About Picking Up Stones

Picking Up Stones an american jew wakes to a nightmare is an 80-minute solo performance written and performed by Sandra Laub. The play weaves personal narrative, political history, and moral inquiry to explore Jewish identity, Israel, and the responsibilities of witnessing in the aftermath of October 7. The lower case coda to the main title gives a nod to Sandy's Israeli cousin who objected to her using the phrase he thought belonged strictly to Israeli Jews who suffered the most on that day, the worst mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust. But it has been a nightmare since October 7th, for many, many people, worldwide.

Told through multiple voices and generations, the play moves between lived experience, memory, and public events. It does not offer policy prescriptions or ideological certainty. Instead, it asks audiences to remain present with contradiction, grief, attachment, fear, and moral unease.

The writing resists simple binaries. It holds empathy for Palestinian suffering while confronting Israeli actions. It honors Jewish history and trauma while questioning how power, survival, and identity shape moral choices. Rather than instructing the audience on what to think, the performance creates space for reflection and difficult conversation.

Picking Up Stones is designed to be followed by a post-play discussion. Each performance invites audiences to a facilitated talk-back, allowing people with different backgrounds and political perspectives to speak, listen, and grapple together. The work has been presented in cultural centers, festivals, universities, and community spaces in the United States and abroad.

At its core, the play is an act of moral witnessing. It asks what it means to stay human, intellectually honest, and ethically awake in a moment when certainty is rewarded, and complexity is often rejected.