On July 18, we will mark the 12th anniversary of the senseless

Host:
The evening sky over Buenos Aires was a deep, bruised violet, the kind of color that comes only after rain and memory. The city lights were just beginning to bloom, flickering against the wet pavement like candles trembling in wind.

In the heart of the Recoleta district, a small plaza stood silent, its walls lined with names — etched in stone, etched in history. 85 names. 85 echoes.

A memorial flame flickered beneath a dark sky, and the air carried the smell of wax, roses, and rain-soaked concrete.

Jack stood at the edge of the crowd, his hands clasped, his eyes fixed on the monument. Jeeny walked beside him, a white flower in her hand, her expression solemn, her breath visible in the cold air.

Jeeny:
“Tom Lantos once said, ‘On July 18, we will mark the 12th anniversary of the senseless loss of 85 lives in the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.’”

Host:
Her voice was steady, but it carried a tremor — not of fear, but of remembrance. Around them, the crowd murmured, whispered, wept. The city’s heartbeat had slowed, as if listening.

Jack:
“‘Senseless loss.’” He repeated the phrase, quietly, as though testing it. “You ever notice how we always say that after things like this? As if there’s any kind of loss that actually makes sense.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe we say it because it’s all we can say. Because if we admitted that we’ll never understand it — that some things have no reason — it would break us.”

Jack:
“Maybe we’re already broken. Maybe we just don’t want to look at the cracks.”

Host:
A gust of wind passed, lifting the white petals from a nearby wreath and scattering them like snow. Jack watched them fall, his jaw tight, his eyes dark with thought.

Jack:
“Eighty-five lives,” he said, his voice low. “And for what? Some political statement, some hatred disguised as faith. How can anyone call that belief?”

Jeeny:
“They don’t believe in God, Jack. They believe in revenge. That’s what happens when people worship their anger instead of their humanity.”

Jack:
“Then what good is faith, if it can be so easily twisted?”

Jeeny:
“It’s not faith that’s twisted. It’s the hearts that hold it.”

Host:
The flame wavered in the wind, a thin thread of gold against the darkening air. A child near the front released a balloon, its string slipping through small fingers, rising, disappearing. The crowd watched, as if the sky might answer.

Jack:
“You know what bothers me the most? It’s that twelve years later, and we’re still calling it an anniversary. As if it’s something to celebrate. We should call it what it is — a wound that refuses to heal.”

Jeeny:
“Anniversaries aren’t always about celebration, Jack. Sometimes they’re about witnessing. About saying to the world, ‘We remember. We still care. We won’t let silence win.’”

Jack:
“Silence always wins. Look around. Most people moved on. The cameras are gone. The outrage faded. Only the names remain — and even those are read by fewer voices each year.”

Jeeny:
“But those few voices are enough. That’s how memory survives — through the stubbornness of the living.”

Host:
Her words hung in the cold, mingling with the smoke from the candles. Jack rubbed his hands, as though to warm them, but his eyes were still locked on the flame, flickering, defiant, alive.

Jack:
“You ever think about what it means to call something ‘senseless’? It’s like an admission of defeat. Like saying, ‘We can’t find reason, so we’ll just stop looking.’”

Jeeny:
“Maybe it’s not defeat. Maybe it’s humility. Maybe it’s finally admitting that our logic, our politics, our systems — they can’t explain the darkness in us. ‘Senseless’ is the only honest word left.”

Jack:
“Then what’s left to do?”

Jeeny:
“Light a candle. Say a name. Keep living without becoming what you hate.”

Host:
A moment of silence spread across the plaza as the rabbi began to speak. His voice was soft, but it carried — naming each of the victims, one by one. The crowd responded, in whispers, “Presente.”

Jack closed his eyes.

Jack:
“I was in New York when the towers fell,” he said after a while. “And I remember the smell — that burnt dust, that silence that felt like the whole world had stopped breathing. For weeks, everyone talked about justice, but what they really wanted was revenge. Same thing that happened here. We never learn.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe learning isn’t the point. Maybe remembering is.”

Jack:
“Remembering doesn’t bring them back.”

Jeeny:
“No. But forgetting would kill them twice.”

Host:
Her words landed like prayers, fragile but unshakable. The rain began again, light, steady, weaving through the flame’s smoke. And still, no one moved.

Jack:
“Eighty-five,” he murmured again. “Each one had a story. A routine. Someone they loved. Someone who waited for them to come home.”

Jeeny:
“They still wait, in a way. That’s what remembrance is — the waiting we do for those who’ll never return.”

Jack:
“That sounds like punishment.”

Jeeny:
“It’s not. It’s love, refusing to end.”

Host:
Jack’s eyes softened, his shoulders lowered. He took the flower from Jeeny’s hand and walked toward the memorial, his steps slow, deliberate. The crowd parted, watching as he knelt, placed it among the others, and rested his palm against the stone.

Jack:
(softly) “We don’t know your names, but we see you.”

Host:
His voice was barely audible, but Jeeny heard it — and it was enough. She joined him, kneeling, closing her eyes, the rain threading through her hair.

Jeeny:
“Tom Lantos called it senseless,* but maybe the real sense is in what we do after — in how we refuse to let hate write the last line.”

Jack:
“Maybe the only justice left is memory.”

Jeeny:
“And the only vengeance — compassion.”

Host:
The rain stopped, just as if the sky itself had been listening. The flame steadied, stronger now, reflected in the wet ground like a second sun.

The crowd dispersed slowly, but Jack and Jeeny remained, watching, breathing, alive.

Because in that moment, grief was no longer just a story of loss,
but a living act of witness — a quiet vow that memory, not violence,
would define what it means to be human.

Host (closing):
The city of Buenos Aires carried its wounds into the night, but the light — the small, defiant, human light — remained.

And beneath that flickering flame, Jack and Jeeny understood what Lantos had meant all along:

That while the act itself was senseless, the act of remembering —
of choosing compassion over silence —
was the most sensible, sacred, and necessary art of all.