This is a Mistake

by Ben Schrager

Taking refuge in an empty bedroom, Daniel runs into Shira, an old classmate from a private Jewish high school . They’re both attending shiva for Harrison, a fellow classmate who died fighting for the IDF. Congregation Beth El is remembering Harrison as a war hero and a Jewish martyr, but Daniel is wrestling with his own memories of Harrison: a vicious bully who seems to have died as one, too. In conversations...

Taking refuge in an empty bedroom, Daniel runs into Shira, an old classmate from a private Jewish high school . They’re both attending shiva for Harrison, a fellow classmate who died fighting for the IDF. Congregation Beth El is remembering Harrison as a war hero and a Jewish martyr, but Daniel is wrestling with his own memories of Harrison: a vicious bully who seems to have died as one, too. In conversations with Shira, Daniel’s gentile boyfriend Luke, and his former best friend Ari, Daniel clashes over his queer American Jewish identity, his alienating thoughts about Israel, and his own grief about his father's death. Daniel is left to ask himself: what does a community choose to valorize and choose to ignore? And what are those noises and shadows coming from the closet and the bed?

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This is a Mistake