Jewish and Loving It

The bottom line: we're all in the same boat.

My post yesterday made light of a serious subject, and I'd like to  apologize for that. Antisemitism is nothing to joke about. Personally I had never felt persecuted for being Jewish, anywhere, ever, in any circumstance, until I moved to Maine and applied for a job at L.L. Bean. They said they couldn't hire me because my sense of humor, while great, was "too strong for their client base." That was their way of saying "Jew." But besides that ridiculous experience, I have skated through life getting pretty much anything I wanted in the way of employment and housing.

But what if I hadn't? What if I never got any job because I'm a Jew, or couldn't rent an apartment or buy a house in a certain neighborhood, or eat in some restaurant? That might be annoying, but not enough to wish I were not a Jew. In fact, if we go around again and have a choice, I would choose to be a Jew again in a heartbeat.

My being raised Jewish is responsible for all my best features: I'm smart, funny, a great cook, deeply empathic, charitable, intuitive and most of all, able to detect bullshit. (That last quality is common among Jews and is why people fear them enough to shove them into gas ovens.) So bring on the antisemitism! I can take it, mostly because it's so stupid.