As second anniversary of Oct. 7 looms, Jewish journalism has been a crying matter

I’ve chanted Lamentations 1:16 in synagogue on the fast day of Tisha B’Av, and though the verse includes my name in biblical Hebrew, I’d struggled to connect with the dramatics which the prophet Jeremiah is believed to have penned.

“Upon these, I cry. My eye, my eye floods water, for any comfort (menachem) that might return my spirit is far from me. My sons are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

That verse has returned to me often since Oct. 7, 2023, particularly as the second anniversary looms of the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

I have often dealt with unpleasant subject matter as a journalist in the past 25 years. But having become the editor of the U.S. news section of a Jewish wire service in January 2023, I’ve seen and heard things since Oct. 7 for work that