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Achieving the Impossible: Commemorating the 120th Yahrzeit of the Sdei Chemed
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
Hanukkah is a Yom Tov that commemorates Klal Yisroel facing impossible odds and overcoming them. How appropriate that the 19th-century gadol, Rav Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini, known as the Sdei Chemed, passed away just before Hanukkah, since in his own lifetime, the Sdei Chemed lived this concept of achieving the impossible.
His Early Years
Rav Chaim Chizkiyahu was born in 1834 in Yerushalayim. His father, Rav Refoel Asher Eliyahu Medini, was a respected Sephardic talmid chacham, descended from a family that had been in Yerushalayim for generations. In fact, some scholars believe the name “Medini” derives from the word “medina,” indicating that its bearers were legal residents at a time when Jews often faced restrictions on living in Yerushalayim.
The young Sdei Chemed devoted himself wholeheartedly to learning and retained all he learned in his photographic memory. He married his wife, Rivka, while in his teens and continued his dedication to Torah learning. He received semicha at the young age of 19.
His father, Rav Refoel, advised him, “Learn Torah, learn Torah, and learn Torah! Spend your days and nights learning. Be a yirei shamayim and have ahavas Hashem. Above all, heed the words of Hashem and follow them.” His father assured his son that if he followed this guidance, he would not need to worry about finances, as Rav Refoel would provide for the Sdei Chemed and his new wife.
This promise held true until tragedy struck.
In 1853, his father suddenly passed away, leaving the entire family without financial support. At 20 years old, Rav Medini found himself responsible not only for himself and his wife but also for his entire family. Completely ignorant of money matters, the Sdei Chemed had no idea where to turn. Yet, Hashem was guiding him towards the next step on his life’s journey.
To New Shores
The Sdei Chemed turned for guidance to the future Rishon Litziyon, Rav Chaim Abulafia (1775-1861), who was a close friend of his father. Rav Abulafia recommended that the family move to Constantinople and live with wealthy relatives who resided there and would be proud to support the young and brilliant scholar. In this way, the Sdei Chemed would be able to continue learning.
When he arrived in Constantinople, his cousins welcomed them. Recognizing his greatness, the community asked the Sdei Chemed to serve as the city’s dayan, but he refused, preferring to devote his time to study and writing. It was in Constantinople that he published his first work, Michtav L’Chizkiyahu.
Although his cousins were initially generous, when the Sdei Chemed became seriously ill some time after his arrival, they began to see him as a burden.
Realizing he could no longer rely on them, the Sdei Chemed began tutoring children for a few hours each day while continuing to devote most of his time to Torah study. Over time, he became the most sought-after Torah teacher in Constantinople. He was highly respected as a gaon in Torah with an extraordinary breadth of knowledge, and as a rebbi who could teach Torah to children and adults on any level.
The Sdei Chemed and his wife, Rabbanit Rivka, in Crimea
An Invitation for the Rabbinate
By 1866, Rav Medini was so well-known that even visitors to Constantinople sought him out to learn from him. One such visitor was a wealthy businessman from the Crimea, who was impressed not only by Rav Medini’s Torah knowledge but also by his regal bearing. The businessman approached Rav Medini and offered him the position of Chief Rabbi of the Crimea.
At that time, the Jewish community of the Crimea was in the process of rebuilding itself following the devastating Crimean War.
The Crimean Jewish community, known as the Krymchaks, was unique in that they were neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardic. They had been largely cut off from the broader Torah world and had experienced a steep decline in religious observance. Additionally, the Crimea was home to a significant Karaite population, which was actively promoting its misguided theology.
Rav Medini recognized the tremendous challenge of accepting the position of Rav under such difficult conditions. Additionally, the Jewish businessman informed him that the Jewish community in Crimea had not had a rabbi in 40 years! Yet, despite their limited knowledge, the Jews there expressed a strong desire to keep Torah and mitzvos. The businessman assured Rav Medini that if he accepted the position, the community would support him and help him bring about a renewal of Torah observance in Crimea.
