This Really Is a Test

I sat there.

January 17, 2018.

In the rotunda.

With eighty-five others.

In the U.S. Senate building.

We sang.

“Ozi v’zimrat Yah vay’hi li lishuah.”
(The Lord is my strength and my might; He is my deliverance)

The U.S. Capitol Police issued a warning.

If you do not disperse, you will be arrested.

We did not move.

This is your second warning.

We sang some more.

“Like a tree…we shall not be moved”

This is your final warning.

We were arrested.

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Why did I travel to Washington, D.C. to join a group of eighty-six Jewish leaders and activists to demand a clean DREAM Act, to show solidarity with the DREAMERS? I am not a DREAMER. I am not affected by DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). I was born in the United States. 

I’m an American citizen. 

I’m safe from deportation…for now.
.

.

Why did I do it?

For my children. I do not want them to live in a country where people did nothing while others were threatened with deportation. I wanted to provide them with an example of what people can do to help other people.

For the millions that were exterminated. I could not pretend that I didn’t hear the echoes of the past coming out of the mouth of Individual 1, the current occupant of the White House. 

For the future. I saw it as a rare opportunity to make history, even if it was history with a small “H.”

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