‘EVEN ON SHABBAT I HAD TO ATTEND: THIS WAS LIFE OR DEATH FOR MY COUNTRY’

NATALIE Friedman took part in the New York march despite it being on Shabbat. She explained:

I WANTED to feel the excitement of the day, which I hoped would be a balm to the disappointment I had felt post-election.

Typically, we start our Saturdays at services, and the afternoon is for family time. How to reconcile requirements of the sacred with those of the political?

When my shomerShabbat friend texted me on Friday to ask me to join her group I knew I had to go.

I had been feeling vague trepidation: what if some lunatic fringe group incited violence? What if Jews were targeted somehow? But my friend’s resolve strengthened mine.

I also knew of other observant Jewish families who were willing to take public transportation to get to the gathering site — if ever there was a matter of life and death, of pikuah nefesh, wasn’t the ailing health of our country just such a reason to transgress one of the Sabbath laws? There were a few Jewish groups that endorsed the march and many liberal Jews were represented. I did notice Jewish families pushing strollers on their way home from shul. Although they didn’t join in or hold signs, they gave a friendly wave.

The tone was one of friendship — less a protest than a reinforcement of neighbourliness and even patriotism. What I heard from friends — Jews and nonJewish women alike — afterwards was that it left them with feelings of inspiration, hope, and sisterhood.

Not every Sabbath sermon in shul leaves me feeling those emotions, and so if a collective, peaceful action on an unseasonably warm and sunny afternoon can, then I feel I truly observed Shabbat.”