Incredibly, Rav Medini accepted the position and moved to Karasubazar (modern-day Bilohirsk), meaning “market on the Karasu River.” In 1867, after a nearly two-week boat journey, the Sdei Chemed arrived in Karasubazar, where he would remain as Chief Rabbi until 1899. At that time, the city had a Jewish population that was 20% of its approximately 13,000 residents.
When he arrived, he found the spiritual situation to be dismal. Few Jewish children could read Hebrew, and even siddurim were almost non-existent in the city, let alone other sefarim. The community was largely ignorant of halacha and minhagim, and the task that lay ahead for Rav Medini was enormous.
Yet, the Sdei Chemed rose to the occasion. His first major project was to establish a yeshiva to serve the entire Crimean Peninsula. He also prepared a simplified siddur and copies of it were sold as quickly as they could be printed. The Sdei Chemed created easy-to-understand pamphlets on halacha and minhagim that covered nearly every aspect of Jewish life. These pamphlets were distributed throughout Crimea, providing halachic guidance for every Jewish home.
Over the years, thousands of children attended the yeshiva, and they and their families became completely observant. Under his direction, Crimea experienced a renewal of Torah observance, replacing the assimilation and ignorance that had prevailed until then.
During his time in Crimea, the Sdei Chemed was a sought-after poseik, receiving visitors and letters with dozens of shailas each week from around the world.
Rav Medini had one son and three daughters. Tragically, his only son died in 1868. In his memory, Rav Medini wrote a sefer titled Or Li. His son’s death was devastating for Rav Medini, and he became very ill and even lost his eyesight temporarily. Yet, with a tremendous desire to continue his work in Karasubazar, Rav Medini had a complete recovery. His three daughters all married observant merchants who helped support the Sdei Chemed and his projects.
Magnum Opus: Sdei Chemed
It was during his almost thirty-three years in Karasubazar that Rav Medini wrote the greater part of his magnum opus, the Sdei Chemed. (Chemed was an acronym of his name, Chizkiyahu Medini.) The work is an encyclopedia of halachic topics, and includes numerous teshuvos on each subject in the order of the alef-beis.
Rav Medini possessed a remarkable photographic memory, and when he learned a sefer, he would memorize it as well. In his brilliance, he not only memorized the sefarim but also arranged them in his mind in an incredibly organized fashion. Rav Medini directed his immense wisdom and knowledge toward his sefer, the Sdei Chemed. The work is mind-boggling in its breadth and scope.
The Sdei Chemed lacked an index for many years, making it challenging to find the topic one was looking for. Today, it has an index, yet some observe that the index needs an index! Similar to the Minchas Chinuch, which was a closed book for many years until it was republished and reorganized by Machon Yerushalayim, the Sdei Chemed is challenging to learn because it has not yet been reformatted in a similar way.
Throughout his life, Rav Medini was renowned for his tzidkus. There was a period in his life when he spent or gave away every last coin he had daily, and would then begin the next day with nothing. This practice left a lasting impression on those who knew him, demonstrating both his care for others and his tremendous level of bitachon.
Both Jews and non-Jews throughout Crimea revered the Sdei Chemed as the “Holy Rabbi,” and all sought his blessing. In fact, when an order was issued in 1887 to expel all foreign nationals from Crimea, Rav Medini was allowed to remain, due to the intervention of high-ranking government officials and well-known Russian non-Jewish academics on his behalf.
Rav Medini remained in Crimea for decades, because he believed that no one of stature would replace him to teach Torah and guide the community.
Time to Return Home
In 1899, Rav Medini decided to leave for Eretz Yisroel, intending to spend his final days there. Despite the pleas of the Crimean Jews and his own painful separation from his children and community, he remained steadfast in his decision. Though he had not lived in Eretz Yisroel for most of his life, he wished, at the very least, to be buried there.
Nearly the entire Jewish community of Crimea, comprising tens of thousands of people, gathered at the docks to bid farewell to Sdei Chemed as he left. They wept as he departed on a boat across the Black Sea towards Eretz Yisroel.
When the Sdei Chemed arrived in Eretz Yisroel in the early summer of 1899, he was greeted with tremendous joy by the rabbanim and community members. They danced around him, joyfully welcoming him home.
