More than Five Thousand Years

[attackfish]

It turns out that I have more to say about Yom HaShoah, or about all of the days that are not Yom HaShoah, and it starts again with my preschool Torah students and the love I have for my people and my culture.

Since the Holocaust, it is no longer quite so acceptable to be openly anti-Semitic in the West.  In many ways, the Holocaust was the pogrom to end all pogroms.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not dead here.  I saw my fair share of swastikas and had Kike and Jew Bitch yelled at me more times than I can count.  But in polite society, it’s no longer fashionable to be anti-Semitic.  This has led to a new form of prejudice that I call the “I love the Jews!” phenomenon.  I see it a lot especially with Evangelical Christians who treat us like the senile grandparents of their own faith.  To them, we are a curiosity, a remnant of the world before Christianity, and somehow, they feel almost possessive of us and our culture.  To them, we’re Christianity without Jesus.  We are not Christianity without Jesus.  We interpret our shared holy texts in ways absolutely foreign to the Christian understanding of those same texts.  It’s ignorant and condescending, but at least they aren’t setting fire to our houses or rounding us up and shooting us, so I smile and grit my teeth.

A lot of the “I love the Jews” people only really know two things about the Jewish people, we aren’t Christian, and Hitler tried to kill us all off.  As large as the Holocaust looms in the consciousness of the Jewish people, it looms larger in the perceptions of non-Jews when they look at us.  When it’s the only thing they ever really learned about us, it becomes the One Fundamental Fact of Judaism in their minds.  I remember, a few years ago, a friend of my mother’s from work took me to what she called the “Jewish museum”, which was of course the Holocaust museum.  I’m not much of a crier, but I started crying and shaking as I tried to explain to her what was wrong.  I never did manage to make her understand the distinction between a Jewish museum and a Holocaust museum.  Never mind that millions of non-Jews died.  Never mind that we were Jewish before the Nazis.

I’m sick of my people and my culture being reduced by well meaning outsiders to something done to us.  We have more than five thousand years of history as a people, of stories, songs, poems, languages, and faith.  There’s a reason I choose to live a Jewish life and pass our heritage down to the next generation.  There’s a reason I love who and what we are so fiercely, and that reason can’t be found in the Holocaust.  I find it in the stories I tell my students and the ones I don’t, in the songs and prayers I sing, in the hamsa around my neck and the menorahs my mother and I have made, in the literature, the plays and poetry my people have produced, in our distinctive humor, in the food I eat, in the way I’ve been taught to think.

It has been two thousand years since Christianity split away from Judaism, two thousand years during which we too as a people have grown and changed.  We are no mere remnant of some historical Jewish people, untouched by change and time.  In our own way, we’re as removed from the Judaism of two thousand years ago as modern Christians.  In the last two thousand years, we have written the Talmuds (yes, there are more than one), spread throughout the world, seen our temple destroyed, and learned to live without it, been chased and hunted, built synagogues and taught rabbis.  The Holocaust was a piece of Jewish history, not the sum of it.

And so, I’m going to share with my students my love for my people long before they ever hear about the Holocaust, and most of all, I will try to teach them that there is something to love, something different, and unique to us before they ever have to learn about what was done to us.

Comments

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

As a Christian, Pentecostal, its not that I am trying to be condescending or even possessive but rather that I am trying not to be offensive. Because as I am constantly reminded everywhere I go, the Holocaust was a horrible thing that happened. And yes, it happened to so many other people, Hitler and Germany happened to so many other people, but whenever someone talks about the horrors that happened in WWII, this is the event that is most highlighted. By Jews, by non-Jews, by Hollywood and I feel that if I talk about all the other people that were affected, even to very German people, everyone will think that I'm not sympathetic to the suffering of the Jewish people. That if I dare say that the Armenians also suffered horrible persecution and that their suffering isn't even acknowledged in most countries that people will think that I'm racist or bigoted, or worse, antisemitic. It's a mentality taught to us in schools, on television, so it's difficult to be able to see beyond that to what lies beneath.

