Eicha, then and now

Funny how things work out. I started with the clear intention — for reasons too complex to summarize here — not to observe Tisha B’Av this year. Now, after having a rare opportunity to hear Eicha in a solemn, if unusual, setting, I find myself consumed with worry for Jerusalem.

Here’s what happened.

Given the recent efforts by far right ministers in the Knesset (that’s you, Smotrich and Ben G’vir) to disenfranchise — and even imprison — observant non-Orthodox Jews, and the refusal by the charedim to serve in the Israeli army, I decided to “protest” by not focusing my remembrance on Jerusalem and skipping the Tisha B’Av service altogether.

But when I received an email about an Eicha service being planned by a consortium of synagogues, to be held near the ill-reputed detention center Delaney Hall in Newark, I decided that this was an appropriate venue for lamentations. So too did several members of my Teaneck synagogue and more than 120 congregants from synagogues throughout New Jersey.

Congregant Bernard Rous of Teaneck said he chose to attend because “Our immigrant neighbors are deprived of due process and subjected to capricious cruelties in detention centers. They are deported to the violent countries that they fled from, and separated from family. Immigrant conditions, statelessness, and exile are part of my own core historical identity. Observing Tisha B’Av in front of the Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center brings Eicha into the present world. I want to be part of a Jewish resolve to mend the communal brokenness in some small measure by giving support to those currently being persecuted.”

Funny how when you warehouse people — whether in boxcars, camps, or barbed-wire facilities — you cease thinking of them as people. And exactly what goes on within the walls of Delaney Hall is unclear. In a recent article for the nonprofit publication “The Intercept,” we read: “While they’re not as common as reviews for cafes and dry cleaners, reviews have poured into Google Maps by the thousands for the growing network of jails operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The reviews have come from internet users sharing their often harrowing experiences in the detention facilities. Google then purges these reviews and blocks the ability to write new ones, according to newly published research.” While it will take more than supportive volunteers and prayers to fix that, I figured my attendance there would, at least, make a personal statement.

Eicha was read by volunteers in both Hebrew and English. The mood was solemn as we listened, glancing occasionally toward the barbed wire building to our left. We joined in the recitation and singing of psalms, and at the conclusion of the service, we walked closer to the building, but still outside the permitted barrier, singing songs of hope.

As strangers in many strange lands, we know the importance of supporting newcomers looking to improve the lives of their families. They do not deserve the treatment they are getting. I reflected on this and recommitted myself to doing more to help them. But something else also happened. Having had the chance to listen closely to the words of Eicha, on a warm night surrounded by attentive, caring people, I fully absorbed the message of that reading. Those who have always hated Jerusalem (and the very idea of a Jewish state) would indeed gloat as they trampled every last Jew into the ground.

Surrounded, as in Eicha, by enemies, and by friends who might well prove duplicitous, Jerusalem is still on shaky ground. Israel is strong, but that is no guarantee that it will always remain that way. And while we may disagree (vehemently) with the policies of the current government, we have to remember that nothing is forever, and vigilance is warranted.

Lois Goldrich of Fair Lawn is, among other things, an editor emerita of the Jewish Standard.