A Little Ray of Hope in Los Angeles

I was out walking my dog Sunday evening. The Oscar presentations were over, but the drama was about to begin. An Asian family stopped their car and asked me if I had seen a missing child. I had not, but I asked what I should do if I found the child. They told me to call the police.

I returned to the house and told my wife that the family had lost their six-year-old child. She asked me what the child looked like. I told her the boy must be Asian.

I soon discovered that the missing child was Menachem Goldberg, and he was not Asian, but what I witnessed during the next couple of hours was a beautiful expression of community spirit. As word went around that a six year old had been reported missing, the entire neighborhood came out — Hasidic Jews, assimilated Jews, Asians, whites, African Americans. On the exact same blocks in which I had filmed looting during the June 2020 protests, a broad, diverse community was searching together for a child.

What I witnessed during the next couple of hours was a beautiful expression of community spirit.

In a world in which we see so much division and hatred, it was a heartwarming moment of reassurance that when one child is missing, everyone’s child is missing.

Menachem Goldberg turned up safe and well hiding at home, a couple of hours later. But after securing an extra 10,000 steps and seeing more of my neighbors’ back gardens than I had ever imagined, I returned home pleasantly happy to know that I live in a neighborhood where an Asian couple was out searching for a Jewish child, as if he was their own.

Stephen D. Smith is Finci-Viterbi executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation. The first episode of “The Memory Generation” was released on April 15, 2021, and can be found here: https://www.memorygenerationpodcast.com/episodes