OPINION: When antisemitism comes for you

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Sometimes you feel there’s a deeper reason behind what you’re doing, even if you don’t yet know why.

I never imagined that the stained-glass windows I’ve loved all my life at my Sons of Jacob synagogue in Belleville would one day be shot through.

And yet, in another sense, I’d imagined it far too many times.

I’ve spent much of my life studying antisemitism — its history and the societal forces that allow hatred to grow. Speaking about it comes easily.

But finding words to explain how it feels when it reaches my own little synagogue — and potentially me — has taken much longer.

Growing up in rural Stirling, we were one of only two Jewish families in our little valley. Throughout school, there wasn’t another Jewish student.

For the first decade of my childhood, I was taught to hide my Jewish background. My parents were children of a generation who’d fought the Nazis or fled from them. Their fear wasn’t abstract. They worried we might not be safe if people knew we were Jewish.

So I listened. For years, I told almost no one.

When my Zaida Ben paid for me to attend Hebrew school at our synagogue, I was elated. I wanted to know everything about this culture that was also mine.

How had this thousands-of-years-old story travelled across continents and generations and somehow landed here, in me, a little girl growing up in rural Ontario?

I’ve spent 40 years learning that story and loving it.

In Grade 6, I began wondering whether it was finally safe to stop hiding.

Holocaust nightmare

As I wrestled with that question, I had my first Holocaust nightmare: Nazi soldiers marching down my quiet Stirling side street outside my bedroom window. I could hear hundreds of boots marching for miles.

I went to my father for reassurance.

“Dad, will the Holocaust ever happen again, but here?”

“No, Sari. We won’t let it.”

I believed him.

And slowly, I stopped hiding. In my own little way, I became proudly and unapologetically Jewish.

And something wonderful happened: Nothing happened.

My friends didn’t hate me. My community didn’t reject me. People were kind and welcoming.

For years, I carried his promise with me.

“We won’t let it.”

Two years ago, I took a photo inside the synagogue while listening to a presentation from someone who’d returned from Israel after Oct. 7.

I don’t know why I felt compelled to take it. I remember sitting beside that intact stained-glass window, with a sinking feeling that violence against Jews might not remain somewhere far away.

“We won’t let it” was beginning to feel fragile as the rising tide of antisemitism swept across the world and seeped into my local community.

Over the next two years, one of my greatest fears was that someone would shoot through those beautiful windows while I sat beside them.

Or worse.

Last year, I told fellow congregants this was why I’d been staying away. They reassured me we were safe, but I couldn’t shake it.

I planned to attend this year’s Yom Kippur services.

Ultimately, that fear kept me away.

And then the thing I was afraid of happened.

What if I’d gone?

What if I’d been sitting there?

How close did I come to being present?

The little girl taught to hide her Jewishness eventually learned that her community was safe enough to stop hiding.

Decades later, she became afraid to sit beside her synagogue windows.

And now there are 23 bullet holes through the stained-glass windows pictured beside my head.

“We won’t let it.”

And yet, 29 years later, here we are.

I don’t want to live afraid.

I don’t want to hide this beautiful part of my identity again.

I want to keep loving this little place, this part of myself, and the community that taught that frightened little girl it was safe to let herself be known.

I’m grateful for those who reached out with love and compassion. I’m sending prayers to the officers and their families, our Jewish community, and everyone affected by this antisemitic attack.

May love prevail over hatred.

May light prevail over darkness.

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