For me, being Jewish is so much more than a religion.
It’s a feeling — like a warm, cozy hug.
As I grew up and moved out — first to college, then to New York, then back home — I always felt a deep, unspoken connection with every Jew I met merely because we grew up in similar ways, with similar values, in a similar cultural community.
And yet, I let my religious practices slide in college and beyond, save for the cultural ones.
But during my first pregnancy 12 years ago, I felt an instinctive need to bring them back because our child had to be Jewish. Not just because she would be born to Jewish parents, but so she would understand what it really meant to be Jewish. To feel tightly wrapped in that warm, cozy hug.
When the time came to look for preschools, I didn’t think twice about where I wanted her to go. “The Minneapolis JCC,” I told my husband. “It’s a wonderful place, and she’ll celebrate Shabbat every week!”
My husband, a mostly non-practicing Jew, wasn’t sure. He had his sights set on the Spanish immersion preschool down the street. So we compromised…
And we enrolled her at the JCC.
It was everything I thought it would be and more. I adored the friends she was making and the other parents I was meeting, the staff loved our kids so much, and she was learning Hebrew words! She’d wake me in the morning with a hearty, “Boker Tov, Mommy!”
The only thing that ever gave me pause was the fact that the JCC was a well-known Jewish entity, and the Jewish community has been on high alert since, well, the beginning of time. But I did my best not to let this worry creep in often.
Until the day it did.
It was a bitter January morning that started like any other. I dropped her off at the JCC, then headed down the road to my gym to take an exercise class. A few minutes in, my phone rang. “JCC” flashed across my screen. I grabbed it and ran out of the room. “Hello?” I answered breathlessly.
“Hi, Marissa. Harper is safe. But there’s been a bomb threat at the JCC. Everyone has been evacuated. You need to pick her up.”
My heart dropped as my phone slid out of my hand. Then the tears started to fall — one by one at first, then fast, heavy and violent.
As I started toward the building they’d evacuated our children to, I was so panic-stricken that I’d completely forgotten where they told me to go. I got lost, driving around in circles, crying, feeling like a delinquent mother who couldn’t get to her surely terrified daughter quickly enough during a time of crisis. Finally, a friend texted and said she was there, that our kids were OK, and sent me the address of where to go.
I pulled up and sprinted into the building and there she was, in her pink robe, turquoise swimsuit and swim shoes, giggling with her friends and teachers. Not only was she safe, but she was… happy. She wasn’t scared in the least.
When she saw me, she ran up and gave me a huge hug. “Mommy!” she exclaimed. “We had such a fun adventure today! We were swimming and then someone came in and said we were going on a winter walk. It was all snowy outside and I only had my swim shoes, so some nice mommy carried me alllll the way through the snow, up this big hill, and brought me here!”
I looked at her and forced my mouth into a smile. “Wow, honey! That’s amazing! What a fun adventure!”
To her, that’s all this had been: a wild and crazy adventure.
But for me, it was so much more.
I got her home and swore I’d never let her out of my sight again. I told myself we couldn’t go back to the JCC. Maybe the Spanish immersion down the street had been the right choice after all?
But then I got a text message from a mom with a child in my daughter’s class. It was to me and another mom. It was filled with love, fear, kinship, deep understanding and solidarity. These women knew exactly what I’d been through that day, and why I was grappling with the decision of whether to send my little girl back to the JCC preschool.
We went back and forth for weeks sending loving messages, letting each other express our deepest fears and unbridled emotions, and talking about our newfound anxiety about raising Jewish children in a world where Jews have always been the target of hatred. These women went from acquaintances to true friends akin to family.
We decided it was important to continue sending our daughters to the JCC. “If we pull them, we let hate win. We need to keep showing up.” And so that’s what we did.
A few days later, something equally amazing happened. I’d been asking my daughter if she remembered the name of the woman who’d carried her to safety. She couldn’t, but she remembered her daughter’s name. So I did what any Twin Cities Jewish mama does. I posted a note in our local MN Mammalehs Facebook group asking if anyone had a daughter with that name. Someone replied that they didn’t, but they knew who did. When she told me who it was, I gasped. “I know her!” I found her on Facebook and sent her a message of sincere gratitude. “From one mother to another, I cannot adequately express my thanks. You were there when I was not, and I’m eternally grateful.”
She responded right away. I still have the message, dated January 19th, 2017. “Harper was so sweet and calm the whole way…I’m so happy you reached out because I wanted to share with Harper’s mommy how great she did.”
My dad, now long passed, always told me to look for the light during dark times. Well, these were my lights: the amazing woman, who’d brought my child to safety, and those wonderful friends who became family.
Today, as it continues to feel scary to be a Jew and to raise Jewish children, I hold onto that light, to those connections and to the warm, cozy feeling that being part of this Jewish community — this beautifully interwoven tribe — provides.
