sara’s insights that I reached for when, during my post-college year in Israel, I found myself resettling Ethiopian refugees with whom I had no common language, when I wanted to connect to my chevre from South Africa, India, England and France, and when I wanted to break through to a girl in a foster children’s village. It was only when I baked spongy and bitter bread with my new Ethiopian friends, kicked a soccer ball around with my international Ulpan peers, and sculpted a vase with the girl who would trust no one, that I began to connect with people in a meaningful way.
I became a master of those tools at the JCC of Greater Washington, which connected people of all walks of life together in the most jubilant and meaningful ways, with the most inspiring of teachers and the most meaningful of relationships, from the colleagues who encamped with me to produce endless Chanukah and Purim festivals, to the youth leaders with whom I engaged to help produce the next generation of Jewish leaders of Young Judaea, Tzofim, Habonim, USY, BBYO – all coming together for mutual purposes and forming a powerful and eclectic Jewish collective.
Some 37 years after the groundbreaking, my life continues to be enriched by these memories, sustaining me now as I know they will sustain me in the future as I continue my Jewish journey. For it is these memories that illuminate the future for me and offer me the vision for the days and years to come. Perhaps it is because I have hit mid-life that I can understand that my vision of the future is in many ways a reflection of my past. My future Jewish Journey seems like an insurmountable quest to project into the future those values of the past and the wisdom and spirit which emanated from that sacred place – the JCC of Greater Washington. I will try to forge the way and to emulate as a role model, or dugma, everything I learned about Jewish community – which I learned from my teachers like Sara and in the corridors of that sacred space – the JCC of Greater Washington.
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Xena the Warrior Princess

For my women friends~
I was sorting our my address book and realized as I was making updates how many wonderful women I have the good fortune to know. In one of my (typical) moments of unbridled inspiration, I wrote this short piece for you:

When my five-year-old son Sam was an infant he needed to sleep on my stomach - for at least the first four months, which meant I literally did not sleep for four months. Which made it quite challenging and exhausting to go back to work 8 weeks after he was born, where after a triple latte each morning I began my work day managing/supervising Early Childhood, Adult Services, Marketing and Sports & Fitness at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. When I was up all night I used to watch "ABC World News Now" and I was very well informed, as well as "Zena the Warrior Princess", which came on at 3 a.m. After several months of watching Zena do stunts and flips to knock out all of the bad guys I became convinced, in my sleep deprived haze, that Zena was All Powerful, certainly more powerful than the Male Warriors. And I decided that that was what I would become, a Warrior Princess. That if I continued with my tai-chi (zen) like defensive posturing, keeping up my guard but leveling blows when necessary, all the while maintaining my spirit and zest, I would indeed be just as Powerful as the Men. And this methodology has served me well.

Just now Sam was watching the Power Rangers, and I was fascinated by the latest episode where the Male Ranger who is very attractive did not succeed in taking down the Female Monster with his charm. He was actually afraid to fight her. Then the Girl Ranger fought and won. Sam said he thought the Girl Ranger was much more powerful because she was just better at the stunts and sometimes smarter (just as smart) and certainly directive in her actions.

While I was the Chief Operating Officer of the JCC of Orange County I offered to help my Children's Director one day by taking over the mini-camp/doing direct service. I took the children into the gym and while the boys shot baskets, I did a cheerleading clinic with the girls, reclaiming some of my old cheerleading moves. Then the girls decided they wanted to be Princesses and began to do make believe/costume dress up/make up. But one of the little girls refused to do the make-believe/dress up but insisted she was indeed a Princess, a Most Powerful Princess. She was very petite and feminine and at 8 years old had a real sense of herself. Her name was Zena.

I said to her, "Zena, you are a Warrior Princess. You should always walk with your head up like you are doing now, look people squarely in the eyes, and be yourself." When her dad came to get her I told him how special I thought Zena was, and he acknowledged that he was indeed proud to be father of such a luminous and self-assured girl.

Sometimes I think about Zena. I hope that when she turns 14, and 21, and 31, and 40, when she faces the exciting and sometimes excruciating challenges that happen in Life during those stages when one is being honest, bold and themselves, that she conquers all of the obstacles, roadblocks and sometimes even demons that stand in her path, all the while maintaining her youthful luminescence and indomitable spirit. It is girls like Zena I remember when I myself get tired and feel like stopping. I think about all of the Zenas of the world who I have met, who are already on a path, who are teaching the world about unique feminine leadership, employing boldness, determination and inspiration, and maintaining their own sense of self as they emerge as Women in Leadership. For their sake alone I myself will never stop as I continue down the road, sometimes weary and sometimes energized, always holding the torch for the Zenas who follow close behind. Sometimes I do stop on the path but only to turn around and look for Zena for inspiration. And I recognize her - I see her and know that the day will come that I will hand her my own torch. And this makes the journey bearable, meaningful and even exhilarating.

