The first hiccup came when a lady at the entrance of the Kosel Plaza carefully draped Ally in a shawl. Ally stared at me, horrified. “Esther!” she demanded at this assault on her person. “Tell her to stop!”

I cleared my throat and whispered that this was a holy place, and people felt it important to dress respectably. Ally tugged at the shawl, gave the woman an evil eye, and went back to her phone. She trailed behind as I led Shannon to the Tunnels. “Should we go up to the wall first?” I asked Shannon.

Shannon glanced at the Kosel. “Nah,” she said, and strode off to the Tunnels. Left with Ally, I said, “C’mon, we’re going to the Kosel. It’s the last remnants of our Temple,” I added bravely.

Ally didn’t glance up from her phone. “I’m good here,” she said.

“What?”

I couldn’t believe this. No kiruv story ever went this way.

Ally deigned to look up at me. “I said I’m good,” she repeated, and plonked herself down on the floor, back to her phone.

“Ally,” I said. “I want to go. Just come with me!”

She huffed in exasperation. “It’s a wall,” she said. “I can see it from here, Esther, and it’s a wall. You do your thing, I’ll wait.” So I went off to the Kosel by myself, but I was completely unable to daven. I was just so shocked.

As we left the plaza, Ally removed the shawl from over her shoulders. Everyone in the vicinity turned away in horror. I squared my shoulders and smiled determinedly. Ally, meanwhile, was gazing over my shoulder at Har Hazeisim in the distance.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s the Mount of Olives,” I explained. “Can you see the gravestones? It’s Jerusalem’s most ancient graveyard. Isn’t it beautiful?” Come on, Ally, give me something.

Ally kept staring. “Look how full it is!” she finally said. “It’s totally crowded. And that’s why everybody should get cremated!” she finished triumphantly.

I gaped at her. “No no no!” I protested, but she didn’t hear me, as the bus drew up at that moment. We went back to my apartment and had a lovely supper together. That evening, I told my husband that kiruv was definitely, definitely not my strong point. But I kept davening for them.

My sister tried her luck, too. She managed to drag two other cousins, Rebeca and Lesley, to a Shabbos Project event. I think she told them it was a mass baking event with cultural undertones (remember, we don’t mention the R word). While the women waited for their dough to rise, a speaker got up and detailed her journey from Hollywood to frumkeit; how she’d chosen the truth, leaving everything behind, and was now raising a beautiful frum family. My sister felt that this was clearly siyata d’Shmaya, as my cousins are in showbiz, too. But then she caught sight of their faces. Lesley gaped at Rebeca. “Is she crazy?” said Rebeca, pointing at the speaker. “She must be mad. Or lying. Or something,” stated Lesley, mouth open in awed horror. “What normal person would do such a thing?”

So much for an inspiring, life-changing speech.

All my cousins have a strong dislike of both Chabad and Aish. There are some well-known family anecdotes that end something like: “…and then the rabbi dropped a boiling hot brick in my dorm room sink and then he spat on it!” (Cue uproarious laughter, the finer points of kashrus totally missed.)

And then October 7 happened. October 7 posed a bit of a dilemma for my dear, distant cousins. This is because they mostly believe that we are evil oppressive white colonialists. Shannon and Ally are two of many cousins who have actually visited Israel; many others won’t, out of protest. They fully sympathize with the poor (ahem) Palestinians. But we’re family, so they also happen to love us very much.

The kind of conversations we have go like this:

Shannon: How are you all?

Me: We’re fine. All in the bomb shelter right now.

Shannon: Ah. I can’t imagine it, darling.

Me: The kids are all cuddled up to me, we’re quite cozy; don’t worry.

Shannon: Well, look after yourselves then.

There’s not much to say beyond that; avoiding politics and religion right now while talking about our lives is practically impossible. I’ve tried to take off the PC gloves. I’ve written long emails about the agony of waiting for Iran to attack (during the summer), and the way I made batch after batch of babkas and rugelach simply because it was so soothing to have a dough to knead.

Shannon: Well, those should last you a while then.

I told her, at the start of the war, about running with the children for shelter while out in the open; the anxiety, the sudden surge of adrenalin, the shakiness when you reach a building just in time to hear the boom, too near for comfort.

Shannon: As long as you’re all all right, darling.

I don’t even know what to daven for anymore. I cannot envision a single scenario in which my extended family would ever, ever come back to us in heart, soul, and body. Some cousins have been married out for four generations — they’re only still Jewish because they all had daughters! How on earth are they going to come back?

In the past, I used to say, well, I’m just keeping up positive interactions with them, showing them that we’re normal people, and leaving an opening if they ever have a change of heart, while davening for them daily. Now, that doesn’t feel like enough. I feel helpless in the face of their indifference, in the face of the culmination of thousands of years of galus.

Last week, I was davening Shemoneh Esreh as usual, when I came to the brachah of Mechayeh Hameisim, He Who revives the dead. And suddenly I thought: That’s it! That’s what has to occur! They’re so far, and so apathetic to anything Jewish, that they literally have to be brought back from the dead — and He promised that He’d do it. He promised us.

Since then, I feel great joy when I say Mechayeh Hameisim. You promise to bring them all back. Even the spiritually and emotionally dead. You promise! And then I add on, just please, please be quick about it. Before another one of them has themselves cremated.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 929)