THE BAD NEWS (YOU ALREADY KNOW IT): JEWS ARE ISOLATED AND VILIFIED WORLDWIDE. THE GOOD NEWS: IT’S SPARKING A JEWISH REVIVAL THEIR ENEMIES NEVER IMAGINED.
What a cheering message! Thank you. As a secular Jew, I have always had many Jewish friends but little connection to any Jewish community. Since the shock of October 7th and all that followed, I sought support in Jewish support groups on Facebook and have made over a dozen new friends, some in distant places and others in Portland, OR where I live. I have always missed the community my family traveled across the USA by train to connect with regularly when I was a child, the blue-collar worker Jews in my father's old neighborhood, the Cleveland Jewish ghetto. They, too, felt under siege because they were Jews and because they were generally not religious. I remember as a small child playing on the porch of the row house of my father's boyhood best friend and his wife during one of these visits. A little girl my age came out of her adjoining house and asked me, "Are you a Jew?" I made my little fists and prepared for an attack, but, as I had been taught, said proudly, "yes I am." She replied, "Good! My Mommy said that if you are a Jew you can come over to our house and have lunch with us." This is how I feel now, included and invited in.
Pat! You’ve nailed it again! Another phrase that came to mind since 10/7 is “we are like diamonds - the harder you crush us, the stronger we get”!!! Thank you, again, for saying what needs to be said. 🙏
And if I may be permitted an act of shameless self-promotion, please check out: "The Hide-Under Seder," "The Four Questions and the Four Types of Sons,"
"What you resist, persists," weirdly applies to the cycle of Jewish marginalization. The world has been resisting us for 2000 years, and for 2000 years, we've refused to be vanished from the earth. I often say if the masses really wanted us to disappear, they'd stop obsessing over and harassing us, and we'd get comfortable and lazy and they wouldn't even have to know we're here. And then everyone would be happy. But alas, they don't learn the lesson.
I'm going to borrow your optimism about what may follow this dark hour, because I've been struggling to have any myself.
What a long history of discrimination has taught us is that you need to be a head above the rest just to be treated the same. At least, this was the exeprience of the Soviet Jews, including my family. Having enjoyed good life in Canada, I cry at the thought that an existential fight for survival has to force Jews to rise to that next level. But that, in a way, is very human. We just get reminders of that more often than other humans.
What a cheering message! Thank you. As a secular Jew, I have always had many Jewish friends but little connection to any Jewish community. Since the shock of October 7th and all that followed, I sought support in Jewish support groups on Facebook and have made over a dozen new friends, some in distant places and others in Portland, OR where I live. I have always missed the community my family traveled across the USA by train to connect with regularly when I was a child, the blue-collar worker Jews in my father's old neighborhood, the Cleveland Jewish ghetto. They, too, felt under siege because they were Jews and because they were generally not religious. I remember as a small child playing on the porch of the row house of my father's boyhood best friend and his wife during one of these visits. A little girl my age came out of her adjoining house and asked me, "Are you a Jew?" I made my little fists and prepared for an attack, but, as I had been taught, said proudly, "yes I am." She replied, "Good! My Mommy said that if you are a Jew you can come over to our house and have lunch with us." This is how I feel now, included and invited in.
Pat! You’ve nailed it again! Another phrase that came to mind since 10/7 is “we are like diamonds - the harder you crush us, the stronger we get”!!! Thank you, again, for saying what needs to be said. 🙏
As usual you are correct and I'm glad I'm old.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Thanks Pat. Brilliant and encouraging, as usual.
And if I may be permitted an act of shameless self-promotion, please check out: "The Hide-Under Seder," "The Four Questions and the Four Types of Sons,"
https://larryfrmn.substack.com/publish/post/161850859
I love this perspective.
I really, really hope that your optimistic take is justified, as I greatly fear what the (immediate) future holds for us.
Antisemitic much?
"What you resist, persists," weirdly applies to the cycle of Jewish marginalization. The world has been resisting us for 2000 years, and for 2000 years, we've refused to be vanished from the earth. I often say if the masses really wanted us to disappear, they'd stop obsessing over and harassing us, and we'd get comfortable and lazy and they wouldn't even have to know we're here. And then everyone would be happy. But alas, they don't learn the lesson.
I'm going to borrow your optimism about what may follow this dark hour, because I've been struggling to have any myself.
What an amazing piece, Pat! Thanks wholeheartedly. Am Yisrael Chai!
"So shines a good deed in a weary world." Thank you, Pat. A much appreciated message of optimism and hope amidst the darkness.
So uplifting and so needed. Thanks as always
What a long history of discrimination has taught us is that you need to be a head above the rest just to be treated the same. At least, this was the exeprience of the Soviet Jews, including my family. Having enjoyed good life in Canada, I cry at the thought that an existential fight for survival has to force Jews to rise to that next level. But that, in a way, is very human. We just get reminders of that more often than other humans.
Pat, please check out the reply to my comment. It appears as though we have a Jew-hater among your subscribers. I've already blocked him.
I've deleted the comment, banned him forever and made a special reservation for him in hell.
Thank you. His comment so disheartened me. It was like a primer on stereotypes about Jews.
But the authentic Ark of the Covenant is stashed in Asbury Park NJ.