Andrew grew up in the Jewish suburbs of New York, surrounded by bagels, bar mitzvahs, and Hebrew school, and a Judaism so present it almost disappeared into the background. At the same time, being on the neurodivergent meant that words often felt stuck inside, hard to share in real time. Years later, as a journalist in Washington, D.C., those same words became his craft. Writing gave him a voice he once was not sure he would ever have.

In parallel, his Judaism began to wake up again. Covering Jewish stories, wrestling with Israel, showing up at Shabbat dinners and reconstructionist services, he found himself not just reporting history, but locating himself inside it. The image that held all of this for him was sofer, the Jewish scribe, a person whose work lives in language and whose letters outlast the parchment they are written on.

The phrase that rose up for his tattoo was the line from Avodah Zarah:
גְּוִילִין נִשְׂרָפִין, וְאוֹתִיּוֹת פּוֹרְחוֹת
“The parchments are burning, but the letters are soaring.”

Gabriel translated this into an abstract symbol built from Hebrew letters: a circle that is almost complete, intersected by a vertical flow, both formed from the same fragments of script. Integrity and resilience in tension and in motion. A quiet mark on the body that honors what Andrew does every day, holding complexity, telling the story faithfully, and trusting that the letters will keep flying long after the moment has passed.