A Country In Search Of A Bridge

 Like many of you, over the past few weeks I have been reading, protesting, listening, watching, learning, and observing. I have cried, yelled at the TV, wrote my heart out here in this blog, recognized my own privileges, and I have taken on intense discussions with people who have different perspectives than me. I even had to block a couple of trolls on Facebook, and lived to tell all about that in a previous blog post.

There is a lot to LEARN and a lot to DO to heal from the deep underlining hate, racism, and division in this country. And frankly, in the world.

On a personal level, my own identity of an immigrant, of an Israeli, of a Jew, of a woman, is much more felt by me NOW, at a divided time like this, than ever before. In the culture I was raised in, I have grown up hearing countless stories of persecution and oppression, a theme that runs deep in my ancestry, but I was also exposed to many voices who were justifying  the use of oppression for the sake of security.
These two contradicting states - the oppressed and the oppressor, the powerless and the powerful, the builder and the destroyer... are in every one of us. We must be better at building a bridge in between these two states. Within ourselves, and then out in the world with others. 

A bridge that will be stronger than the divide.
It's no easy task, but it's possible.

*Art By Eric Klein