When the Story Isn’t Heard: Memory, Misreading, and the Work Ahead

What We Lose When We Stop Listening for Stories of Welcome

A few days ago, I published an op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal about the 1922 dedication of Nevada’s first synagogue, Temple Emanu-El. I wrote about members of Reno’s Jewish community weeping as Torah scrolls passed through their new sanctuary, as the governor, a state Supreme Court justice, and several Christian ministers looked on; about how the first prayer was not for the local Jewish community, but for Florence Harding—wife of President Warren Harding—then gravely ill. I wrote about a moment that offered not just religious meaning, but civic hope.

Temple Emanu-El in 1922. The original Temple Emanu-El as it looked the year it was dedicated. Located at 426 West St. in downtown Reno, it was demolished in 1971.
Source: Nevada Magazine, via Reno Historical.

And then I read the Facebook comments on the RGJ page—none about the synagogue, Reno, or the United States at all. Instead: Zionism, Gaza, international law, and arguments over whether antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same. The story I had told—of interfaith belonging and civic partnership—was not heard.

What I had hoped was that someone would read the story and be moved to think more deeply about their own community. To show up for a neighbor. To ask about a cultural tradition not their own—not patronizingly, but generously. That, after all, is what it means to be a good neighbor. That’s one vision of what it means to live in the United States.

The idea that multiple cultures can coexist here is not a new hope. It is the foundation of the American experiment. That it has never been perfectly lived out makes it no less real. And for a synagogue in 1922 to be welcomed so openly—supported by donors of many denominations and dedicated by both rabbis and Christian ministers—was rare. Not just in the long sweep of Jewish history since the Middle Ages, but increasingly rare even then, in a country turning inward.

We remember the 1920s, rightly, as a decade of growing xenophobia, racism, and fear of difference. And yet here, in Reno, there is another story—a story of welcome.

In another op-ed I wrote earlier this year for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I ended with the line:

“The verse from Isaiah, visible at Rodef Shalom, is more than decoration. It’s a promise.”

Isaiah 56:7—‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.’ That promise runs through much of what has recently been animating my thinking. And yet again and again, I watch as that promise is misread, or ignored, or drowned out by louder conversations that have little to do with it.

In Pittsburgh, the piece was published but never promoted. It disappeared quietly, eclipsed by the growing war between Israel and Iran. Other recent essays have been accepted—sometimes even commissioned—only to vanish without explanation during staff transitions or other internal shifts. I’ve been told an outlet I worked with for weeks on a story would “love to run it,” only to hear nothing again.

That’s why I want to celebrate The Forward, which recently ran a feature about my work. The reporter, Benyamin Cohen, took the time to understand what I’m really trying to do. The piece didn’t just describe my ongoing project—it mirrored it, treating memory as something sacred. It reminded me I’m not writing into the void. Even in a noisy world, these stories can still be heard.

What gets lost when the kinds of stories I have been telling are flattened into contemporary geopolitics isn’t just the content—it’s the point. My writing is not about defending a nation-state. It’s about remembering something older, and in many ways more radical: the unique mission and moral purpose of the Jewish diaspora as taught in Jewish tradition. The Talmud teaches that wherever the Jewish people were exiled, the Divine Presence ‘went with them’ (Megillah 29a), and that ‘The Holy One, Blessed be He, exiled Israel among the nations only so that converts would join them’ (Pesachim 87b). In other words, exile is not merely a wound—it’s a calling. A belief that Jewish life outside of Israel has a role to play in the unfolding of human history. A belief that the future of Judaism in the Diaspora, of which American Jews comprise around 75%, depends on welcome.

Welcoming matters more than ever as the American Jewish community grows more diverse and more Americans open themselves to spiritual questioning.

I also want to thank everyone who has subscribed to this Substack over the past few weeks—especially those who found their way here through The Forward or past pieces. Your presence affirms that this work matters—not because it’s newsy or partisan, but because it tries, with sincerity and care, to lift up something fragile and worth preserving.

To the one person on the Reno Gazette Journal’s page who clicked the heart beneath the article: thank you. I noticed—and in a world that so often misses the point, your small act of recognition reminded me that someone was meaningfully engaged.

Because I do believe these stories matter.
I believe that pluralism is not a naive dream, but a real American legacy—one that’s often buried under louder narratives, but never fully lost.
I believe that the Jewish diaspora is not simply a historical accident, but a sacred mission.
I believe that welcoming the seeker—whether convert, neighbor, or stranger—is part of Judaism itself, a tradition as old as Abraham.

When I write about mayors unlocking synagogue doors, ministers sharing bimahs, or neighbors gathering in joy, I’m not just offering nostalgia—I’m offering memory as moral resistance, a reminder that we have been better—and that we can be better again.