For everyone who thinks the situation at the Colleyville, TX synagogue was “not a big deal”—
Whenever I go to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur holidays, I must show identification and pass police before entering. Do you have police protecting the entrance at your religious services?
Between Christmas and Easter, I am extra careful. Historically, it is the time of pogroms, government-sanctioned, and sometimes sponsored slaughters of “Christ-killers.” At least once every year during this period, I am asked why Jews killed Jesus.
Every time someone asks me if I am “faith-based,” they mean am I Christian? Christianity is the only faith in their worldview. In 2020, over 2/3 of the world was non-Christian.
I wore a plain Star of David smaller than a quarter in graduate school. A fellow student informed me my necklace put her off. It was too “in my face.” She wore a heavy, three-inch-long, silver cross.
Whenever I am invited to a lunch at a club or join a group, I check to see if Jews are tolerated as guests or accepted as members. You’d be surprised… In 2021 the Texas Senate passed a bill—no longer are public school educators required to teach that the Ku Klux Klan is “morally wrong.”
Every time someone says they are a “believer,” they mean they are Christian, the only acknowledged belief. How many lives were lost in the Crusades, the witch burnings, the Inquisition, any ‘holy war’?
I grew up with a mother horribly scarred from the Holocaust. She was scared for her children and had us baptized as babies so we would be “on the rolls as Christian” if there were another government/country/group-sponsored round-up or killing of Jews. She urged us to wear our Star of David necklaces tucked into our shirts. My sister and I could pass as Christians with our reddish hair and grey-blue eyes. My brother has a hook nose and brown eyes, marking him as Jewish to my mother’s dismay.
In a 2019 poll of the American public, 44% of respondents agreed with the statement, “Jews stick together more than other Americans.”
While I don’t believe that statement, I wonder if it’s not a good idea. In a 2020 survey, over 80% of American Jews reported antisemitism as an increasing problem in the US.
With these examples of antisemitism, why is this not a big deal?
(Information from https://www.inss.org.il/publication/antisemitism-data/ reviewed on 1/24/22)
Thanks for posting this. On Thursday, there was an anti-vaccine mandate demonstration intersecting with one commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The protestors, many who would know nothing about Judaism and certainly nothing about the holocaust, coopted the culture wearing yellow stars on their arms. It seemed the greatest insult to me. The world has a long way to go to remove hate-speech/crimes, and prejudice. Let’s hope we don’t forget too much in the process.
Susan,
That makes me so mad! You are correct—we have a long way to go. Don’t give up. We need sane voices like yours.
Sending love.
Never forget. Never again. What scares me is how easily people went along during the pandemic with government restrictions on their freedoms. I can easily see how the Germans were able to methodically build the Sho’ah.
Thank you for this. Good to see your work again.
🙏🏻