My son is on a list

And then they came for me. What does it say about us when we tell our own to repent or suffer the consequences?

This famous art work, from the Berlin Wall, is called, ’My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love.’ It depicts Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union at the time, and Erich Honecker, the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR. It was based on a photo where they actually kiss, something of a socialist greeting.

Before Wednesday, I had never heard of the shadowy organization known as The Canary Mission. But then they came for my son.

What I’ve learned since then has sent me into a deep hole with concern not only for my son, but our freedoms and yes, even our future as a Jewish people.

It started with a message from my son’s father, alerting me to an Instagram post. There was my boy, in a picture I remember, pasted into a template made to look like a “wanted” poster. It lists the Canary Mission’s grievances. Some are accurate; others are not. By the time I saw it, over a couple of hundred people had liked the post or commented on him. They know his name, they know where he goes to school. By the comments, they seem to know me.