The First Stroke

The first stroke came without warning. One moment I was standing inside my own life. The next moment, my body was no longer obeying me.

My strength disappeared. My speech changed. My memory became unreliable. The simplest movement became something I had to think about. There is a particular fear when your own body becomes unfamiliar to you.

Then came another stroke. And another. Over a period of years, I suffered eleven strokes. I spent two years in a wheelchair. After the wheelchair came the walker. After the walker came the cane. Every stage felt small to other people. To me, each one was a mountain.

Recovery was not one dramatic miracle. It was repetition. Lift the leg. Move the foot. Say the word again. Rest. Then begin again. You can improve and still feel broken. You can have faith and still be frightened.

I learned to stop asking, “Why am I not yet where I was?” I began asking, “What can I do with what I have today?”

I am telling you this because the history of the Jew is also a history of being struck without warning. One day a Jewish family is living, working, raising children, preparing for Shabbat. The next day the law changes. The neighbor changes. The crowd begins shouting.

We are an ancient people. A family of memory. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, religious, secular, and everything human beings can be. We disagree constantly. Anyone who believes Jews secretly coordinate everything has never attended a Jewish meeting.

Antisemitism begins with a conclusion: the Jew is guilty. Then it searches for whatever story is needed. The accusations contradict one another because it is not an honest investigation. Antisemites do not need Jews to be guilty. They need Jews to be useful.

First the Jew is mocked. Then excluded. Then blamed. Then threatened. And when violence comes, people ask how it happened. It happened while decent people were quiet, and while hatred was called political debate.

Criticism of an Israeli government is not antisemitism. Israelis criticize their governments every day. But a Jewish child in London does not control the Israeli government. A synagogue in Argentina is not responsible for a decision made in Jerusalem. When Jews everywhere are blamed for Israel, that is collective punishment.

Zionism, at its foundation, means that the Jewish people have the right to live as a people in their ancestral homeland. I am not asking anyone to agree with every Israeli policy. I am asking for one standard: the same moral standard for Jews that you apply to everyone else.