A different take on the news - The Jewish Standard

In the elevator with me was a young mother who held her baby son close to her as his head rested upon her shoulder. He was obviously weak, bundled up against the cold, and I heard her murmur to him in soft Arabic as she kissed his cheek. For some reason, I remembered (and felt) my mother eons ago gently kissing my forehead when I was a young child. The Arab mother walked down the same corridor with me, the young boy listless in her arms as we exited the building. A cold rain was falling and I opened my umbrella and started off to the left as she hesitated before heading to the right – with nothing more than a thin blanket covering her son’s head. I turned to offer them some protection when a Jewish woman popped open her umbrella and kindly encouraged the young mother to walk together with her. As they headed off uphill in the rain, I watched them. A simple unnoticed gesture of kindness between a Jewish woman and an Arab mother protecting her child. I’m sending this to you because if you listened to today’s news, you will only have heard that Katyushas were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon and more Palestinian Kassams hit Israel in the south. I consider what I observed also to be newsworthy.

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