#preservationday

“OMG JEWISH MUSIC IS SOOOOOOOO BORING”

Part five of my Jewish-American experience. 

***

Unfortunately, Israel’s devastating and horrific genocide of the Palestinian people has led to the rise of much antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Let it be said that although absolutely think the Jewish people need a land of their own to take refuge from the anti-Semitism we face on a global level, I do not - nor will I ever - support the actions of the Israeli elite or the genocide of the innocent Palestinian people. I find the founding of Israel extremely problematic (though I would say the same for just about any country). I want to see an independent Palestine, free from occupation, imperialism, and colonialism. I want the Palestinian people to have access to clean water, plenty of food, excellent health care. I want them to be treated equally, I want them to be free, and most of all, I want the war to end so that we can stand in solidarity with each other. I want Israel to end the occupation of Palestine and help them rebuild their country. I want us to work together so that all people of the Middle East have a safe place to take refuge from the racism we face in the West.

What Israel has done to Palestine affects me very deeply - it breaks my heart. Racism, in all it’s ugly forms, breaks my heart. No one should live in fear of their life because of their culture or skin color. No one should be considered inferior due to their ancestry. We are truly all humans, we are all people, we are all equal, we all deserve freedom.

All of that being said, I condemn the antisemitism that has arisen on the Left, and I will take every opportunity to speak out about it. This is not a denial of my white privilege. Here in America, I am white-passing. For all intents and purposes, I am almost always considered White. I do not face racism to the severity that those with darker skin than me do.

I do not have to worry much about becoming a victim of police brutality, or being monitored more closely or suspected unreasonably. I’ve never been stopped and frisked for no reason. People perceive me as White, and therefore, I’m ‘safe’. The fact that I am an articulate and well-spoken person is not a surprise to anyone. I am not at a higher risk of incarceration. I can wear what I want without being called a ‘thug’ or a ‘gangster’. It’s assumed that I have my job because of my skills, not my race.

But I still feel the need to speak up for my people, especially because many of my people are unable to speak for themselves, and because we still do face forms of racism. Even in places in the Diaspora that are friendlier to us, like America and Iran. The deaths of our people are routinely mocked and joked about. Our people are still restricted in where we can travel, for fear of our safety. People see us all as ‘Jews’, instead of recognize the diversity and difference in our culture. In many parts of America, there are people who will not employ me because of my Star of David jewelry. I’ve been told my people are blood-thirsty and violent. I’ve been told that we need to ‘get over’ the Holocaust, and our exile from the land of Israel (which is why my people are so very much oppressed). I’ve been blamed by Gentiles of the actions of the Israeli bourgeois. My people are still portrayed as stereotypes and our culture is still routinely appropriated. Perhaps worse still, we are often written off as White, and told that we’re being over-sensitive to the racism we experience; we’re told that antisemitism is over, or that we bring it on ourselves. In France, they march openly in the streets, calling for the destruction of my people, a second Holocaust, demanding we return to Israel and the Middle East.

White people have the privilege of walking the Earth, completely unaware of being White. I am intensely aware of my Jewish heritage every minute of every day of my waking life. Trust me.

I need to speak.

I feel the need to speak for the non-Israeli Jews of the Middle East, who are routinely being rounded up and slaughtered like animals. I feel the need to speak for the Jews of Europe, especially France, whose synagogues are being burned, who’s cemeteries are being desecrated, who are being driven from their homes, fleeing for their lives to America and Israel. I feel the need to speak for the American Jews, whose complaints of racism and assault often go ignored. I need to speak for dark-skinned Jews, who are murdered and incarcerated at rates that greatly surpass the statistics for White people. I need to speak for Jewish women, for queer Jews, disabled Jews, young Jews, old Jews, Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Jews, Israeli Jews, Diaspora Jews, Jews on the Left, Jews on the Right, apolitcal Jews, ethnic Jews who identify as Christian, Muslim, Pagan, atheist, or something else entirely, Arab-Jews, Asian Jews, African Jews. The voices of my people have been silenced, our hardships invalidated, the danger we are in minimized. When we do speak, we are either ignored or harassed and bullied into silence. We are told that we are being over-dramatic, that our skin is too soft, that we have no right to be angry over the discrimination we’ve faced.

But we have every right to be angry. And we have every right to be proud. And we have every right to celebrate ourselves, and honor our ancestors, who fought, suffered, and bled to secure a future for us.

That is why, as a Jew, I will use my voice to fight our oppression, no matter the resistance I face. As a Jew, I will work at reconnecting with my people and my identity. I will honor the sacrifices people have made.

I am Jewish. I am proud. I am strong. I come from an amazing and beautiful people.

Yes, let us preserve our beautiful and fascinating culture. Let us preserve ourselves. and let us always stand strong in the face of hate, remembering - and embodying - the strength and resilience our ancestors.  

Part four of my Jewish-American experience. ***

When I was 21, I began to work at a local dog groomers as a dog washer. I spent a lot of time with the only other dog washer there. To protect the guilty, we’ll call this man Henry. At first, Henry and I got along pretty well. He seemed to be easygoing and friendly enough. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, he told me that he identified strong as a neo-Nazi, that he thought White people were superior to all other races, and that there was no race he hated more than the Jews.  

I felt stuck. I was terrified to stand up to him. Henry already had a felony on his record, and I didn’t know him very well. I did know that he glorified violence, worshipped Hitler, and thought the Holocaust was one of the best things to ever happen. At the time, I lived with my family, including my little sister (who is also a person of color; she’s of the First Nations, Lakota and Sioux). I didn’t want him coming to my house and killing us for being Jews and Jew-lovers. I didn’t want to go through the antagonism and disgust he would greet me with if he knew I was a Jew.