With love to all of the Zenas who I know and will meet,
Carolyn

Peace

Trust - children

Reflections on Habonim
Email article


By Carolyn Amacher
It is said that we live in either our memories or our imagination. For most adults of "my generation," listening to the Doors, playing pick up basketball and eating Twinkies is enough to invoke the warm and fuzzy memories of our childhood. This nostalgia makes us feel safe and therefore nurtured, which is meaningful - and enough - for most. For most Jews it's enough to visit our old campsites, to consort with our old "chevre" and to sing our old camp songs in order to invoke the zeal of our youth. I recently heard a friend chronicle the experience of visiting her old camp as if it was an archeological expedition. She was jubilant just to have seen the murals, traverse the old camp road and smell the pine trees. It was enough. For those of us who live in our imaginations, nostalgia is not enough, no matter how happily we skip down memory lane. To find meaning we have to look further - into the future. Which is why Habonim Dror had such appeal to those of us "imaginers" who came up in the Movement in the 70's, and why so many of us find meaning in the Movement today. Habonim Dror tied the ideals of cooperative living and peaceful coexistence to a plan for future living. Amidst the Civil Rights strife of our childhoods and the ensuing Middle East conflict, the lifestyle we championed and simulated at camp could only be played out in our future. The future we envisioned couldn't come quick enough - it was just around the corner but always out of reach. What we didn't realize then is that at Machane - at Moshava, and Tavor, and Gallil, and Gilboa -we were way ahead of our time. The future was mapped at Habonim Machanot and still lives in the mind's eyes of the Chanichim of the 50's, 60's, 70's and beyond -but has yet to become reality. Most of us touched by Habonim see ourselves as bearing the torch that illuminates the decades-old ideals of cooperation and peace. The dissonance created by our vision and the reality of our lives in this new and already uncertain Millennium drives us to create change, to propel the vision, and to pass that torch, ever burning, to our children. My sons will participate in Kupah, partake in social action, practice g’milut chasidim, experience the power of working cooperatively and playing cooperatively, and will then incorporate these values into daily living and transmit them to others. They will carry the torch, and in doing so, the hope for the future. That's what I imagine.

I am a Jew because

South of the Border- Israel and Gaza

Dispatches From the New Frontier

By Carolyn Horowitz Amacher, May 2006

The gift was tiny enough to fit in my palm, just the type for a light traveler on a two-week trip to Israel. I was to deliver a charm necklace imprinted with “Dream” to Ginat, one of our Israeli teenage counselors from our Partnership 2000 Region of Hof Ashkelon, from her summer host family. Ginat planned to visit me in Jerusalem along with Hadar, our other teen counselor from the Region who lived at Kibbutz Carmiya. The host fretted that she did not have a gift for Hadar and I offered to pick one out.

As it turned out, Hadar, still in high school, was not able to make the two-bus journey to Jerusalem and I assured her I would visit her on a return trip to Israel. Ginat so loved the charm that I noted to myself to pick out a matching one for Hadar when I got back to California.

Ginat’s extroverted manner captivated many during the summer she spent with the Jewish community of Orange County, but it was Hadar I was taken with. Her quiet and introspective nature brought Israel to life through her stories, expressions and laughter. Yet as the time for her departure approached she seemed to shrink back as much as Ginat grew more jubilant around the notion of her future – beginning the army and reuniting with her boyfriend.

I knew Hadar was returning to her loving family and friends, and the leadership of her school’s student council. Yet I felt Hadar’s trepidation, not verbally but through her demeanor, which grew more and more quiet. Her Kibbutz sat just 5 kilometers from Gaza, and she was fearful that the Israeli army would no longer be “behind the fence,” a flimsy barrier between her world and another, and what lay beyond that fence scared her. Her Kibbutz was within range of rockets and artillery that could harm her four siblings, her parents, her friends, and the youth under her care as “madrichah” or counselor. A nature lover, she perpetually guided her youth movement members outdoors, yet the outdoors had become more precarious to her following the Disengagement.

Nearly half a year since her departure, Hadar and I have corresponded and she has openly expressed her growing fears about the vulnerability of her Kibbutz and encouraged me to communicate this reality to others. Generally she starts with “Hi, How Are You!” and then it goes like this: “Our lives are so tense...it’s been scary with rockets falling near to my Kibbutz almost every day…we’re not really protected even in our own homes and the most scary thing is that we should have the ‘safe room’ but we don’t…it’s become a serious problem…the alarm system they installed works only seconds before the rockets are hitting the ground…we’re really hoping for some peace…it’s making our lives insufferable…I wouldn’t wish this on anyone….I miss you. Have a great weekend. Shabbat Shalom.”

