On Survival and the Need to Bear Witness: From My Journal 2001-2003, and Beyond

© 2010 bridges association i am invited to write a brief (200 word) essay about something “inspiring to women” for a conference titled “Women United.” The deadline is past, but I am assured that if I submit something right away, it will be considered. At first, I cannot imagine that any of my thoughts would be inspiring to anyone, and I’m too busy to condense anything into 200 words. (The friend who encourages me says she is sure I have “a paragraph lying around” that I can use.) But in the early hours one morning, I decide to make the effort. Otherwise, I fear there will be neither a Jewish, nor a Holocaust, presence in the anthology that is being prepared. At this time there is simply no other subject for me. The title: “On Survival and the Need to Bear Witness.” I am surprised it is accepted, because it is not the overtly feminist contribution they want, and I honestly do not believe I have served the subject well. I don’t know that I ever can. Here it is: on survival and the need to bear Witness From My Journal, 2001-2003, and beyond