The office has been cleaned out, campaign photos and signs stripped from the walls, and goodbye hugs given to college interns and staff. Just a few weeks ago, St. Louis Democratic primary voters chose a new candidate, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, to represent the 1st Congressional District in Washington.

It was far from a “normal” primary campaign.  

Oct. 7 changed the world in ways we never saw coming.

We awoke to the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust and, in our collective shock, never expected the world to turn on us so fast. At least, I didn’t. I was in no way prepared for the level of hate that exploded all around us, seeping onto our college campuses as Israel became the hot topic of congressional campaigns in a presidential year.

Days after the horrid news, our St. Louis Jewish community showed up, pouring into a gym for an emotional vigil —  Orthodox, Conservative, Reform Jews — all of us. I was struck by the charged communal spirit and saw differences melt away. We felt the potent need to stand closely together, for the outside hate toward Jews had already begun, the hate that was perhaps always bubbling under the surface.

We desperately needed an ally in Congress, one who didn’t call us names and would stand with us, not with the terrorists.

Fast forward months later and 36 St. Louis rabbis, in their personal capacities, made history by endorsing Wesley Bell for Congress. Nowhere in the country had this been done before, and certainly not by a collection of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis who rarely agree on much. But they did, because of the growing hate against Jews in our own backyard and because, courageously, they knew they must.

In my 22-plus years of campaigns, including several bruisers of my own, I had never been part of one in which my safety and that of volunteers and staff was a daily concern.  

I had never had protestors bang on office windows, threaten and scream just because some of us inside were Jewish. But we didn’t flinch, as eight of those rabbis stood arm in arm on a Sunday afternoon, making history, in a jam-packed office. Or rather, they didn’t flinch. My heart was in my throat, knowing the office was one block from a shul, potentially a target for violence. I knew what one thrown rock could lead to.

The protests outside Bell’s campaign office continued until the election. Instead of chasing away volunteers, they came in numbers and with passion. A synagogue in Skokie, Ill.,  volunteered to make calls to our voters every Tuesday morning, and a group of Orthodox friends in Los Angeles organized a huge phone bank. By July, more than 140 Jewish volunteers in numerous states, whom I didn’t know and would never meet, were phoning for us every day, because Bell’s promise to stand with Jews resonated with them as well.

In traditional campaigns, candidates routinely differ on policy and on message, but they don’t spread and incite fear. At least not before Oct. 7, they didn’t.  

But the world changed, campaigns changed, and it took one candidate who was not Jewish, willing to stand, as he often said, “for right versus wrong.”

Through it all, the Jewish community grew stronger, tougher and became a family, regardless of how we observe our faith. 

I sat side-by-side with Orthodox, Reform and non-Jewish volunteers, giving hours and hours of their time. I routinely met with Orthodox rabbis who somehow trusted my campaign expertise, and whom I now regard as friends. Our differences did not matter.  

I often stopped to take it all in, tearing up as an 87-year-old volunteer phoned Jewish voters with a hearty greeting of, “Shalom Aleichem.” More tears, as a volunteer texted with her daughter at an outdoor wedding in the Golan Heights that very minute, sending photos of flashes and explosions above the Iron Dome — above the chuppah. And even more tears, as women I didn’t know in Chicago, begged me for more addresses for them to write postcards to voters they didn’t know.

The campaign office now sits empty, full of memories of hard work, nerves, antisemitic slurs, precious gifts of challah for sustenance, and lots and lots of hugs.

Bell’s candidacy was the catalyst that brought us together, inspired us to stand as one community against the hate. 

Now it’s up to us to make sure that we continue to do just that.