How to create a toolbox for clarity and confidence?

Read the following for context: Decades after the Holocaust, scholar and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said: “Once I thought that antisemitism had ended; today it is clear to me that it will probably never end.”

Read the following: It can be challenging to know how to feel or act in the face of rising antisemitism. Processing the reality around us can be destabilizing, overwhelming, and frightening. And yet, we have tools, both within and outside ourselves to support us during these times of uncertainty. The value of resourcefulness – the ability to find ways to overcome difficulties– can help discover the tools that are at our disposal in responding to antisemitism. What are these tools? Where do they come from?

Facilitator reads: In an article entitled “Arise, Shake off the Dust,” Rabbi Haim Sabato, Israeli Rabbi and author, describes the wells of strength from which he drew as a young tankman in the Yom Kippur War and that continue to sustain him today. Read the following in havruta/pairs and answer the prompts below: “A person has to contain deep pain and sorrow with the ability to shake off the dust, and discover greatness of spirit. Not greatness arising from foolish arrogance, nor the pride of haughtiness of strength, but rather arising from the inner spirit of our nation, arising from deep faith.”

CONSTRUCTING YOUR TOOLBOX: Facilitator prompts the group:

• Scan the QR code or click here to access the worksheet for Constructing Your Toolbox.
• Consider the prompts and select five objects that represent the different “tools” that will support you while contending with antisemitism. The “tools” can be symbolic objects or real ones – people you can turn to, networks and groups, texts, images, poems, quotes, memories, stories.

Facilitator prompts:

• Refer back to your toolbox.

What’s hard?

• •Which was the most difficult box to fill in? Why? Discuss with a partner or the full group

.          - Consider what you need to help you find that tool. What’s easier?

• Which was the easiest box to fill in? Why?
• How can you commit to helping someone else who is struggling as they face an environment or acts of antisemitism?

Facilitator prompts the group with one or both prompts:

• What can help/remind you to refer back to this toolbox the next time you’re looking for strength around the issue of antisemitism? Write it down.
• Tools and resources are all around us and we need different ones at different times.
• Pick one of the tools from your toolbox and commit to sharing it with a friend. Who will you share it with?

Facilitator prompts the group with one or both prompts:

• What can help/remind you to refer back to this toolbox the next time you’re looking for strength around the issue of antisemitism? Write it down.
• Tools and resources are all around us and we need different ones at different times.
• Pick one of the tools from your toolbox and commit to sharing it with a friend. Who will you share it with?