Sunday, July 22, 2018 5:23 AM

On the night of the fast of the Ninth of Av, I gather with other men near the entrance to the synagogue at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. They have recruited me to help form the group of ten worshipers that they need for a community reading of the Book of Lamentations. As we wait, flashing red lights come into the parking lot. Their reflections zoom around the lobby. Four people in uniforms enter. "Where is the sick person?" No one knows. They give a room number. It's in Acute Care. "Oh, yes, it must be the Romanian woman." They wheel a fully loaded gurney down the hall and around a corner. After several phone calls, the group gives up on finding ten men. Perhaps they will in the morning. I head out, ducking around the ambulance in the driveway and past scattered people sitting on park benches in the dark.