While immersing myself within the JDC photographic archive, I became captivated by images of faces. Faces wearing knowing smiles and fearful glances, faces bearing the burden of fatigue and the stares of silent strength. I became lost in the details -- the glint of an eye, the turn of a head, the clench of a jaw, the furrow on a forehead. Men. Women. Children. Suspicious. Embarrassed. Ecstatic. Indifferent. In study, at play, working, in pain, or glowing with hope. Faces of innocence, faces of wisdom, faces of experience. Jewish faces.

The more I looked, the more these faces began to grow on me. Beyond the particular countries, towns and individual histories that distinguished us, and despite the chasms of time that separated us, there was something about each and all of them that felt ineffably familiar. It slowly dawned on me that many of these anonymous faces could easily be members of my family. And then it struck me. A warm shock of recognition. They are my family.

A time to mourn and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together.
--Eccles. 20:20