Elizabeth Shvarts, Author at Hadassah Magazine

Elevating Unheard Voices

Teen Essay Winner! We are all intertwined in our existence, in our struggles and in our hopes and dreams for the future.

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Feb 1

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"It’s Sunday morning and I’m in church again, greeting the regulars and bear-hugging the pastor," writes Rona Kobell. "Miss Marleen asks after my children. Mr. John wants to know about my health. Miss Claudia says she’ll add me to the prayer list when I tell her I may need surgery for nagging abdominal pain.⁠
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For the past year, I’ve been attending services on and off at Macedonia United Methodist Church, a Black congregation on Deal Island, a flood-prone peninsula on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore.⁠
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I’ve sat in on the worship there more often than at my own synagogue in Baltimore. I come because I am documenting a place that is slipping away.⁠
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I come from a place that slipped away, too. My mother’s family hailed from Bardejov, Slovakia, which had a thriving Jewish community before the Nazis invaded in 1942. My father’s family came from Ukraine. Today, there are no Jews in Bardejov. If I were to return there, or to Ukraine—as impossible as that is now—there would be few signs of my ancestors’ existence, let alone anyone able to share stories of them.⁠
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Telling the story of places that are lost, or about to be lost, has become a large part of my job as an environmental journalist. It’s not enough to announce that the planet is warming, that waters are rising and that treasured lands will be underwater within our lifetimes. I must also share the stories of the people who lived in those places." ⁠
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➡️ Tap the link in bio to continue reading "My Jewish Connection to a Black Church Community" by Rona Kobell. ...

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