Restricted.
I saw the sign from the window of my father’s light blue Nash Rambler on a Sunday drive through a fashionable neighborhood of a Virginia suburb. I’m not sure of my age, only that I was old enough to know that it meant not allowed.
Was it big trucks? Motorcycles that made too much noise. Or maybe dogs whose owners didn’t clean up after them?
“What’s restricted?” I asked my father. He paused, actually bringing the car to a stop between two colonial-style houses with large white columns anchoring an entrance porch shaded by a white magnolia tree. For a moment I yearned to run up the porch steps and sit in one of the white wicker rocking chairs.
“How fun it would be to live here,” I thought.
My father remained silent, both of us staring at the sign on the corner of the well-manicured street. The strange thing about the sign was that it sat atop an architectural structure that looked like a fancy lamppost. Large gold letters were set in a black background, making them look like they were speaking with authority.
“What’s restricted?” I asked again.
“Jews,” my father responded in a tight voice. “Jewish people are restricted from buying homes or living in this neighborhood.”
He didn’t offer more, nor did I request it. We never discussed it again, but life continued to leave little teaching notes for me that there will always be people who think they can restrict you and people who refuse to be restricted.
The most recent note arrived between 5 p.m. July 23 and 8 a.m. July 24, when the mural of peace and hope created at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center campus was vandalized with hateful antisemitic language and swastikas. The mural had been created in response to a previous act of antisemitic graffiti on the exterior wall, the only structure remaining after PJTC was gutted in the January 2025 Eaton fire.
Some people thought they could restrict. Other people refused to be restricted.
My friend, PJTC Executive Director Melissa Levy, summed it up eloquently.
“There is something particularly cruel about choosing a wall created to bring people together after devastating loss and using it as a canvas for hate. We responded to hate with hope before, and we will do it again.”
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.