Regina Spektor Instagram – Today we remember. There are still teachers of what went on in the Holocaust. Not as many of them still with us, but thankfully- enough to carry us on their shoulders into this new painful moment. Only they can teach us to feel and think from a place which we will hopefully never know ourselves. We’ll hopefully never know it again as a nation. Is that the prayer? That we want to remember yet never truly understand… ? I am forever changed. On October 7th I understood new things. And I don’t want it to come any closer. This ancient yet new in my life in New York hatred of Jews and Israelis on a level that can only be achieved through dehumanization, accusations, anger and scapegoating, paranoia… This level of lying and harassing, in person and online- just to kick more Jews down. I see it. So clearly. When we get lost- we turn to our teachers. And so, tomorrow, we’ll read from one of our teachers- Elie Wiesel, who suffered tremendously, and then wrote and shared of his pain. You can go in person or join online and we’ll read some texts from his tragic book “Night”. I haven’t been able to read my portion without crying. I’m practicing. But it’s just too much. All of it. In the scroll I include some other teachers of the Holocaust and life. The last slide is a book written by my closest teacher of the Shoah- Sam, who not only taught me about the dangers of prejudice, but also along with his wife Sonia, gifted me my music education. I don’t want to let him down. I don’t want US to let him down. I don’t want the world to let him down. So much of what’s happening now is familiar to him… I want the story to go a different way this time. We owe it to our children. We owe it to the survivors. And most of all- we owe it to all those who didn’t… Am Yisrael Chai 💙🕯️