My Star of David

"Oh, you're Jewish" people would comment while I was growing up. I always wondered why people would say it like that, I never went around saying "Oh, you're Christian" or "Catholic" or "an idiot"... I always just assumed that it was because I have never been religious, that people were surprised by it, just like they would have been surprised if I said I was Catholic or Jehovah Witness. But these comments would come sometimes from strangers, people that didn't know I ate bacon on Saturday mornings and went to church groups on Friday nights for the free pizza. There would always be an uncomfortable silence afterwards, like being Jewish was some rare thing. Something to be fascinated by or confused by, I was never sure and it always left me feeling uncomfortable. Was I then supposed to ask them what they believed in? But what people believe had never been any consequence to me.

As a kid, I didn't fit in in general, fat, glasses, braces, a kid who liked to read and listen to talk radio rather than Guns and Roses (I am giving my age away here), and the last thing I needed, was another thing that made me feel different. I went to a lot of schools, and in one, I had to stand outside while they had bible study because I was Jewish. But what does it mean to be Jewish? Why couldn't we sit in the class and learn about Jewish Gods, and Christian Gods and Hindu Gods, because no matter the religion, it is all supposed to come from love right? But that is an issue for another day. I did eventually go to schools in Jewish neighborhoods, where schools were mixed and no one said "Oh you Jewish," because there were enough of us not fascinate people. And I am not aware of any clicks that were made with religion...everyone kind of hung out with everyone, Lebanese, Jewish, Black, White... But perhaps I was too busy listening to talk radio to notice...or because it was at a time in South Africa when people stopped worrying about trivial things like colour and religion.

For my 18thy birthday, I was given a beautiful gold Star of David by my mother. And it sat in a draw for a year until I put it on. Why was I so afraid to put it on? Why did putting it on make me so uncomfortable? By 18 I had a pretty mixed group of friends and to be honest, if you asked me any of their religions, I wouldn't be able to tell you. None of us brought it up, none of us felt we needed to clarify it. None of us felt that religion was a basis by which we decided who to be friends with.  But why then did I not put it on? I was scared of the "Oh, you Jewish!" comments, not just by non Jews who sounded like they had just seen a rare bird for the first time, or people who sounded disappointed as if to insinuate that was my one unredeeming quality, but worse, asked by religious Jews who would then ask me what Shul I was apart of and get uncomfortable when I said "none"...

It was only in my early twenties, when I put it on proudly, that I realised one: Being Jewish is not just about being religious and two: who cares what people think anyway. My close friends are mixed, I have friends from all faiths, who are, like myself for the most part, neither bigoted or racist, and they are what matter. I felt proud of my heritage. And wore it every day until I was 29. And then I went travelling. And on Ships I still wore it, but it was under my work shirt and I forgot about it, like one does a tattoo in a place they don't see every day. But as I left ships and headed home from Spain on an Egypt air flight, via Cairo, the first thing I did when I travelled was take it off. Instinctively, without thinking about it. Egypt air I thought, and I took it off. Sensing danger.

Then I got home, and the clasp broke after ten years of wearing it proudly and I put it in a box before I jet setted off to China, and forgot about it. If people asked, I would say I am Jewish, but people rarely never asked when travelling because no one cares which God you pray to as long as you can sing karaoke and are fun to drink beer with. I had no shame about being Jewish, and in Bali a group of us joked about being The United Nations, as we sat, The Muslim Egyptian, The Catholic and Jewish South African and Christian South Americans and laughed about us sitting around a table cheering to new friends. And with Schindler's list Oscar a distant memory, and me living in a brand new world where no one cared about religion, I forgot about it. 

When I came to Israel the first time, I went to the Holocaust Museum. And for three hours, I cried, I cried for humanity, I cried because I couldn't believe people could do these things to other people. Make no mistake, when I watched Hotel Rwanda, I cried as much and felt as strong about the cruelty and injustice of people doing these things to other people. But it was standing there, staring at the class box of shoes, shoes that were taken off the dead after they were gassed, as I read how ships of Jews were turned away from America and Brittan while they fled the now liberated concentration camps of Europe, that I had a sense that this didn't just happen to people, this happened to my people! I tried to find a new star of David while I was there and couldn't find one I liked, and new I would be back because I new from the minute I stepped into Israel, that somehow this was home.

Fast forward a year, I arrived in the South of Israel to be with Yair. and as the beginnings of rockets fall, Yair gives me a star of David. Riots begin to break out in some areas of Israel (and all over Europe for that matter) and I took off the star of David. Why? Not because I am ashamed to be Jewish, not because I am anti- Israeli...Because disagreeing with Israel doesn't mean you hate Jews right? It was survival instinct. I can't explain it. Like I felt I needed to do so many times. In my gut, I knew that although I wasn't Israeli, being Jewish made me guilty. Just being Jewish, would somehow make me a target. 

Israel and Gaza are shooting at each other. People are rallying in favour of either side, some more peaceful than others, and thousands are dead. Thousands are injured. And on the news today I see a swastika was drawn on a Shul in Florida United states, with the words Hamas written on it, thousands of protesters in France, attack a Synagogue. There are people telling the world Hitler was right. Supposedly educated people. There are Jewish people being accosted, not other protesters, not right wing pro Israeli people, I mean little old Jewish ladies being accosted as if they are responsible for Israel. Never mind a lot of the Soldiers in the Israeli army are not Jewish and are Muslim and Christian. But that is a story for another day. 

What is it about the Jews that people find it so easy to hate? I am asking because I just don't understand it.  And don't say Israel. Because that is ridiculous. That is like blaming your Catholic neighbour in Sweden for something Rome did. Its outrageous. Stupid. Ignorant. And just plain racist. I am hoping that one day my children will grow up in a world where they are not judged by the Star of David they wear. Where children are not judged by the heritage they have or the religion they choose. Where they are not taught to hate people who are different.

The Israeli Knesset (Parliament), met to discuss growing anti-semitism around the world. And Ben-Hur had this to say:  “Emissaries talk until they are blue in the face and there is no end to this discussion… In the name of religion, more people have been killed than in plagues or disasters. There is ignorance between religions: We are comfortable in our own boxes, but we need to show we are the sons of the same God, and not to murder in the name of the God who created us all,”