Aly Raisman Gets Cheers Back Home
Stunned: Aly Raisman watches as she was placed fourth in the individual women?s Olympic gymnastics competition. Image by getty images
A line snakes down the lawn of the red brick town hall topped by a gold cupola of this New England town founded in 1711, today a suburb of Boston. So many fans have arrived to cheer on Aly Raisman, the hometown Olympic hero, for an “Aly Rally” that overflow rooms are opened and some are even turned away.
A crowd of some 500 people, a mix of pony-tailed preteen girls, former classmates, and residents who have ducked out of work, has come together as a community to watch a live feed of Raisman competing for gold in the women’s all-around gymnastics event at the London Olympics. Among them is Susan Faber.
Faber, 71, is Raisman’s maternal grandmother and she is nervous.
“She grew up overnight in my eyes,” Faber says of Raisman, who as captain of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team helped lead her squad to gold on Tuesday. “I can’t wait till she gets home so I can put my arms around her.”
After the rounds of “Let’s Go Aly” cheers subside, Faber sits perfectly still and watches the large screen hanging over the town hall’s sprawling stage as her granddaughter warms up for her uneven parallel routine.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
