I'm Jewish So Maybe You Hate Me

Because I am Jewish.

You may safely assume that lots of people hate Jews, especially anti semites. Also, their grandparents hated my grandparents, all the way back to Abraham, whom Nimrod tried to throw into a burning furnace, because he refused to bow down to idols. It's practically a tradition to try and fail to kill the Jews. With good reason, Jews appear to feel bad about this, and are afraid of anti semitism.

I am not. I'm just one mortal Jewish person. If G-d wants to punish me, He has many messengers. And if He wants to save me, G-d has many messengers for that, too. My grandmother used to say, "Something's going to get you eventually!" And at the end of days, everyone will have to answer to G-d on the Day of Judgement.

Besides, anti semites aren't the only scary things out there. There are animals that prey on all humans, not only Jews. Like polar bears. I was once in a zoo, and they had a polar bear, and you could see in its beady eyes that it was wondering when it was going to get a bite out of me.

Besides animals, there are bad people out there. There are scammers. There are thieves. There are murderers. There are bigots. Sometimes, tragically, there are people who disagree with me on the internet. They hate me even more, because I am Jewish. It would be easy to hide.

I could probably fake fitting in with white professors of biblical studies. Or history PhDs. They are more likely to know who Nebuchadnezzar was. But G-d didn't tell us to hide in exile. Besides, if we hide, people just think we are running the world in secret.

Why anti semitism exists in a world run by Jews never occured to the writers of the Elders of Zion.

For better or for worse, I am openly a religious Jew. I sound like a Brooklyn born and bred New Yorker. I dress modestly, and totally out of style. I tell people that I'm a biblical scholar, and will take any excuse to lecture strangers about the evils of idolatry. Last but not least, I regularly mention that, by the way, I'm a Jewish person!! Isn't that delightful!

You would think I would have had many frightening encounters with anti semites by now, since everybody knows that I am Jewish. Surprisingly, I get along with nearly everyone in real life. From a Haitian Uber driver named Love, whose father was a voodoo priest and his mother a churchgoing Catholic, to a lady with green hair who identifies as a bunny rabbit, to a Egyptian Muslim lady at the park with her kids... None of them seem to hate me, at least in person.

Of course, they might be a self selecting group - the people who ignore me and walk away when I try to talk to them are probably the real haters.

Most people are even willing to answer my random strange questions about Nebuchadnezzar. (See post about living forever.) They think I am weird, but they don't actively hate me. At the same time, if they think about Jews in general, they just don't like them. They would like me to be dead, just because I'm Jewish, but it's not personal. At all. Why the persistence of anti semitism?

We Jews once had G-d dwelling among us. Because of our sins, we were exiled and scattered all over the world, over two thousand years ago. Always small, weak, and hated, but never destroyed. Sometimes successful, but also weak and hated, as the Jews in Germany discovered in World War II.

That wasn't the first time Jews got it from both sides . Nebuchadnezzar had a brilliant idea - appoint three Jews to powerful positions, and allow the rest to be killed by passersby. Babylonians could hate Jews both for being powerful and successful, and for being poor and downtrodden. We survived that exile.

G-d may no longer dwell in our temple, but He is still watching over us. Abraham survived the furnace, and I am here, in exile but still alive.

May G-d bring peace to the world soon.

Footnote: I've been extremely fortunate. Once in an Uber, the driver's name was Mohammed, from Somalia. Somalia? I had just read a book about Somalia.

Me, stupidly not thinking before I speak: Oh! You know who is Somali? Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she wrote Infidel, it criticized Islamic culture in Somalia!

(Pause. I suddenly realize that Mohammed is driving too fast for me to jump out. I should text my husband that I love him and I'm sorry.)

Mohammed: I like her, too.

So I didn't get killed that time. But I never tried it again. You are not supposed to put yourself in a situation where G-d has to make a miracle for you to survive.