On Being Jewish

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

“ The hatred for Judaism is at bottom a hatred for Christianity, and it is not surprising that in the German National Socialist revolution this close connection of the two monotheistic religions finds such clear expression in the hostile treatment of both.” Sigmund Freud

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“They come over every night looking for a good deal. You know how cheap those Jews are." So said my employee. I let her go on for about a minute before saying, “We like to think of it as being economical, not cheap.” Pause to watch realization sink in; right before serious back-pedaling.

Oddly enough, this incident came (I kid you not) the day after Hailey had a homework assignment on a woman who hid some Jews in her house in Amsterdam during the Holocaust. Startlingly, 80% of the Jews living in the Netherlands were exterminated.

Maybe because my father is Jewish, or because I long for justice; maybe it’s the result of having a mother who fled Latvia to avoid consequences of an occupation---but these incidents really frost me. I remember experiencing a seething anger at some white supremacist teenage types, as identified by their tattoos and lack-of-hair style, who came into the store when I worked in Thousand Oaks.

Don’t really know where I’m going with this except to say that its important for us to always speak up in the face of injustice and prejudice. Speaking up may prevent further occurrences happening again. Failure to speak up is to give hearty approval; to lay another stone on the path to greater evil.