He chose to reside in Yerushalayim and remained there for two years.
When he first arrived, the position of Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim was vacant, and he was asked to become Chief Rabbi. Rav Medini declined, hoping to reside there as a simple Jew, but he found it difficult to withstand the pressure from those seeking his leadership.
Chevron, at that time, was a quiet city and seemed like an ideal place for him to spend his days and complete writing his Sdei Chemed. He decided to move there. Shortly after he arrived, Chevron’s two chief rabbanim, Rav Eliyahu Mani and Rav Yosef Franco, passed away, and the community pleaded with him to become their rav. Recognizing the need and realizing he could lead this smaller community and complete his sefer simultaneously, Rav Medini agreed and served as the rav of Chevron until his passing in 1905.
Despite his advanced age, Rav Medini established a yeshiva in Chevron and supported it with his meager funds, even drawing from money he had set aside for the publication of the Sdei Chemed. When asked how he could do such a thing, he responded that a living Torah scholar is more valuable than a book.
Due to the reputation of the Sdei Chemed, the yeshiva attracted some of the finest young scholars in Eretz Yisrael. One of his students was the renowned Rav Avraham Chaim Naeh.
In Chevron, the Sdei Chemed also focused on the needs of the community as a whole. Each day, he would stay in the shul, saying Tehillim for an hour between Mincha and Maariv along with the rest of the community. When someone asked him why he did this instead of learning, he responded, “If I neglect this community minhag, the whole value and importance of that hour spent saying Tehillim will become meaningless to the kehilla. That is why I must be present — to give it significance.”
Rav Medini’s integrity and greatness earned him the respect of even the Arab inhabitants of Chevron. Due to his influence, many attacks on Chevron’s Jews were averted. When the local rulers summoned the Sdei Chemed for a public tax meeting, they treated him with great respect, apologizing for the summons and occasionally asking for his blessing.
In 1905, Rabbi Medini became very ill. The Rabbanim of Chevron composed a special tefilla, titled “A Prayer for Chizkiya in His Illness,” alluding to the great King Chizkiyahu, who had been gravely ill, recovered, and was granted 15 more years of life. The Sdei Chemed was niftar shortly thereafter, just before Chanukah on the 24th of Kislev. He is buried in Chevron.
A False Accusation
Looking back at his life, the Sdei Chemed offered his own insight on the tremendous siyata dishmaya he had, in what is probably the most famous story about the Sdei Chemed.
It was well known that the Sdei Chemed was outstanding in his Torah learning, and one of his contemporaries became envious of him. In a fit of jealousy, he bribed the non-Jewish cleaning girl to accuse the Sdei Chemed of trying to assault her in the beis midrash. She agreed and ran into the streets shouting that the Sdei Chemed had attempted to act inappropriately to her.
The onlookers were shocked, and yet, the Sdei Chemed ignored the whole scene and continued to learn with tranquility, despite being publicly libeled and shamed. Unsure of how to handle the situation and certain that the Sdei Chemed was innocent, the Rav of the community ordered the cleaning girl fired.
A while later, this cleaning girl had no money left because the bribe money was used up. She also could not work, since, due to this incident, no one would hire her to clean their homes. She approached the Sdei Chemed, admitting that she had made up the whole story because another man had bribed her to accuse him. She suggested that she would tell the entire story in public, that the Sdei Chemed would be cleared, and that she could then have her job back.
Taken aback, the Sdei Chemed thought it over. He realized that although the lady’s confession would clear his own name, it would be a terrible chillul Hashem regarding the man who had bribed her. Therefore, the Sdei Chemed responded that instead of creating a public spectacle, he would find her a new job.
Years later, the Sdei Chemed told over this incident to a talmid. He related that after it occurred, he felt his eyes were opened to learning to a much greater extent than before. He mused that it was either because of his own self-restraint in the face of such humiliation or because of his concern to prevent chillul Hashem that Hashem had granted him so much hatzlacha. The Sdei Chemed also conjectured that it was in this merit that his sefer, Sdei Chemed, was so widely accepted.
