“A very old man came in to my Starbucks. Halfway through struggling to understand his order through his thick accent, he noticed my necklace. He stopped and said “Your star is beautiful.”, and I thanked him. There was a long pause before he spoke again. When he did, he said “It is beautiful, but I am having a hard time looking at it. The last time I wore one, it was mandatory.”
We then spoke to each other in Hebrew for a bit. But soon enough he stopped again, and looked back to my star. With one hand he held mine, and used his other hand to shakily touch the sapphires on my necklace. His lip shook, and tears rolled down his cheeks. In a shaky, heavily German-accented whisper, he said “I am so happy you are here. Your generation is here. We won.” and kissed my hand.✡”
