I’m Jewish.
There, now, I wasn’t going to blurt it out like that. I’m not sure what I was going to do.
Maybe I was going to tell you my convert-cute story, where I started going to synagogue services right after the 2023 Oct 07 attacks to show solidarity with the community, and just never stopped going.
Maybe I was going to explain how I fell in love with Jewish rituals and forms of worship and how I found a spiritual home, even though I hadn’t known I was looking for any such thing.
Maybe I was going to say nothing, carefully avoiding all topics that might get close to the unsayable. That’s what I’ve been doing since completing my conversion, six weeks ago. I wasn’t worried about you folks but, well, the internet, you know?
That last one stopped being a possibility last Sunday, when I woke to news reports about Jews murdered at a Hanukkah party on Bondi Beach near Sydney, Australia.
I’m Jewish. In a sane world, nobody else would care at all. That isn’t the world we live in.
Since 2023, I have attended services at synagogues in Ottawa, Myrtle Beach, and Tempe. All of them had — and still have — security precautions including, at times, police cruisers and armed officers out front. In 73 years I’ve never attended a Christian church that needed security. Not even in Guatemala, where armed guards adorn the doorways of every bank and many, many, many retail establishments.
I’m Jewish. So is an Australian woman I saw interviewed on ABC TV. She’s the daughter of a Bondi Beach victim, a Holocaust survivor. She’s not observant, but she knows that people who hate Jews don’t care about that. Standing in front of a pile of flowers left in memory of the murdered, the interviewers asked her whether she had a message for Australia’s leaders. She gestured at the flowers.
Is this what you wanted?
And is it enough?
The interviewers didn’t have a snappy follow-on question.
The USA has developed a protocol for live-shooter situations: Run, Hide, Fight. Run away if you can; hide if you can’t get away safely; fight if there’s no other choice left to you. But what should we tell people to do if their whole society becomes a live-shooter situation, with them as the target of choice?
Run. Some North American and European Jews are moving to Israel, feeling that it’s the safest choice for their families. Let that sink in.
Hide. Some North American and European Jews are removing the mezuzahs from their front doors, the Jewish jewelry from their necks, doing whatever they can to blend in, to not be seen.
Although I’m too old to move to Israel, my last name gives me the option of hiding, for sure. But I can’t feel right about it when so many of my new peeps don’t have that option. I’m not sure what fighting will look like, but it starts with not hiding.
I’m Jewish. I wasn’t going to blurt it out like that.
It’s a sad repeat of history that we can’t seem to forget age old animosities and remember that Jesus was a Jew who never denied his faith and that so many of the tenents of all world faiths share the same fundamental beliefs
I thought our generation had finally embraced tolerance and understanding, but it seems the ” others” were hiding among us. Not a very happy message for the season.
Dorothy – I know what you mean. An Irish statesman, Conor Cruise O’Brien, said, “Antisemitism is a light sleeper.” I believe that captures it.
All I can say is….. OY VEY !
Eric – 🙂
Are there any beliefs in the world that don’t think they are the best or even the only belief that can make the world a better place with every other belief being “other” or “less than”? Even the Humanists motto is “Good without God.” Why not “Good with or without God?” Right now the Zionists (more of them Christian than Jewish) want the End of Times when the Savior comes to purify the world so only they, the Righteous can return to the perfect life. Oh yes, Jews, if converted, can join them. At least this is my understanding.
Sara Ann,
I fear you are misinformed in your belief that all faiths think they are the best. I’ve known many people of a variety of religions who instead believe that all faiths are simply different paths to the same end place. I would hazard a guess that this belief is shared by the majority of people of faith and it is only the extremes in any group that choose to believe in their superiority.
Neither modern Judaism nor most Zionists believe that Jews have some sort of special deservedness. Zionists simply believe that, with the world’s history of periodically scapegoating Jewish people, there needs to be a country to which Jews can flee if their safety is threatened. The message of Jews’ perceived sense of superiority is spread by folks who either are deliberately proliferating a hateful mistruth or by folks who haven’t made the opportunity to get to know good people of a variety of faiths.
Sara Ann – We might all do better to be happy when we find something that (pace David Sedaris) is “true enough” for us, and hope that others do the same.
Lately, I have been reading that Christianity originally was not to become other than Jewish. The brother of Jesus who led the new sect in Jerusalem did not win in some sort of power contest. The developing history of the Church should have sent many more of those converts into Jewry. We should not have to defend differences but to affirm likeness, I think. Such as the Canadian/Israeli saint Miriam Silver tried to do in Israel, building bridges between Palestinian and Israeli youth prior to the outbreak of this recent war when she became one of the early victims. I am overjoyed for you that you have found your home. May the blessings overflow.
Laurna – I remember learning something about that. Some of the early disciples insisted that followers of Jesus be Jewish converts first. Others (like Paul, maybe) argued that people could come directly to Jesus.
My question is: Why do we as human beings separate people into “Us” and “Them”?
Tom
Tom – I don’t know. It’s common enough in human societies that I’m guessing it has some sort of adaptive benefit, but I couldn’t say what it is.
I have been and am a supporter of Israel and it’s right to exist in peace, and of the Jewish diaspora, being a friend to many Jews. I am disgusted by many people in the ‘West’ who have shared the globalization of the intifada motto, those who acted on the expression. I was also appalled when our Government prematurely declared support for a Palestinian state while hostages were being held, following the lead of Australia and Britain. And I haven’t heard words any more powerful than what the victims daughter uttered in the interview. They should strike the soul of every politician who takes a passive approach to the anti-Semite behaviour in the West.
As I said to you privately Isabel, I believe in freedom of religion, as I believe in freedom from religion. And you have my support.
Ken – Thank you. It’s hard to believe that what we’ve seen lately is actually real – and happening here.
Good for you, Isabel. Martin Luther’s words come to mind: “Here I stand. I can do no other.” It takes courage to stand up and be noted, especially when it feels as if you now may have a target on your back.
Jim T – I’m finding, as I do it, that it gets easier, although the unpredictably public nature of the internet gives me pause, for sure. Face to face is a different matter. Our local Farm Boy grocery store has several apparently Muslim checkout clerks, many of them the age of my grandchildren. When the pronunciation of their names isn’t immediately obvious to an Anglophone, I now engage with something like – “May I ask how you say your name? If that English spelling had come from a Hebrew name, I’d guess this….”. No one has seemed upset yet.