Most of us are not capable of writing a Sdei Chemed nor leading an entire community back to Torah and mitzvos. Yet, the Sdei Chemed’s life reminds us that some things that we consider impossible can be within reach if we want it enough. One hundred and twenty years later, this legacy continues to shine brightly.
Rabbi Menachem Levine is the CEO of JDBY-YTT, the largest Jewish school in the Midwest. He served as Rabbi of Congregation Am Echad in San Jose, CA, from 2007 to 2020. He is a popular speaker and writes for numerous publications on Torah, Jewish History, and Contemporary Jewish Topics. Rabbi Levine’s personal website is https://thinktorah.org
A version of this article was printed in Hamodia’s weekly newspaper on December 10, 2025.
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J Street goes on the offensive against AIPAC-backed candidates
(JTA) — J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group, announced that it will spend $3 million to defeat a handful of Republican candidates backed by AIPAC, joining the plethora of progressive groups targeting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this election year.
Such an attack campaign is an unusual initiative for J Street, which typically endorses candidates but does not target opponents on the basis of an AIPAC endorsement. Until now, according to J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami, the likelier scenario for his organization was finding its endorsed candidates on the defensive against AIPAC’s spending.
“It’s a new era for us,” Ben-Ami said in an interview. In 2022, J Street targeted an AIPAC backed candidate — but only after AIPAC barraged the J Street endorsed candidate with negative spending.
In a statement, J Street said that this will be the group’s largest super PAC investment in its history, referring to political action committees that can raise unlimited funds but are forbidden from coordinating with campaigns.
The $3 million will be spent on ads targeting Republican Rep. Mike Collins, who is running for U.S. Senate in Georgia against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish, and a handful of incumbents: Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who is running for reelection amid allegations of domestic abuse, which he denies; Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden; Pennsylvania Rep. Ryan Mackenzie; and Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
Ben-Ami said J Street targeted those particular candidates in part because they each face competitive races as the Democrats look to take control of the House and Senate and they have ideological distance from J Street. Many of them were also connected to the movement to deny and overturn the 2020 election results, Ben-Ami said.
J Street’s campaign comes as AIPAC’s brand has become increasingly toxic among voters, and as a growing number of Democratic politicians cross its red line of supporting conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel. J Street’s position, meanwhile, has recently drifted toward supporting a phasing-out of military aid to Israel in 2028.
AIPAC blasted the campaign in a post on X. “Is this from J Street or Justice Democrats?” AIPAC wrote, referring to the progressive organization that has increasingly aligned with pro-Palestinian advocacy.
“A dark money super PAC spending millions to defeat pro-Israel candidates and lie about AIPAC,” the group wrote. “Not a word about helping elect pro-Israel candidates further exposes the difference between J Street and actual pro-Israel organizations.”
AIPAC has been a heavy spender since it launched its super PAC, United Democracy Project, ahead of the 2022 midterms, and is the top outside spender in this election cycle, according to Open Secrets. A number of anti-AIPAC, pro-Palestinian groups have emerged over the past year to counter the pro-Israel lobbying group’s spending.
Unlike those groups, J Street and AIPAC have some overlap in which candidates they back: Both groups endorsed moderate, pro-Israel Democrats such as Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Dan Goldman. J Street’s super PAC has also previously targeted individual candidates for their AIPAC endorsement, such as Rep. Haley Stevens in 2022, citing AIPAC’s donations from right-wing megadonors.
An AIPAC spokesperson wrote that it is “disappointing, but not surprising, that J Street continues to amplify lies about our community.”
“AIPAC members are focused on helping elect Democrats and Republicans who will strengthen the U.S.-Israel partnership, while J Street is focused on turning support for the Jewish state into a partisan political football,” said AIPAC’s spokesperson.
Ben-Ami said this year’s campaign is not about “the relationship between us and AIPAC,” but is rather about emboldening candidates who may otherwise worry that they will be up against AIPAC’s war chest.
“We are very conscious that there are many candidates who are afraid of what AIPAC might be able to do politically, and therefore adopt positions and say things about policy because they are afraid, and their fear and intimidation is holding them back,” Ben-Ami said.
Now, he said, J Street is putting “the shoe on the other foot.”
