When life’s not beachy, sing about survival

I’m lying at a beach resort, the kind of place where time stretches, where the biggest decision of the day is whether to order another coffee or let the sun wreak its slow havoc on my skin. The waves roll in and out, unbothered by the troubles of the world. Laughter drifts from the poolside bar. And then, from the DJ booth, a familiar beat kicks in.

“At first, I was afraid, I was petrified…”

And I think – hey, that’s us. The Jews.

It seems almost absurd at first. A 70s disco anthem, drenched in glitter and defiance, somehow capturing thousands of years of exile, survival, and return. But as the lyrics unfurl, they strike a truth deeper than the song ever intended.

“Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side…”

How many times have we been forced to leave places we called home? Spain. Russia. Germany. Poland. Iran. Egypt. Over and over, we built lives, communities, futures, only to have them stolen. The streets where our children played, the homes that held our laughter ripped from us in an instant. And in those moments, it must have felt impossible. To start again. To rebuild. To survive.

“But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong,
And I grew strong.
And I learned how to get along.”

That’s the story of the Jewish people – not just endurance, but adaptation. Reinvention. We take the wreckage of history, and turn it into something new. We don’t just survive. We flourish. We carry our traditions, books, and ideas. We turn exile into innovation, heartbreak into renewal.

“And now you’re back from outer space.
I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face.”

They are always surprised when we return. When the people they tried to erase show up once more, heads held high. They were shocked when we returned to Jerusalem. They are shocked every time the Jewish spirit refuses to be broken. They expect surrender, but what they get every time is resilience.

“Go on now, go, walk out the door.
Just turn around now, ‘cause you’re not welcome anymore.”

We’ve been told to leave, more times than we can count. And when they don’t push us out, they try to keep us small, quiet, and afraid.

“You think I’d crumble? You think I’d lay down and die?”

But we don’t. We build. We debate. We dance. We argue. We love.

“Oh no, not I, I will survive.”

And not just in the way survival is usually meant. Not just in hiding. Not just in barely making it through. No, we survive loudly. We survive with joy. We survive by filling the world with books, music, and laughter. By sending spacecraft to the moon. By splitting the atom. By writing laws and symphonies and theories that shape the world. By making Friday night dinners an act of resistance and continuity. By raising our children with hope, even when history has given us every reason for despair.

“As long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive.”

This is the secret. Others survive by clinging to hate. We survive by clinging to love.

So as I lie there, listening to a song that was meant for the broken-hearted but somehow became an anthem for an unbreakable people, I smile.

Because the record keeps spinning. The waves keep rolling.

And we’re still here. And always will be.

• Ezra Stone was born in Natal, South Africa, and now writes from Buenos Aires. His work explores history, resilience, and identity, tracing the unbreakable threads between past and present.