Showing Up

Here we are again, preparing for another pandemic Passover. One year later I can honestly say I did not think we’d still be here. Last year at this time I was in the camp of, “Oh, this will last about a month but we should be through it by the summer“. As you can see, my lack of a medical degree was on full display during the early pandemic months. But, like a lot of the world, our Hillel is open and finding ways to connect and be together albeit within the boundaries of COVID restrictions. It was wonderful to welcome our students into the building last Sunday with our grand reopening. And while our kitchen remains closed, our student leaders have worked hard to create unique opportunities for Jewish Miami students to connect to Passover this year. Whether through Seder-to-go-boxes or via our partnership with Miami dining services to provide kosher for Passover meals and matzah in select dining halls for the first time ever, or even through our Passover marathon movie watching, we are still connecting, we are still remembering, and we are still showing up for Passover and for each other.

As we prepare for our Sedarim this year and remember the way in which Moses showed up for his people, the Jewish slaves of Egypt, I hope we, as a Jewish Miami community, can continue to show up for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community as they grapple with a surge of hate-filled crimes against their community since the pandemic began. As Jews, we have the unique privilege of being a diverse people filled with Jews meeting at the intersection of other enriching ethnic and racial identities. We must show up for our AAPI community members, regardless of whether they intersect as Jewish AAPI community members or not. As Jews, we know all too well the trauma and pain that hate crimes can bring to a community. To quote our colleague and friend, Mitsui Collective Executive Director, Yoshi Silverstein, who partnered with our Hillel this year for a panel discussion if antisemitism and social media, “Love and solidarity to all those who have been feeling this pain for months, years, decades, centuries. Our liberation is bound together.”

For more information on how you can #stopAsianhate, check out this beautiful resource guide created by Terry Wunder. 

Thank you and Shabbat Shalom,

Whitney Fisch, MSW
Executive Director