These are the dispatches from a teenager’s bedroom on the new frontier.

Upon my return from Israel last fall, I came upon the artisan who sold the charms and she was displaying a new line with Hebrew. I picked out my gift for Hadar – a charm imprinted with Shalom. “You must take this one too,” said the artisan, pointing to a charm with a Hebrew word I found unfamiliar. “It means Happiness,” she said. “Are you sure?” I asked, knowing both of our Hebrew was limited. I thought happiness was “Smechah,” I told her. She said this was a synonym, clinching the two-for-one deal. I took the twin charms, planning to send them immediately to Hadar, but as things go they sat on my dresser.

My nearly five-year-old son Sam was also taken with Hadar and has been drawing pictures for her since she left. He knows she lives in a beautiful place in a land for the Jewish people that he is eager to see for himself. One picture was of rainbows, one of the desert, and one of the sea in the Land of Israel, a Land that lives in his imagination. He knows that one day (soon) he will get to see this land. He knows that Hadar has a big family, loves school and her friends.

A couple months ago Ginat sent a picture of herself in her army uniform which I proudly showed to Sam, whose first reaction was alarm that she had a gun. So now Sam knows that the Land of the Jewish people has to be protected by its own people as well so everyone is safe.

Two days ago Sam displayed a picture he had drawn that we had to send to Hadar - an “Israel airplane” to take her up to where she is safe. With a strange sense of urgency I folded the picture in an envelope for Hadar and vowed to send her the charms right away. But I had to verify that Hebrew word I didn’t know – Did it mean Happiness? That night I combed through my son Ezra’s Hebrew-English dictionary but couldn’t come up with it. So I Instant Messaged my friend Tammi, who has a great command of the Hebrew language, and transliterated the word, spelling it in English phonetically with the message:

“WHAT DOES THIS WORD MEAN – DOES IT MEAN HAPPINESS?” It was late and with no immediate response I shut off my computer – I would check it out the next day and send off those charms with Sam’s picture.

Yesterday morning I turned on my home computer as Sam and I were lingering before leaving for his preschool and my work at the JCC. Tammi, who played host and guardian to our Israeli summer camp counselors, had sent me a story from the Jerusalem Post. The subject line said: “I e-mailed Hadar.” I opened the story that read: Three Israelis - including a 7-month-old baby boy - were wounded when a house in Kibbutz Carmiya south of Ashkelon suffered a direct hit from a Kassam rocket late Friday afternoon.
The baby, who was reported in serious condition as the result of a head wound, was evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. Two adults were evacuated in moderate to serious condition to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Army Radio reported.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” Sam asked me. I told him that our friend Hadar in Israel was probably afraid because a rocket had hurt some people near her house. I took out his picture of the airplane and told him not to worry and the picture would make her feel better. I put the charms in my purse and vowed to send them immediately.
Throughout the day yesterday my mind returned to my young friend and her dispatches from her bedroom. I wished I could help her feel safe. Certainly inscriptions of “Peace” and “Happiness” would say a lot. “I’ve got to get this in the mail, I thought.”
Midday I picked up an e-mail Tammi had forwarded from my colleague Kathleen at the Jewish Federation, which read: “The baby who was hit was going to be OK, he was now listed as light-to-moderately injured.” I read on what Kathleen had written and was stunned. “The baby's name is Osher, which in Hebrew means ‘HAPPINESS,’ she wrote. I pulled out the charm from my purse and read the Hebrew once again to be sure – it was a perfect match. OSHER. Yes it did indeed mean Happiness.

I will put the charms in the mail.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Disengagement
By Carolyn Horowitz Amacher, August 2005

Whenever I get blood taken, I tend to pinch the opposite arm in an attempt to distract from the pain. The sensation of self-inflicted pain feels much more bearable than the pain out of my control.

Today I sat as on observer to a newspaper interview of an Israeli young woman – Hadar - who serves as JCC summer camp counselor from our ‘sister’ community of Hof Ashkelon in Southern Israel. As she began her first person account of the effects of the disengagement on her home – Kibbutz Karmia – just outside of Gaza, I found myself pinching myself harder and harder as she delved deeper into the dilemma she faces when she returns next week.

