As we try and process the events of Wednesday, the stabbing of two Jewish men in the heart of Golders Green, a deliberate act of terror aimed at Jews, there are so many responses and emotions. Shock, sadness, heartbreak, worry, concern, fear, relief and gratitude that not more people were hurt, and perhaps hardest of all a quiet recalibration of how safe “home” feels.
For some, this has accelerated a creeping unease that settles in the background of daily life. The walk to shul, the school run, the familiar high street are all subtly altered by the knowledge that violence has intruded. The inherent question of whether it could happen again.
We shouldn’t dismiss these feelings. They are real, human. But we also need to be careful about what we do with them.
There is a line from Salman Rushdie, a man no stranger to terrorism, that feels particularly resonant right now: “How to defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized. Don’t let fear rule your life.” Terrorism is named as such not because of the emotion it creates in that moment of violence, but in how far it travels through our minds afterwards.
Fear per se, is not a negative feeling. It is a safety feature, built into us to save is from harm. A survival mechanism that stops us from doing dangerous and dumb things. There is nothing more perilous than an infant without fear. Fear can and should force us to act more safely, put steps in place to allay and repel danger. But, if we allow fear to expand unchecked, it does the work for us.
Children, and especially teenagers, are highly attuned to emotional shifts. They will pick up on anxiety long before we articulate it. And once that sense of instability takes hold, particularly when it is unsaid, or contrary to what we say to them, it is not easily contained.
We can and should acknowledge that something frightening has happened without allowing it to dominate the emotional landscape of our families. We can answer questions honestly while still conveying steadiness. We can create, quite deliberately, an inner world for our children that feels contained and secure, even when the outer world feels less predictable.
This puts the onus on us, as the adults to watch how we speak, not just to our children but around them
Our teenagers are already living in an anxious world, with both reported anxiety and depression at unprecedented rate. Group dynamics can stir up panic and uncertainty, and fears can cycle round endlessly, harmfully. If we meet fear with fear, we amplify it. If we meet it with calm, we give them something to hold onto.
This puts the onus on us, as the adults to watch how we speak, not just to our children but around them. The calls that we take, the discussions over the Shabbat table, at the school gates, they hear us and follow our lead.
Calm, as a conscious choice, needs to be our communal response. A refusal to let acts of violence dictate the terms of our daily lives. It is an act of resilience that the Jewish people have been practising for millennia and across the globe.
This resilience is not one loud act. It is the hundred of acts we have done every day until now and will continue to do. It is going to school, showing up to work, gathering as a community, and yes, going shopping and walking the streets where terrorism has smashed our fragile perceptions of safety. It is the quiet insistence that Jewish life remains visible and unshrinking.
We should be honest about our own limits. If we are struggling, then we need to seek support. Whether that is through friends, family, or professional help, taking care of our own emotional state is part of how we take care of those around us.
In the end, this is the only part we truly control. We cannot eliminate risk. We can petition for policy change, request additional security but we cannot predict or prevent every act of harm. What we can do is decide how far it reaches into our homes, and into the way our children come to understand the world.
“Don’t be terrorized,” Rushdie writes. This unfortunately does not mean we can always stop every anti-Semite. We cannot always stop terrorism, though we are incredibly thankful to the amazing work of those volunteers and professionals who seek to defend and guard the community. But we can seek to control our response.
In the aftermath of shock, that may be the most powerful response we have. Not denial. Not bravado. But a grounded, deliberate refusal to let fear set the tone.
Am Yisroel Chai.
Naomi Lerer is the founder and CEO of Noa Girls
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