So although I didn’t openly approve of his beliefs, I didn’t openly condemn them either. When he talked about his racist and Nationalist beliefs, I either remained silent or made non-committal comments that revealed nothing about my true beliefs, but could be misconstrued by him as support.

Matters were complicated by the fact that one of our co-workers was black. She was the youngest of us and the hardest worker. To her face, Henry was incredibly friendly and polite. Behind her back, he called her strong racial slurs and said terrible things about the Black community. She was aware of his political views, and she was also aware of my ethnicity. When we were alone, we would complain to each other about Henry’s racism, and how uncomfortable we were around, and how we wish the boss would simply fire him. However, neither of us ever stood up for ourselves, and she never told Henry about my ethnic make-up.

It must be noted that this was not the first time I’d remained silent in the face of racism, and it was not the first time I hid my ethnicities in a bid to be accepted by white people.

I am white-passing. I have white privilege. And rather than use my privilege to stand up for someone who did not have the same benefits I did, I used it to hide. I was, and still very much am, absolutely ashamed and appalled at my actions. I have absolutely no excuse. I should have said something. I should not have taken the opportunity to camouflage myself among White people, while another member of a marginalized race was unable to do so. I am no longer in contact with this person, but if by chance she were to ever read this, I wish to extend my deepest apologies. I am so sorry I used my privilege to hide, and I am so sorry I essentially made you deal with that Nazi asshole alone.

Never will I forget what I did. And never again will I remain silent in the face of racism.

Things did eventually change with Henry when my little sister gave my a very special gift: Star of David earrings. The first Star of David, I had ever owned. I realized I had to make a choice. I could either embrace who I was, embrace being a Jew, embrace the proud history my people have, our strength, and our resilience. Or I could continue to remain silent, and ashamed of who I was.

I chose to go into work wearing the earrings. Henry’s attitude towards me changed instantly. He was cold and antagonistic towards me. He refused to acknowledge my existence or work with me. If we were forced to work together, he would snap at me if I had the audacity to address him for any reason. Eventually, he left the job after going on a loud, racist rant while on the job, a rant overheard by a few customers.

It was after this that I dedicated myself to learning more about my culture and people. It’s a journey I am still making, and one I will be on for the rest of my life. I have tried to deny who I am, hide myself, but for what reason? What do I have to be ashamed of? Our people have had our land taken from us. We were forced to assimilate to culture’s that weren’t our own. We’ve been slaughtered like animals en masse since our exile into the Diaspora.

And yet, we have survived. And yet, we stand. And yet, we celebrate who we are and tell jokes and laugh and honor ourselves and love each other and fight for not only our rights, but the rights of all people of color.

Part three of my Jewish-American experience. 

***

After a bit, my interest drifted to other things. Because I passed White and had a White family, I was able to convince myself that these anti-Semitic beliefs were obscure and rare. I told myself that the hatred against my people was pretty much over, that it now only manifested on the darkest corners of the internet, far away from where it could affect me.

That began to change when I was in college.

Back then, my older brother (who is White) and I were really into conspiracy theories. At the time, we were unaware of the antisemitism that tends to saturate most of these theories. We were just interested in them because they were part of the unknown, and tied into our bigger interest in the paranormal. I, of course, had read some anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, but I wrote them off as obscure and racist beliefs. I was unaware that these beliefs were hugely popular with some mainstream conspiracy theorists.

My brother one day mentioned his interest to one of his classmates. This classmate claimed that her son was a Freemason, and told my brother she could give him ‘privileged’ information. My brother agreed to meet her in the library after her classes were over for the day, and as my curiosity was also piqued, I tagged along. My brother said she was acting rather paranoid, and told me to stand away from him. The lady spotted us entering together though. I stood at a distance and watched her meet with my brother from the corner of my eye. She was giving me the nastiest looks. At first, I assumed she was simply paranoid and didn’t trust me. After reading the literature she gave to my brother though, I question that.

My brother returned from his meeting with her with pamphlets and paperwork that claimed to reveal a vast, ‘Zionist’ conspiracy theory. There were pages and pages on how my people ran the banks, the media, the world. There were paragraphs upon paragraphs talking about how evil my people were, demands for a second holocaust, calls to action in order to protect White children from my people’s cruelty.

I read lie after lie after lie. I had never been so angry in my life. I’d never felt such outrage and shock. And I had never felt so afraid. I realize that these people were out there, that these people were real. For the first time, those who called for my destruction were no longer epitomized by the posts online, the faceless entities that professed hate and intolerance. The hate finally took human form. It finally found it’s way into my home, my family, and my life. I realized that antisemitism was more widespread than anyone wanted to acknowledge. I realized that beliefs which sounded so despicable to me were believed fervently by otherwise intelligent and rational people.

I realized that although I did not experience racism to the degree that it is experienced by dark-skinned people of color, I was not safe either. There are still people out there who would murder, assault, or rape me simply because I am a Jew. These people are our classmates, co-workers, businessmen, bankers, and bus drivers. They are everywhere, and because they are wise enough not to discuss their beliefs, they are essentially invisible to me, until it’s too late.

After I had this realization, I stopped publicly talking about my ethnicity as much. I distanced myself from it as much as possible. I took all the antisemitism I’d been taught over the course of my life, and I internalized it. I passed myself off as a Gentile, I told myself that it ‘wasn’t my fault that I was a Jew’. However, it was impossible to lie to myself, entirely. I stayed in contact with one or two Jewish people I knew. Society’s antisemitism continued to find it’s way into my life. I would hear about assaults on Jews taking place in Europe, every now and then. Stories would appear in the news, my friends would inform me when they heard about one of us being assaulted or murdered.