Today is Yom Hashoa. I just finished a long preparation for a live reading of Vilna by Ira Fuchs and am glad that I persevered and made it happen. The video is below.
Doing this project has brought up a couple of thoughts for me in the past few weeks and I am finally able to share some thoughts here. We are living in a time where people are doing heroic deeds by just being. We live during COVID – 19. It keeps us homebound. It keeps us from living the way we are used to. Of course it is not the same as what my ancestors, my Bubby and Zaidy and their families went through. It will never be the same. They had their stories and we share them today. But now we are creating our own stories. How we go about our story and what choices we make today will be told in the years to come.
These past few weeks have been hard for me. I wanted to continue writing here but I have taken my time. I go in and out of how and what I can accomplish. I get depressed that I am not accomplishing enough and yet there are sparks of inspiration. I said I would read Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting and I have been reading it but I have not finished. I said I would complete Theater Makers Studio’s course but have not even finished two sessions. I know that I am doing other things that are as good. I launched JET Live! and directed, hosted and acted in the above video but sometimes we need to take a break and refresh. I do have Shabbat for that and I am blessed to be part of the Jewish people and to celebrate what Shabbat is but even during the week we need this. We who are home have that ability during COVID – 19 to take that break. That is what makes us heroes today. To persevere and refresh and continue.
And there are those on the front lines of the COVID – 19 struggle and they too are heroes. They are making sure that those in the field are staying strong, staying safe, and surviving. It is a struggle and there are losses but these people are keeping it together for all of us. The policemen, the healthcare workers, food workers, and more. They are all heroes
What is the Hero story
What is a hero? Who is a hero? I searched on google and honestly could not figure out the right answer or even determine if there was a correct answer. Heroes will be different for each and every one of us But in our discussion last night there was the mention of a hero being a person who finds themselves in a certain situation and rises to the occasion. Human beings, us, are heroes and living through a heroic time just because we are living now. We can call others heroes from their time, but we can also call ourselves heroes today.
We are all heroes
I want to thank every one of you. You are all heroes in today’s story. All an inspiration of what the human spirit can endure.
#stayhomestaycreativestaysafe
Share your written work here. Join the blog. Have any other ideas to weather this virus? Want to join JET Live!? Let us know @ jerusalemenglishtheater@gmail.com