Rachel Laser is the RAC's Deputy Director. Ms. Laser has a diverse background in policy advocacy, coalition building, message development, and political strategy. She served as Senior Vice President at Hattaway Communications and as Director of the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. At Third Way, she launched the Come Let Us Reason Together Initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and progressive activists to work together on divisive social issues. Rachel enjoys spending time with her husband and three children and serving as a mentor to young women who share her professional interests.

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The Boston Marathon Bombings: Lessons from Passover

by Rachel Laser 04-14-2014
Memorial at the finish line of the Boston Marathon after the bombing, RobinJP /

Memorial at the finish line of the Boston Marathon after the bombing, RobinJP / Flickr.com

My first marathon ever — 2003 in New York City — did not go according to plan. On the positive side, I would never have guessed that P. Diddy would be running the same marathon and at the same pace for much of it, providing an entertaining entourage to distract me from my exhaustion. On the negative side, my name, which I had taped to my tank top so the crowds could give me much-needed encouragement, quickly peeled off, and I was anonymous in the crowd. My plan had been to run that last mile to the mantra “you can do anything” or “you are power,” but instead, my legs barely moving and my husband and close friend no longer by my side, I chanted dejectedly to myself: “Never again, never again.”

I didn’t know what misery associated with a marathon really was, though, until I heard about the Boston Marathon bombings, which took place one year ago today. On this day, two young brothers set off two bombs at the end of the Boston Marathon. As we waited to understand the damage, I remember thinking about the juxtaposition of the runners’ feelings of accomplishment setting in just as shrapnel began to fly. Then I received the painful — even if relieving — news that my first cousin had been right at the finish line with her husband and baby (born a year ago exactly on that marathon Monday) and had escaped the violence only because the baby needed her nap. We eventually learned that three people were dead, hundreds were injured, and the two suspected perpetrators were associated with radical Islam. I felt disgust and horror.

Moments such as this challenge each of us to live up to the “better angels of our nature,” as President Abraham Lincoln put it. As has been borne out by various terrorist attacks around the globe, terrorism breeds fear — its intended consequence. Too often this fear becomes fear of a religious group. We, as Jews, know intimately the perils of a society surrendering to this type of fear.