“If you are going to oppose American democracy and provide carte blanche to this Israeli government, then you need to be afraid,” he said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post J Street goes on the offensive against AIPAC-backed candidates appeared first on The Forward.
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Germany’s far-right AfD, riding state win, targets more gains in elections from east to west
(JTA) — Germany’s far-right, riding high after winning an eastern state, seeks to capitalize on its momentum in a series of upcoming elections — starting with municipal voting this weekend, followed by two closely watched state contests.
The first test for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party comes Sunday in municipal elections in the western state of Lower Saxony. A week later, the AfD has its sights on state elections in the capital, Berlin, and the Baltic coast state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The AfD beat out other parties in Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6 with 43.8% of the vote and 39 of 83 state parliament seats, falling just short of a majority and marking Germany’s greatest far-right victory in a state election since World War II.
“From previous elections, we know that the AfD is currently able to mobilize almost totally its own constituency and potential voters, while its democratic competitors have much more problems,” said Gideon Botsch, the head of the Emil Julius Gumbel Research Unit on Antisemitism and Right-Wing Extremism at Potsdam University.
While polls do not predict the next state election results will match the historic win in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD currently leads other parties in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with about 35% of the vote. And in Berlin, long a stronghold of Germany’s political left, the AfD is jockeying with the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the left-wing Linke for first place, with all three polling around 20%.
The AfD, a nationalist, anti-immigrant party whose leaders have proposed rejecting Germany’s “guilt complex” over the Holocaust, has regularly topped nationwide opinion polls for the past year. In surveys asking Germans which party they would choose if federal elections were held “this Sunday,” the AfD often receives the highest results, Botsch told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The AfD has built a dedicated and growing base, said Botsch. Its popularity signals frustration with the mainstream parties in power, particularly the CDU, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, amid a sluggish economy. The AfD is especially popular in eastern Germany, where voters are poorer and hit hard by high energy prices exacerbated by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.
The AfD is likely to perform more weakly in the west, where Lower Saxony will hold a municipal election on Sunday. The party has stronger influence in the east, and Germany’s municipal elections tend to hinge more on well-known figures from established parties, said Roger Stöcker, a political scientist at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg. Still, even if the AfD doesn’t transform governments, Stöcker said that making inroads to further entrench itself in Lower Saxony would be “a strategically significant success.”
“It’s conceivable that the AfD wins a town hall or a county administration here and there or strengthens its presence in local councils, expanding its local base,” said Stöcker.
The three upcoming elections are being closely watched for signs of the AfD’s wider-scale momentum, said Daniel Schuster, who heads the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s European office.
“Taken together, these elections can help show whether Saxony-Anhalt was an exceptionally strong eastern result or part of a broader national expansion of the AfD’s electoral base,” said Schuster.
Remko Leemhuis, the director of the American Jewish Committee Berlin Lawrence and Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations, added that residents will feel the effects of the AfD’s success even if it falls short of its victory in Saxony-Anhalt. A “very strong AfD result,” short of managing to enter government coalitions, would still “raise serious concerns” for Jewish residents about the party’s influence, said Leemhuis.
Residents in Saxony-Anhalt are waiting to see the ramifications of the AfD’s election victory. Without an outright majority, the party needs partners to join a coalition. Its nationalist agenda in the region includes teaching children less about Hitler, banning Pride flags in public buildings and requiring artists and cultural organizations to sign a declaration that they will not “disparage Germany and its culture” if they seek state funding.
State governments also control domestic policing and parts of the judiciary. The AfD could use its power in these areas to “put pressure on minorities it dislikes,” including immigrants, Muslims and Jews who are identified with Holocaust remembrance, said Stöcker. At the same time, the AfD could direct policing and intelligence away from right-wing extremism in Saxony-Anhalt, which recorded the second-highest number of right-wing extremist crimes per capita of Germany’s 16 states last year, Leemhuis said.
The AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt marked a “watershed moment” in German politics, according to Roland Abold, the managing director of Infratest Dimap, a German election research institute. Abold said that the result heaped pressure on Merz and the federal government, as “calls for a change in political direction and a reassessment of cooperation with the AfD are likely to intensify.”