I can't speak for Evangelical Christians, or any other Christians but I can speak for myself in saying that it's so hard now in days not to offend anyone, because just trying not to do that offends people. I don't want to offend anyone, but it's nerve-wracking speaking or even dealing with people because there's that line you're not supposed to cross and it's different with everyone.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Hollywood highlights the Jewish experience of the Holocaust because Hollywood is absolutely full of Jews. We are disproportionately represented in the performing arts. *shrug*

Part of it has to do with the when and the where of a conversation. When people are discussing the Holocaust, I generally don't go "but such and such genocide also happened!!!" unless they're talking about genocide more generally. When you try to add another genocide to the discussion, it makes it sound like you think we Jews get an unfair amount of attention for ours, like the attention paid to atrocities is a zero-sum game.

The Turkish government has done a hell of a job keeping the Armenian genocide quiet, bastards.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Slow claps.

Perfectly said.

The "I lurve Jews" phenomenon frightens me too, as I have to deal with these people at work, and they don't get that saying it isn't enough. When we have private Jewish conversations, they barge in uninvited. They love us collectively, but insult us individually. They demand we co-sign projects which hurt our own people and then demand to know why we don't appreciate their friendship.

Wow...anything I say just pales to the perfection of this essay.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Indeed! But yeah, that's an excellent point. My point in what I was saying is that when it comes to the Jewish people, all we ever hear about is about the Holocaust. That's it! Which is when it makes it seem like there is nothing else. And of course I'm not going to be all like, but these guys suffered more when talking about the Holocaust, but when I usually talk about it at all is an example of what hate can do. How easy it is for it to start because some of my friends are always, of course it won't happen again, and I just look at them and go, hmmm, so yeah, not a topic I take lightly at all.

I love that you are educating people on your culture. I think it's so important to understand on another in order to be able to live together.

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

There's a tendency to shrink things down to the lowest common denominator when it doesn't directly (or doesn't seem to) affect you personally- and that's where it gets easy to set off little landmines of hurting-others, whether through intent, carelessness, willful ignorance, or genuine accidental clumsiness. I can't apologize for the world, but I would like to.

[frith_in_thorns]

Thank you for sharing this. It's a subject I'm extremely ignorant on, and I appreciate getting to read your thoughts.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

And they're just so ubiquitous. And if you say that they're obnoxious, all the other gentiles ask you why you don't want somebody to like you. They want head pats and cookies for putting us up on a pedestal. I don't want to be on a pedestal.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

My point in what I was saying is that when it comes to the Jewish people, all we ever hear about is about the Holocaust.

This is it exactly. When that's the only story about Jewish people that non-Jews see, that's all we are in the common consciousness. It's a whole lot of no fun to remind somebody of the genocide of your people just by being there all the time. And from a more selfish point of view, I would really like to see more Jewish characters outside of comedy movies and Holocaust fiction, just because I want to read Jewish characters without being totally depressed.

Thank you. I feel so awkward doing it. Who am I to be teaching about Judaism? I'm not some kind of expert, I'm just a nice Jewish girl who reads a lot.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*

I am very familiar with that impulse. "Wow, thing are horrible, I want to apologize for everybody. Wait, what do you mean that doesn't help?"

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Hang around and pull up a chair. I promise I don't bite.

warning for homophobia

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

At an Israel fellowship I was in during college, one of the research librarians "Yuval" got engaged to his partner, "Donny". We were all joyful for the two of them. A true stereotype of Jews is we do love a good celebration. So the fellows decided to throw a small engagement brunch, where we'd all chip in to order in a lunch and a small but tasteful gift to the happy couple.

One of the Christian Zionists was scandalized. She complained to our director that we were being mean to her by having this "abomination." 'It's offensive to me that they are hosting this party for some F****T who defies God's word."

We fellows gathered and explained that majority of Jews support LGBT rights, that she's free to attend, she's free to boycott, but we want to make Yuval and Donny a party because our culture celebrates marriage and frankly, we're having the party whether she liked it or not, because we love Yuval and by God, we're pelting him and Donny with candy and singing "Mazal tov" to them.

She threw a hissy fit. "No wonder people hate Jews. When people try to love you guys, you treat them horribly. All I'm trying to do is be a part of your work, and you're being so nasty to me. Don't you want Christian allies?"

Ummm...throw Jews under the bus for Christian allies? Not happening.

