I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey - at a time when most of the people who live there now had never even heard of the place. It was a perfect place to grow up...lazy summer days watching the parade go buy and the house filled with friends. We cheered when the firefighters walked post, the police with their sires. We ate ice cream and bagels and pizza...walked everywhere.
The day I left for college, I cried and thought I'd never be back...only to come back that evening because the dorm room wasn't ready. And throughout college, home was Teaneck. No matter where I went...home was Teaneck.
When, for a brief moment after being married for 10 years, my husband and I considered moving "back" to Teaneck, it was because of my memories, and I smiled when I heard people call Teaneck "Little Israel".
I didn't want an EASY life, I wanted Israel. Desperately. So we didn't move there...and a year later, we came home to Israel.
There is something growing inside me that considers visiting the States. I haven't been there in 26 years. At times I joke that I don't speak the language anymore. But in many ways, it's not a joke.
This is not what your forefathers dreamed of when they demanded the right of free speech and the right to protest.
Oh, Teaneck...I mourn deeply for the home of my childhood. A place where we walked together. Where my best friend was a lovely black girl named Sherri and daily in first and second grade, we'd walk to and from school together.
I mourn because it was in Teaneck, I learned about Israel, about what it meant to be a Jew. I didn't learn to walk the streets of Teaneck in fear; to feel my home was invaded by those who celebrate monsters and rapists.
My ties were cut long ago, the graceful brick home with the huge fireplace and back yard long since sold. I have little of Teaneck left inside me except the memory of teachers and friends, of a life I would have been proud of giving to my children...except that wasn't my destiny - or theirs.
I stand now on polar opposites. They noisily and arrogantly take the streets of my youth to support genocide while they accuse my sons of the very crime those they support committed on October 7.
Worlds separate me from the Teaneck of today. Back then, our mayor was a wonderful black man, they piled the snow high for children to play. We built forts and castles and threw snowballs until it was time to go inside...
Gone...it's all gone. Teaneck...I long for the beauty of a world that perhaps never existed. One in which I did not feel the racial tensions and hatred, the cries of hate that fill your streets today.
Perhaps it was my blindness and you were always as you are today. I'll never know...but I'll thank God my children aren't being raised in fear, in hate and anger, in Teaneck.
From the river to the sea, there is no Palestine, nor will there ever be. Why? First, because you are not indigenous to this land...your bones are not uncovered when we dig below 6 feet down. Your people didn't live here even 200 years ago, let alone 2,000. No, you are not descendants of the Philistines...and no, Jesus was not a Palestinian.
Second, violence will not be rewarded in Israel. Perhaps in Teaneck you have the right to promote genocide, but not here.
Third, despite your taking over Teaneck, you won't take over here. Despite your protests, Hamas will die and we will get our hostages back and you won't get another chance to rape and kidnap again...
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