It's a weird time to be a Jew
On not knowing what to tell my son if he one day asks why people hate us
If you ask a Jew to sum up what their religious festivals are about, they might share this old Jewish joke: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat.” For my three-year-old son, the ‘eating’ part is pretty much all he knows about religion right now. To him, Judaism equals soft challah bread, tiny cups of grape juice, sugary doughnuts on Hanukkah and honey cake for the new year. He knows about chocolate rugelach pastries in the synagogue on the sabbath, he knows about Grandma’s chicken soup when he’s ill. But he does not yet know that people want to kill us. He does not yet know about our survival.
Survival was a very present narrative in my husband’s life when he was a child. His grandmother survived the Holocaust by fleeing across Germany and France, before being hidden in a convent in Rome. My husband grew up hearing her story, the details unwinding slowly over the years. He saw a relative with a concentration camp tattoo on their arm when they visited for tea. He heard names of loved ones who perished. He grew up knowing that his family should be more numerous in number than it was. The pain of persecution reverberated under everyday life; safety a privilege not taken for granted.
I did not grow up with relatives who were Holocaust survivors; my Polish grandfather, who had much of his family wiped out, died when my mother was young. So the stories of survival I grew up with were mostly biblical: Jews enslaved in Egypt pleading for freedom (Passover). Jews wandering across the desert, seeking protection in rickety huts (Succot). Jews fighting against Greek oppression in the 2nd century BCE to protect their temple in Jerusalem (Hanukkah). Jews facing death in Persia before Queen Esther saved the day (Purim).
The stories were spun as examples of our survival against the odds – of things to celebrate, of miracles and underdogs. Various iterations of David and Goliath again and again over millennia. To hear all these stories is to, yes, marvel at the endurance of the Jewish people, but they also made me despair, to know that this went way back. It made me wonder, why us, why me?
Now we are parents, we are trying to work out which stories to tell our own children. And how. My husband grew up troubled by the notion that, one day, society could turn on you. It affected him in a way he does not want for our two young sons. After all, it is our job as parents to make our children feel safe, to wrap them in love and protect them – we don’t want our boys to know that by dint of their birth, people will hate them. My toddler loves that being Jewish comes with a permission slip for occasional sugary treats – I want to celebrate Jewish joy, embrace our culture, without dwelling on persecution, without making our children afraid.
And yet, this is our life, I say. These are our stories. We cannot pretend they didn’t happen. Because – look. They’re happening now.
Jews still have security outside synagogues. Neo-Nazis march for our end. Twitter is a treasure trove of antisemitic tropes. Facebook the place to share your favourite conspiracy theory with your latest holiday snap. These ancient stories of survival still feel relevant. They are talismans to help us weather the storms that swirl.
And a storm did recently sweep in from the West… Kanye West, that is, aka Ye. Though it was a quiet storm at first. People tried to dismiss it. He is full of hot air, they said. It will blow over. Brands did not initially seem bothered enough to withdraw support. Celebrities prevaricated whether to speak. After all, he is a known provocateur. And yet… His influence is extraordinary. And already he’s fattened the bellies of White Supremacists – he has empowered them to go public. “Kanye is right about the Jews,” some people wrote on a banner taped across an LA freeway. They stood proudly with their statement, while doing a Nazi salute.
Jewish hate crimes are on the rise. Go figure.
My three-year-old loves asking questions. One day he will wonder why people think things about him that aren’t true. Why a megastar with more followers on Instagram than there are Jews in the entire world believes that the Jewish people are the root cause of some global evil.
One day my son will question why some people believe Jews are sub-human, inferior, vermin. Sneaky, nasty, sinister. Or think we’re big-nosed, hairy, actually horny, apparently all rich and Tories, but simultaneously socialists and lefties too. He’ll ask why some people think Jews are white supremacists (even though Jews aren’t all white), and yet why we’re a threat to actual White Supremacists, because they see Jews outside of ‘whiteness’. He will wonder why Jews are seen as victims, weak and pathetic, encumbered by neuroses, but why we’re also seen as violent and ruthless and how we’re all evil Zionists, even if we disagree with the Israeli government. Why some people are suspicious of how Jews keep to themselves, yet raise concerns when we assimilate. My son will one day try to comprehend, just like his parents have done, why Jews can somehow be seen as all the things the bigot wants to blame.
How long before my son asks, why do they hate us?
How long before he questions, do I feel safe?
Some people think Jews call out antisemitism too often. That we’re sensitive, whiny, seeing prejudice where there is none. But maybe, just maybe, we’ve had some pretty good practice at spotting the signs. And right now, the signs are out there, literally.
I don’t want special treatment. I don’t want a leg-up in the world. Mostly I like being left alone, not waking up to see antisemitism in the headlines again. But I would like people to acknowledge that this is not OK. I would like people who are not Jewish (who might not have even met a Jew) to refrain from speaking about all Jews as if we have one brain, one personality. Prejudice loves to demote the individual: it is easier to see your target as a faceless threat. How unhelpful it would be to consider that everyone is different, more complex and free-thinking than your stereotype of choice.
I am not observant. And yet I am Jewish, regardless. I am Jewish because there is so much of my culture that I love. I am Jewish because of my ancestors, and I am Jewish because for as long as people want to hate me, I feel strangely motivated to keep on being myself. But my children are Jewish, too, and I worry for them in a way I do not worry for myself.
What I want to tell my children is, don’t be scared, my darlings, these stories are old, they’re all in the past, there’s nothing to fear. Yet at times like this, we know that’s not quite true.
So for now, I will hold them close, teach them about kindness, let them think being Jewish in this world is as simple and sweet as a slice of challah bread. And I will say, come, let us eat together. We are here. Yes, we are here.