Or another Israel trip. It happened to be on Yom Hashoa so the Jewish students had a private service for all the victims of the Holocaust. I helped organize it, and I think it was nicely done. We had prayers for Jewish victims, disabled victims, Rom victims, LGBT victims, innocent civilians.

Some of the Church group who was with us came in. Most were actually amazing, they sat respectfully and bowed their heads during the prayers. I was about to invite one of them to say a prayer when one begins sobbing loudly.

"It's so sad. They're all in Hell, because they didn't know Jesus." We nearly threw her off the boat.

Re: warning for homophobia

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Ummm...throw Jews under the bus for Christian allies? Not happening.

This. That doesn't make them an ally. Not bowing to their every whim does not make us naughty naughty minorities who should be more grateful.

And another thing a lot of Christians don't seem to get. We aren't obligated to share their view of what's an insult to G-d's word, thanks kindly.

"It's so sad. They're all in Hell, because they didn't know Jesus." We nearly threw her off the boat.

Please tell me all the other Christians side eyed her until she shut up. Please.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

It's not about being an expert, but rather about other people seeing a Jewish person as that, a person and not some posterboard about pain and suffering. When I tell people I'm a Christian most of them are like WHA? I thought all you guys are racist, bigoted and hateful not to mention stuck in the dark ages about science. Yeah, no. Because what most people think about a specific group is that stereotypes that we see in television, because of course TV is real.

So I think it's awesome that you're letting people get to know you.

And yeah, I so agree with you about characters on tv. It infuriates me when I see hispanic or Mexican-American on TV as gang bangers, drug dealers or these poor little meek creatures. Yeah, no.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

That's why it matters so much what goes into media. It's never just a TV show, or just a movie, or just a novel. It shapes the way we see the world, and the way we see the people in it.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

THANK you!!! That's exactly what I've been saying to people. What you put on TV or the big screen matters. I'm a film student and this is exactly the sort of thing I want to bring to this medium. I want good movies and shows, with well done characters that go beyond the stereotypes that have been shoved down our throats for years. I want women as protagonist, I want them well written and interesting. I WANT!!! *makes grabby hands* I want to write books about girls that are not all about sex and stupidity. I want them to be about friendships, and family and the ties that bind. I WANT!!! :-)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*makes grabby hands right back* This, this is why I want to write. Well, this and that I love it.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Oh you should check this out. It's an anthology written by women authors for everyone with women as protagonist. It's fantasy which is a genre where we don't see a lot of women in lead roles. It's not done yet but it looks like its going to be awesome. There's teasers in case you want to read some of what they're up to.

http://aprilsteenburgh.com/fight-like-a-girl-an-anthology/

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

Re: warning for homophobia

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Exactly. We're not Christianity sans Jesus. We're Judaism. We're happy to be friends, but we're not there to serve their wish for themepark victims for the patronizing. Yuval's happiness had to come first and she was a guest in our homes.

Yes, they did. But it spoiled a really beautiful and wonderful and inclusive service.

Re: warning for homophobia

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's it exactly. They don't want to have Jewish friends or be allies of the Jewish people, they want to be friends with/support the representatives of the themepark version on the Jewish people, stripped of all that pesky individuality and opinion nonsense.

It's always someone. I sat in front of a girl just like that in high school math, and she was always so sad for me, because I was such a good person (her words) and I was going to hell because I hadn't accepted Jesus into my life. I can't imagine having to deal with her at a Holocaust memorial. Wow.

Re: warning for homophobia

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

"The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." Benjamin Disraeli. And this is from a born Jewish Christian convert over 150 years ago.

I have this image of Jesus coming back, and being a Middle Eastern liberal Jew who advocated non-violence, forgiveness, and Jewish pride, he'd be stoned to death by those who claim to have him in their hearts.

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter."

Jesus even predicted those people. Good for him.

I really think they need to learn how to be friends with Jews. And seriously, it;s not hard. Treat us like human beings with wants, needs, opinions and diverse beliefs. We're humans with a proud culture.

Seriously, just Golden Rule us. It's not hard. Wait...who said that? Oh yeah, JESUS!

Re: warning for homophobia

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I love Disraeli. He was such a shit in so many ways, but God was he witty.

There's a Gandhi quote for this... I think you know the one.