I’ve had so much change since January 2020. Ann and I became grandparents to our beautiful, lively grandson Asher. I’ve embarked on a new journey in professional life, accepting a job with a Jewish-identified organization, 2Life Communities, providing affordable housing to low- and moderate-income elders, and of course, like the rest of the world, I have faced the relative isolation of COVID quarantine and another round of killings of Blacks by police and vigilantes followed by unrest and protest.
The joy of Asher is unsurpassed, not only because of the reminder of the unconditional love children require of us but also because it is an opportunity to see our daughter Shaina continue to grow and mature as an adult. It is a thrill to embark on a new turn at work, this late in my career, but it is a shift for me to work in a Jewish-identified organization and I continue to think about how to integrate that into my approach to life. I am so saddened by the loss of life associated with COVID and violence against people of color, enraged by how often it has been in my lifetime that we’ve arrived at a point where the violence worked by racial hatred and separation has risen to the level of public discussion, with only marginal advancements, and I am nonetheless heartened at how broad the outcry against racial inequities is at this moment, and hope that it can be sustained so that real meaningful progress can be achieved.
