Won't you be my neighbor?
The caravans a comin', desperate families with their burlap sacks of fear, their shoulders loaded with stories of loss, walking on worn shoes, flip flops, bare toes, hardened truths on the soles of their feet, searching for a spoonful of mercy, a mere crumb of hope.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...
The caravans a comin' and the leader in chief deems it a national emergency, threatens to send thousands of heavily armed troops to greet the families seeking asylum at our country's tarnished door-- and a man in Pittsburgh, (a man who doesn't deserve to be named in poetry or prose), believes the conspiracy theory that Jewish people fund the human trains of immigrants coming to rob our homes, steal our jobs, rape our women, kill our kids, and he posts on social media: "I'm going in!"
Going in to the Tree of Life Synagogue, with his assault rifle loaded, his glocks aimed at the heart of this devoted community who prepare for Shabbat.
A a 97-year-old woman named Rose, alive during the Holocaust, works alongside brothers and grandmothers and couples and sisters and grandfathers and mothers and neighbors getting ready for the day.
Won't you be my neighbor?
The caravans a comin' and this misguided man shoots up a temple, killing eleven people and injuring six, hell-bent on keeping migrants out of a country founded by migrants.
Only the native people of this land, and those brought here as slaves, didn't first come from somewhere else, seeking opportunity, searching for a spoonful of mercy, a mere crumb of hope.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Her name was Rose.
She lived during Hitler's reign of concentration camps filled with gas chambers only to lose her life to homegrown fascism fueled by rhetoric that fosters fear and division.
I like you just the way you are.
Won't you be my neighbor?
Her name was Rose.
She died alongside David and Cecil and Sylvan and Bernice and Jerry and Richard and Daniel and Melvin and Joyce and Irving.
All killed for being Jewish.
I like you just the way you are.
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."
At the hospital, the man who arrived spewing hatred, shouting from his gurney, "I want to kill all the Jews," received care from a Jewish nurse, a Jewish doctor, the president of the hospital, a member of the the Tree of Life Synagogue, Dr. Jeff Cohen, walked into the room to check on the man that murdered members of his faith community.
"I thought it was important to at least talk to him and meet him,” Cohen explained. “You can’t on one hand say we should talk to each other, and then I don’t talk to him.”
"We’re here to take care of sick people. We’re not here to judge you,” Cohen said. And so the doctor checked on his patient, a man who before he became a murderer once stood in a small boy's pair of shoes.
What happened to that boy I can now say by name, Robert Bowers? Who received him?
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...
The caravans a comin', small children holding their parents calloused hands, looking at the world from innocent eyes, learning what it means to be human.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
I like you just the way you are.
Won't you be my neighbor?
When I was a school counselor and having a particular difficult time with one of the dads of three students, a friend of mine reminded me that he was once a baby held by his mother. Sure put it in a different perspective. Great writing Christy.
Posted by: Valerie Demming | 11/02/2018 at 02:06 PM
Thank you Valerie. I've been picturing the inmates I work with as young boys and it helps me let go of judgement for their behavior as men. Those who injure others more often than not were once deeply injured by others and so the cycles goes....
Posted by: Christy | 11/02/2018 at 06:53 PM
Hi, hate to be a wet blanket but I think it's been well proven that Rose was not a Holocaust survivor, since she was in the US at the time. (Snopes etc disprove this.) Also, the spelling is Shabbat or similar, not Sabot. Hate to be a pain but since you're a writer I thought you might like to know. Cheers and I love your writing.
Posted by: Elaine | 11/03/2018 at 04:32 AM
Not a wet blanket Elaine, I THANK you for correcting my errors because the last thing I want to do is spread misinformation or spell the Shabbat wrong. I went back and fixed my spelling and corrected the way I described Rose to someone who was alive during the Holocaust (but not a survivor of the camps). I had read those first reports and didnt realize they were inaccurate. Please anytime you catch me writing errors let me know as I aim to write truthfully. Thanks for reading!
Posted by: Christy | 11/03/2018 at 09:48 AM