Je Suis Juif by: Wayne Kleinman U.S.A

We walk to the Synagogue and are stopped by an armed guard at the door. He demands to see our passports and IDs.  We show them to him and enter the Sanctuary.  We put on our tfillin and talis, but even with the guard at the door we feel frightened.   Fortunately that doesn’t happen to us because we don’t live in France, Germany, Sweden, or other European Country.  We live in the U.S.A. We just walk through the door, start to pray, and don’t think about our safety, just our prayers. We are lucky.  There are millions of people around the world and on social media saying in solidarity Je suis Charlie. “I am Charlie” for the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.  They were killed because some people didn’t like what they did. The four men who were killed in the kosher supermarket weren’t killed for what they did, they were buying food for the Shabbat.  They were killed for who they were, Jewish. Now the world is saying Je suis Juif, “I am Jewish”.  This was not the first time people were killed in France for being Jewish.  One incident a little less than three years ago Rabbi Jonathan Sandler (age 30) and his two sons Areh (6) and Gavriel (3) were murdered by terrorists in a Jewish School. We should think about our fellow Jews in the diaspora. We should show solidarity for one another at all times, not only in times of tragedy.