With thanks to Kate Clifford Lawson, author of Bound For The Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero, and the related website, HarrietTubmanBiography.com, we note that this year, the Jewish new year coincides with the anniversary of Tubman’s first escape from slavery. We’d like to point out some of her accomplishments which we suspect are not common knowledge:

• Not content with securing her own freedom, she made thirteen trips into the South to rescue imprisoned family members, each time placing herself in harm’s way;
• Made other trips, unnumbered, helping others enslaved escape;
• Gathered intelligence for the Union Army;
• Was the first woman to lead Union forces in an attack on Confederate forces.
• And all this with a childhood head injury inflicted by a slave overseer leaving her suffering chronic head pain, seizures, and difficulty sleeping.

Disenfranchised as a woman, an African-American, a slave, burdened by disability, Harriet Tubman nonetheless redefined herself, repeatedly risking her life to save others, and perhaps helping to redeem our country from the moral taint of slavery. Our words here can do nothing to add to those accomplishments; but it is within our reach to honor her memory.

In that spirit, regardless of calendar or faith, please accept our wishes for a just, peaceful and prosperous year to come.