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OPINION

SAVE THE DATE!

A Threat To My Little World

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FORtsCZA
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A real life Indiana Jones story

DEBRA LANGER BERLIN
)1 _ Special to the Jewish News

I

am a nice Jewish girl, who grew
up in a nice Jewish neighbor-
hood. I am now a mother, rais-
ing my child in the same house,
in the same neighborhood, in which I
was raised. Sure, times have changed,
but I never imagined that my little
world would be threatened the xvav it
\ -,was today.
,
I left work early, to take care of
myself. Presented with some extra free
time, before picking up my toddler, I
decided the resale shop would fill that
time nicely I then made one other quick
stop. I felt guilty, thinking I should be
spending time with my daughter. I
should collect her and her blankies early
and let her go to the park near the day
care school. I should ease the teacher's
load, at the end of the day, at the end of
the week.
- I never once imagined that maybe
at the end of the day, my daughter
might not be there, might not have
been safe or out of harm's way.
Today her day care was "locked
down" because the neighboring ele-
mentary school received a threat to the
building
0 that afternoon. Imagine
b • the
guilt I might have felt had my daugh-
ter fallen to the fate of one crazy per-
son, a copycat, or in a toddler's words,
a "meanie-beanie".
I am not naive. \N/ith the Littleton,
Debra Langer Berlin is an Oak Park

,

I

resident.

Colorado, incident, only a month
behind and Georgia only a day behind,
I never allowed for the possibility that
such tragedy and senseless murder of
innocent people could occur here, in my
nice Jewish neighborhood. I never imag-
ined threats would be made towards an
..
elementary school, but rather, at the
high school, with hormonal, impulsive
teens, or at the junior high school, per-
haps. Never did I believe that young
children, toddlers, babies and the dedi-
cated staff of teachers who care for them
would be threatened. The possibility of
driving up to my daughter's day care
school and finding her not there has
shaken me to the core. I had no control
and no warning of the potential tragedy
that could have happened, and I'm sure
that the parents in the cities where
tragedy did strike never imagined that
their day would end with such harm
and loss. It almost happened here today
in Oak Park.
How dare anyone take for granted
the innocence of the lives they would
take or the impact the loss of those lives
would have on families and communi-
ties. Today, I had an understanding of
the potential impact of grief and misery
when tragedies strike our schools. No
one should have to experience such cru-
elty, whether due to a crazy person, a
drunk driver, an accident, a war or an
abusive. Communities need to come
together, to heal the violence, one nice
Jewish neighborhood at a time.
It did happen here, today, in Oak
Park.

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from different sides of the syna-
gogue."
Mr. Rubin, that was a cheap shot.

To what purpose?

Erwin H. Posner
Southfield

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