As my heart and mind careens from violent act to violent act across the world, the doomsday clock is ticking and all I hear is unhealed pain. I am trying to remind myself that though this time feels more urgent and terrible than ever before, perhaps it is also the most beautiful and possible than ever before. How easy it is to be afraid as humans, how easy it is for that fear to drive us. 

Jewish history in Amsterdam is hundreds of years old, beginning with communities of Sephardic Jews pushed out of Spain and Portugal in the late 1500s and early 1600s. They settled in Amsterdam and built one of the world’s largest synagogues in 1675.

In truth, I’ve thought about doing this for a long time, but I always stopped myself short, thinking “how could I be so important as to warrant a newsletter?”