Hadar said that upon her return home she faces an uncertain future. Uncertain as the geography has changed since her arrival to Orange County. Her Kibbutz sits just 5 Kilometers from Gaza which will now be part of a new “Palestine”. I calculated that my quick daily run would have taken me that far into a new territory, a new land, a new country, a new entity, not yet understandable. Certainly not traversable.

The reporter probed – what will it be like? For Hadar, it was about geography. As much as she yearned to share her ideology emanating from her Labor Party youth movement, which espouses Democratic principals, she kept returning to her physical fate. The close proximity of the Palestinians. Would the fences keep terrorists out? The sounds were often scary– the rockets – so close by. And ultimately the infiltration –which she knows will come to her Kibbutz eventually. I pinched myself harder.

“When I took my youth, as their counselor, on a hiking trip a rocket fell right near us,” she said softly. “We were so lucky. It brought back my fear – I’ve had to deal with it a lot lately. It used to be would could push back the fear – it would only surface just once or twice a year. Now it’s much more frequent. At least five times this year already I’ve been so afraid.”

Hadar described her Kibbutz, rural and natural. The place her father was born. A place he could not leave. Home. And her mother: Constantly fearful and wanting to move “up north.” How can she live like this – with four younger brothers and sisters, the youngest an infant?

Hadar described feeling afraid on a recent outing with her father – they received a desperate phone call from her mother that there was an infiltrator on the Kibbutz. They sped home, hearts racing. I pinched myself harder.

And after that a rocket fell outside the Kibbutz gates. “We were so lucky,” she said. The fear returned.

Now the army won’t be in there –in Gaza - beyond the fence – for protection, she explained.

“So where will you feel safe?” I asked. “Where is that place?” I wondered if that place existed. She had an answer. Zichron YaAkov. Right smack in the center of Israel. Near no border. It made sense to me. But how far to venture out before the fear comes back? And everyone can’t live in the middle of the country.

“So how do you feel about the prospect for peace?” the reporter continued on… She smiled. I saw the other side of Hadar, hopeful for a moment. “We have to believe – what other choice is there?” she said.

But the fear came back. “I just want to live my life, with out these worries.” She described wanting to have freedom, to go out, to be a teenager, for her siblings to have their childhood.

The reporter looked at me. “So why do you have counselors here?” he asked me. I gave my usual explanation of raising awareness about the Jewish nation, of offering experiential learning about Israeli culture, of building relationships. But what I thought was: “To give her a rest – to give Hadar a break – before she returns.”

“Will this work out – will the government’s plan work? Will the Roadmap for Peace come to fruition?” the reporter asked Hadar. I had to jump in: “The government doesn’t know! No one knows yet”. Maybe Hadar will know – maybe she’ll help figure this out for all of us. She will need time – particularly the two years before she enters the army – to process and get comfortable with her new geography and new borders. But first, let her rest a bit before she returns. And I noticed my arm had a puncture mark I hadn’t even felt…..

Another Israeli counselor, Shlomit, has an angelic quality and quiets children not by raising her voice but by speaking in hushed tones. Even more effective is her means of reaching people through dance. As she gestures and sways she creates an effect that resonates with all – an effect of spirit.

Can spirit outweigh fear? I’m not sure. But if anyone can lend spirit to an environment it is Shlomit. Today as she was walked toward Camp on a misty California morning, she handed me a Hamsa (symbol of a hand) she had made for me as a goodbye present. She also handed me her address written on a piece of paper.

I will be in Israel next month and plan to see Shlomit and invite her to a meeting with one of her favorite Israeli musicians – Gil Ron – whose father now lives in Orange County – and who wrote Shlomit’s favorite song titled “Salaam” (peace – in Arabic.) The song’s Hebrew refrain “Od Yavo Shalom Aleynu” means “Peace will come to all of us.” This has become our JCC Camp’s theme song, thanks to Shlomit.

Today is Shlomit’s last day. I looked at her address scrawled on a piece of paper and was stunned: Zichron YaAkov. “Shlomit – you must feel very safe there,” I said. She nodded. “I have an idea – why don’t I come to your house. I’m bringing Hadar with me.”

Of course, she replied, and we walked through the sunlight into the Camp Opening. The stage was set up for a festive goodbye to Shlomit. As the music sounded, Shlomit began her dance, and all of the children danced along with her to honor her and say goodbye. And as the music got louder and faster, there was a cacophony of “Od Yavo Shalom Aleynu” I saw Hadar dancing next to me and in her face I did not see fear. I saw spirit, and it was much more powerful. “You’ll come with me next month to Shlomit’s house in Zichron YaAkov” I whispered and she smiled as we danced together. I have to believe that when I join Hadar and Shlomit in Zichron YaAkov next month that the spirit will win, will overcome the fear.