The Simchat Torah Hamas Massacre Was On My Namesake Day
Choosing the Joyous Occasion of Jewish Life and Community
If you had asked me if I felt safe in Israel this summer on a scholarship for Canadian teachers at Yad Vashem for Holocaust Studies, I would have said yes. I had come a long way since, as a child, I feared visiting Israel due to terrorism, as described in the article “To All Victims of Terrorism” about my chapbook, Casa de mi Corazon: A Travel Journal of Poetry and Memoir (2021):
I was 12-years-old when I was at my aunt Margit’s home in North York, Ontario, Canada, when I overheard her talking to my mom about 17-year-old, Marnie Kimelman, who was murdered on the beaches of Tel Aviv, Israel on 28 July, 1990, by Hamas terrorists. (She was also from North York, where I was born and raised.) How does a young Jewish girl visit Israel on an organised youth trip to learn about her culture, religion, and roots, only to never return home?
If you asked me if I thought I would visit Israel for the first time in 19 years, only to discover that a few short months later, the worst Israeli massacre in history would occur, I wouldn’t have believed you.
It’s surreal that I bumped into Rudy Rochman, Israel-Advocate, on the streets of Jerusalem, that we took a picture together, and that he’s now…
