What I don't think people realize is that the Jewish people as a whole consider themselves to be one community.
"But it was in Australia. You live in the USA. You didn't know any of them."
"They were Chabad. You're reform. Aren't you on the opposite side of the spectrum?"
"You are a convert. No one in your family was ever Jewish. You barely just got a handle on the holidays."
We are so few and community is such a big part of what being Jewish is.
If you wound one of us, you wound all of us. Those might as well be my brothers and sisters taking those bullets when they were just trying to bring light into an already pained tribe.
When one synagogue hurts, we all stand up and cry with them. We learned long ago what happens when we break apart into 'us vs. them'.
Some people will say "How can you publicly light candles after this? How insensitive to celebrate in this tragedy."
They do not know what it is to be Jewish. We light the candles out of defiance. We light the candles because hundreds and hundreds of years ago someone stood up and said "I'm tired of this bullshit" and took back the right to exist.
We will continue to gather. We will continue to celebrate. We will continue to join together and be one tribe.
