11 Comments
User's avatar
Amanda's avatar

What an incredible set of stories you've told here. I live in so much gratitude for knowing you, and having been blessed to read your words. You make me want to be brave, too, you and your Judith.

Expand full comment
Elana Gomel's avatar

My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. Her siblings were not so lucky. Several of them are buried in Baby Yar in Kyiv. My grandmother was the strongest person I ever knew. She became a successful lawyer in the USSR and eventually immigrated to Israel. She was the mother to her only daughter (my mother) but also to me, and my sons, her great-grandchildren. Her name was not Judith (it was Ethel). But I would like to believe that she is one of those Jewish heroines without whom the People of Israel would have never survived. I was thinking of her as I was reading this story.

Expand full comment
Elissa Wald's avatar

My maternal grandmother was also named Ethel. My Hebrew name is Ettel, for her. ❤️

Expand full comment
Zelda's avatar

I'm so blown away by the poem, and by the story of Judith. Thank you so much for sharing both.

Expand full comment
Ruth Obernbreit's avatar

Am very glad to know about your magazine. I am moved. I also write and am trying to put into words the transmission of trauma that I am experiencing since the election. As if October 7th wasn’t enough. Your story about Judith is an inspiration.

Expand full comment
Ian Mark Sirota's avatar

I am proud and honoured to support this incredibly worthy endeavour.

Expand full comment
Amy Shapiro's avatar

Mazel Tov, Elissa! Judith would be so proud of you! Her memory is a blessing. ✡️❤️☮️🎶

Expand full comment
Tia Ribary's avatar

Such a powerful story. Congratulations on your launch and especially on being brave and making the world better!

Expand full comment
Seth Lorinczi's avatar

Appreciate this so much--not least for understanding the context behind the name!

Expand full comment
Abbi's avatar

I know in the deepest part of my soul that Judith is so proud of you. As are we all 💕

Expand full comment
<Mary L. Tabor>'s avatar

So moving: I wept on reading the story of the past and the joy of your resilience, Elissa Wald, in its face. I feel blessed to have found you here where your audience will grow, must grow.

I am the child of first generation Americans whose parents on both sides escaped the horrors of pogroms only to fear what came after. Anti-Semitism defined my father's childhood. My grandmother on my mother's side was sent away when just 13 with only her Sabbath candles, never to see her parents again.

We live this history and see it in the making again.

May all their memories be a blessing and give us fortitude like yours.

Expand full comment