I saw a meme recently about the Jewish propensity for anxiety: “Of course Jewish people are anxious. The non-anxious ones didn’t survive. Every Jewish person alive today is here because some ancestor, at some point in history, said ‘Hey listen up! The vibes are off; time to get on a boat.’”
I feel that. It’s why I never took my daughter to local Hanukkah or Passover events, or had her wear her dreidel outfit anywhere but home. The violent extremists don’t look so different from everybody else, until they’re drawing guns or throwing bombs.
Here’s one minor nitpick about that meme: the vibes have always been off. Not always to a large-scale degree, but antisemitism has never taken a break.
Sometimes it’s a comment about being cheap or filthy rich (make up your minds, people), having big noses, or “controlling” the media.
Other times it’s shooting Israeli embassy staffers who were advocates for peace. Or throwing bombs at a crowd gathered to raise awareness for the remaining hostages in Gaza.
The latter happened in a city just one hour away from where I live. I’ve been to Pearl Street Mall many times. So that one rattles me a bit more than other incidents of late.
***
I started to write something on Facebook about it: how I’ve basically been taught to look over my shoulder for violence like this all my life, and that’s quite a normal state of being for Jewish people everywhere in the world (even the Jew-“ish” converts to Christianity like myself, because extremists care about Jewish blood, not belief). How I question sometimes whether Millie should know about her ancestry, because ignorance is safer.
I had the post up for 30 seconds before deleting it, all the usual doubts swimming in my mind: Stop playing the victim, that’s why your people are in this mess. Don’t go looking for sympathy, that’s annoying.
I thought about keeping the post, but shifting the narrative away from myself, asking instead how violence towards people thousands of miles away from Gaza is helping anyone’s suffering over there. How advocating for the release of the remaining hostages does not equal indifference to the ongoing pain of Gazan civilians.
But a topic as heated as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would, in all likelihood, draw out the people who only comment to argue, not the ones I usually count on to share something thoughtful and nuanced. I didn’t have the bandwidth for moderating comments, nor did I want to disrupt the flow of my usual kitty and skating content.
So I deleted the post and set down my phone.
I swallowed the anxiety, a bitter pill without water. Maybe it’s silly to look to social media for any kind of balance about anything, but it’s the loudest voice that most of us have. I wonder if I’m wasting mine by keeping my content neutral.
***
I want to say something profound, not controversial just for clicks or compliments. I want to comment about the discrepancy between storefront signs that say “All are welcome here,” but are they really, if one believes in Israel’s right to exist (which is not a blanket endorsement of everything the Israeli government does)?
I want to respond, in my own time, to the woman wearing a Palestinian flag who approached me with Millie in the stroller, holding an enlarged, graphic photo of emaciated Gazan children. I wanted to ask if she believed that innocent Jewish babies deserved to be murdered.
Why can’t we feel outrage towards every innocent life touched by this conflict?
Why is it difficult to condemn all violence against all image-bearers, everywhere? Why is it controversial to work for peace?
It’s to humanity’s shame that we are always keeping an eye out for the next available boat.
Photo by Rux Centea on Unsplash
