I was very fortunate that a few months after Alisa’s murder I was invited by the United Jewish Appeal and the Development Corporation for Israel, commonly known as Israel Bonds, to become a member of their respective speakers bureaus. Both groups thought I had an interesting story to tell – one that would resonate with Jewish communities across the United States.
Thus began about five years’ worth of seemingly non-stop engagements in the United States and Canada attending programs in synagogues, law firm conference rooms, hotels, country clubs, and living rooms. There were times I would tell Alisa’s story three times a week. One weekend, because it included Yom Ha’Atzmaut, I spoke motzaei Shabbat in Rockland County and the next day at a breakfast and then at lunch at two shuls in Queens.
Looking back, I realize how very lucky I was to be able to speak about our experience as often as I did because, while I found each speech emotionally draining, it was allowing me to let off steam.
One night after a talk in Newton, Massachusetts, a middle-aged man came up to me. He looked the professorial type, corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He shook my hand and before he let go asked, “Do you find that speaking helps you?”
I asked in response, “Are you a psychiatrist?”
“Yes,” he said. “Keep it up.”
My talk would begin with Alisa’s decision to go to a yeshiva instead of public school, our encouragement of her to travel and study in Israel, her murder, and the unity of the Jewish people. I would give examples of how people cope with the situation we found ourselves in. Many times people would tell me after I spoke that they didn’t know what to say to help ease the pain. I would agree with them and say that if they were to find the right words, we could sell them to Hallmark cards and then retire on the residuals.
The 9/11 attacks put a damper on my willingness to fly around the country as the security requirements of just getting on a one-hour flight to Boston or Chicago could take an entire morning. I still do speak, and find that more than twenty years later, Alisa’s story still resonates.
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One of the themes of my talk is the need to stand up for your principles, one of which should be recognition that all Jews comprise one family and that if we don’t stand up for our family, no one else will.
That’s a trite statement, I know, and it means different things to each of us. However, it forces us to recognize that we just can’t “talk the talk” but have to “walk the walk.” In other words, act on your beliefs. In our case, it meant giving substance to our beliefs not only concerning the imperative to fight terrorism but also in the importance of providing a Jewish education to our youth combined with study and travel to Israel.
Within days of Alisa’s murder we put our beliefs into action by establishing the Alisa M. Flatow Memorial Scholarship Fund to provide financial awards to students wishing to enter a full-year program of religious study in Israel.
The Fund has awarded more than 150 scholarships since 1996 to men and women from varying backgrounds. While most students study at Orthodox yeshivot and seminaries, Alisa never limited her circle of friends to what we would call frum kids. She once wrote that she liked “to have friends more observant than me, who I could learn from, and friends less observant than me, who might be able to learn from me.”
