Rachel Weeping for Her Children

In an Eilat mall, I saw a girl barely five foot tall in camouflage fatigues with the semiautomatic weapon suspended from her shoulder almost dragging the ground as she walked with her six-foot something boyfriend. In the Negev I saw young people on a Sunday picnic with side arms and automatic weapons in hand. In Jerusalem I literally saw the Daughters of Zion armed and paroling the city of peace.

Auschwitz, January 27, 1945.

And in the dark stone hewn chamber of Yad Vashem, a single candle’s eternal reflection, and a wailing not unlike the wind arousing the somber remembrance of “Rachel weeping for her children... because they are not” “… they have cast lots for my people and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink” (Joel 3:3).