I don’t usually write letters to newspapers.

This circumstance is different.

I am not OK with Hamas wanting to destroy me just because I am Jewish.

I am not OK with other groups (and take your pick here) wanting to kill me because of my religion.

I am not OK with Jews being slaughtered, burnt.

I am not OK with college students protesting with chants of “Death to the Jews.”

I am not OK people trying to be helpful saying we are in the birth pangs of the Messiah

I am not OK knowing that tomorrow there might be a pogrom in America.

To put on a mask, a brave face saying, “It will be OK.” I am sorry I am not on your level.

I am not embarrassed to say this.

How do I go to work every day, have normal conversations, eat, sleep, be normal with what has happened and what continues to happen?

How can the sun shine?

How can the birds chirp?

Where is the uproar in heaven?

“Never again” was our motto, but it happened in Israel, of all places.

How do we go on?

I go on because I am a Jew.

I go on because for thousands of years our enemies have tried to destroy us; every generation with a different tactic—and we are still here.

I go on because I believe that a person can rise above themselves and be something greater than themselves.

I go on because my heroes of Nach.

Dovid, Iyov, Shimson, Yonah, our Nuevim had jobs to do and they did it with death and destruction around them.

I go on because Holocaust survivors were able to.

I go on because when I wake up in the morning I say to myself, “The only person who will defeat me is myself.”

I go on because I have a family I love, as well as the rabbi of my shul, YIPC, both whom I would go to the ends of the earth for.

I go on because I can help when I can.

I go on because I like what I do as a librarian.

I go on because I will not let negativity bring me down.

I go on because I choose to do so.

We are not prophets or children of prophets, but I know we are not OK—but we will be.

David Adler

Passaic