The CDU for now is standing behind Merz, the most unpopular chancellor in modern German history after 16 months in power. But if the CDU faces further heavy defeats in the upcoming elections, questions about Merz as the party’s leader could escalate, said Stöcker.
The AfD already has its eyes on his job. Alice Weidel, the national AfD’s co-chair, announced on Monday that she wants the party to win “at least 40% of the vote” in Germany’s next federal election in 2029.
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD candidate in Saxony-Anhalt who hopes to become the state premier, said in the same press conference that his goal was “very clear.”
“As perhaps the next Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt, I need a Federal Chancellor Alice Weidel here in Berlin, so that we can write here history side by side,” said Siegmund.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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I was born after 9/11. I still carry the memories of that day.
Earlier this week, I was talking with my mother over the phone about her experience on 9/11. She walked me through the familiar parts — how she was in our Upper West Side apartment when she learned about the attacks from a relative, how she went to the garage to get the car so they could drive to a friend’s house upstate once she realized the attacks were acts of terror. There were still hijacked planes in the air, and she worried New York City might be targeted again. Then, she said, “This part is going to make me cry.”
I hadn’t remembered what came next, but suddenly it came back to me. “Oh no, me too,” I said.
While she waited for my father to come back uptown from his office in the Financial District, she stopped inside a fire station across from the garage. Inside was a lone firefighter, who’d stayed behind to man the station while the rest of his company was inside the towers. He was watching the news on television, and my mom stood next to him, watching too, when the towers fell.
“We just lost so many men,” he said.
I wasn’t there when it happened; I wasn’t even alive. But I’d heard this story before, I’d walked dozens of times past that same fire station, which now has a plaque commemorating the seven firefighters who died on 9/11. Hearing the story again on the phone, I found myself walking down the streets of Washington D.C., bawling.
I’m 23, born a year-and-a-half after 9/11. Most Americans my age learned about the attacks in school, as history. I’m part of the 16% who learned through family or friends.
The discovery happened by accident, when I was in kindergarten. My mom and I were in a children’s store on the Upper West Side, when we started flipping through a picture book about the history of New York City. Most of the book was unremarkable, but the end was unexpected: a scene of the smoldering twin towers.
I forget what exactly happened next, but here’s what I do remember: My mom was upset that the shop hadn’t provided a warning about the book’s end, and I was confused about why she was upset. I was five, too young to understand the image and never one to let a question go unanswered; I must have pestered her until she offered up an explanation.
She hadn’t been prepared to tell me about terrorism. She’d been evading the topic for some time, telling half-truths to avoid it. When I’d ask her why we had to take our shoes off in line at the airport, she’d just say it was to make sure no one had anything dangerous, leaving out the part about how a man had tried to get on a flight with bombs hidden in his shoes.
“9/11 is a huge thing for a parent to have to tell a kid about,” my mom told me this week. “You were a happy kid, and I didn’t want you to get scared or traumatized.”
The events, and impacts, of that day slowly unfolded for me as the years passed. I learned that my father had watched from Battery Park as the South Tower fell; he ran westward as plumes of smoke billowed toward him. I learned that my parents had friends who’d died in the towers, one of whom was the father of a boy I grew up with. I remember going to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum when it opened in 2014, feeling sick as I watched footage of people jumping out of the towers.
The New York Times recently interviewed dozens of Gen Z Americans about 9/11. I was struck by how disconnected many felt from the event. “It’s hard to feel sad about something that you don’t remember,” said Annika Heegaard, a 25-year-old now living in New York.
But for me, 9/11 doesn’t feel quite so far away. By now I’ve lived through other mass casualty events, like the Parkland shooting and the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. But 9/11 is the only tragedy that my family members had such a direct connection to. “It was devastating,” my mom said.
I think the reason I can remember the exact moment I found out about 9/11 is because it changed my view of the world. I remember being almost unable to comprehend that anyone would do what the hijackers did. I wasn’t, as my mom feared, traumatized by learning about the attacks; I didn’t fear for my safety each day. But the knowledge was in some ways a loss of innocence — a discovery that people could do awful things and that the world wasn’t as safe a place as I had assumed.
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