“I went to sleep on October 6th, 2023 in one world. I woke up on October 7th in another.” This was said on a Jewish podcast I listen to. For the majority of the world (of which Jews are only 0.2%), this has been nothing more than an opportunity to virtue signal on the internet about which “side” you’re on. But for us, it’s a terrifying reality.
For 3 decades I compromised my Jewish identity to fit in with my peers. I didn’t wear a Magen David. I quit Hebrew lessons. I was secular - a “cultural” Jew and not “religious.” I didn’t go on birthright because I heard a friend call it “Zionist propaganda” (at the time, I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it was bad). I talked shit about Israelis. I made jokes about Jews being stingy and cheap, jokes I now know are rooted in antisemitism.
Several years ago, I became tired of denying that part of myself. I’d spent too long searching for something, some meaning that I was beginning to realize was right there in my own Jewish heritage, culture, and religion. And as I began to embrace being a Jew, I also realized I was no longer going to be as “palatable” to my liberal, non-Jewish friends. But I was OK with that. This past week, I’ve seen people I’ve known, respected, and loved for years posting Nazi rhetoric thinly disguised as progressive hot takes. Others, I haven’t heard from at all.
My tears don’t follow any rules for whom they fall and my heart does not have a finite amount of space for all people suffering. In Judaism, we are taught to value human life about all else - you could even say it’s a mitzvah to break a mitzvah if you are doing so to preserve a human life. And it has been made abundantly clear to me this past week that others do not feel this way - especially if it’s a Jewish life at stake.
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