I don’t think most folk can fully appreciate or understand how attacks on Jewish folk is scary to the core of all Jewish people. When there’s only roughly 16m of you, recent memory when dozens of nations worked to exterminate you, and you are always top 2 target for hate attacks.
Hate attacks in any country where you have diaspora.
It’s truly frightening.
Nowhere is truly safe –in that Black folk can identify. Not even in this nation that always have spreading antisemitism. Where apps such as Twitter is a cesspool of antisemitism and there’s nothing Jewish folk can do to stop it.
They can’t stop Fox News, MSNBC, the Republican Party, far left Democrats, or new immigrants.
They can’t stop being blamed for the Ukraine-Russia war, or blame for any bad thing that happens in the “Middle East” or Hollywood or mass media.
It’s always the “Jewish folk’s fault.”
My community isn’t exempt from antisemitism either. I was raised a Pentecostal Christian and taught Christian theology that negates, warps, dismisses, faux-honors, and spreads falsehoods about Judaism, faith, and G-D, while diminishing the Christian savior’s Jewishness.
We were taught “Jews need Jesus too” and other lies and vile messages disguised as truth and love.
And yet Black Americans specifically remain the people who best understand Jewish fear and anger at always being blamed for… everything.
There are only 16m or so Jewish people in the world. Someone pointed out how the Jewish population has never or perhaps just recently recovered from World War 2.
That’s 80+ years trying to recover their population while also trying to prevent the next occurrence of genocide.
That’s fucked up beyond measure.
And once again here we are with war and threats of more war. Talks of eradication, destruction, death.
And a people who can never let their guard down.
As many are saying and which I concur, I am not an expert on Middle East politics. I’m not an expert on Jewish history. I don’t know how or why enough to teach a class about Jewish people, history, culture, or religion, but I know enough about what it means to fight for survival every second of every day.
And I know what it means to be scapegoated for –everything by nearly everyone.
It’s exhausting, debilitating, angering, and fuels stress, sickness, and death. I know what it means to push down and hide the anger from micro and macro aggressions. I know hopelessness and resignation.
But I also know resiliency of the type handed down through words, deeds, and DNA. Of the need to stand tall not turn away, and claim and demand my humanity.
The pain this tiny community is experiencing right now is hard to comprehend especially from the comfort of middle and upper class society safe from rockets, bombs, terrorists, and a mostly indifferent world. The thought brings unbearable sadness.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I am pacifist and I do not like any violence. I understand government and why violence happens and is necessary in this world because I have to know the world I live in. And Jewish folk have to know the world they live in.
A world that for thousands of years wanted them ended, eradicated, and genocided.
I’m sad for my Jewish sisters and brothers and I wish you peace, security, safety -things we all want at home and in our homes. I want your home to give you that whether home in your homeland or your diaspora.
May you and peace finally find one another.
Dear Dean 