In Grade 9, the English teacher rotates table placements monthly because sitting with different students helps expose everyone to new worldviews. In general, this makes sense; discussions about literature require us to hear lots of opinions. This was also where, last week, my kid got exposed to a view that our household could have done without.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know about the rotating seating until one night at dinner, when my kid asked if I knew of a short video that I could recommend. He needed to explain to a classmate that \u201call Jews are rich\u201d was an antisemitic stereotype. Both parents stalled for a moment as we sought more information.<\/p>\n
It turns out that other tablemates shut down this classmate immediately. They told her to be quiet and do her schoolwork. Let\u2019s call the student Anna. These other female classmates\u2019 backgrounds were Filipina and African Muslim. While grateful, my kid can\u2019t wait until the seat assignments will be changed. He believed that Anna got her information about the Gaza war and Jews from TikTok and that maybe fighting this misinformation with facts, using shortform videos, would help.<\/p>\n
When pressed, we learned my kid didn\u2019t have a social media connection with Anna for forwarding information, nor did we think she would watch the video. After all, Anna\u2019s grandmother was Palestinian and liked Jews, saying we were cousins. We parents concluded that someone in Anna\u2019s life or online introduced hateful stereotypes to her. That\u2019s what she believed \u2013 not her grandmother.<\/p>\n
My husband retold the story of when his family was forced to couch surf. They were homeless for a year. My father-in-law, a young architect without financial backing, sold their family home to fund future work, including their new, half-built house. When the bank lost the deposited cheque from the house sale, they had nowhere to go. My husband, a kindergartener, his toddler brother and his mother spent the year at his grandparents\u2019 New York Lower East Side apartment. My father-in-law had to stay with his parents in New Jersey. When the awful lost cheque episode resolved, they finally moved into their half-built house. They washed their dishes at the only faucet \u2013 in the bathtub. My husband could have gone on: his grandfather, raised in Mezrich, Poland, lived in a home that they shared with their cow for winter warmth and financial security. His great-grandmother had 13 children. This included three sets of twins, but none of the twins survived.<\/p>\n
Our son said he didn\u2019t want to share any family information. Our truths didn\u2019t matter to Anna, he thought. He didn\u2019t want this kid spouting hate to think he cared or even discussed this with his family. He wanted her to think her prejudice hadn\u2019t affected him. He felt, aside from showing a video to counteract it, he\u2019d get nowhere in explaining how she\u2019d upset him.<\/p>\n
This reaction correlates to a JTA article by Ilana Horwitz, a Tulane University professor. Noting that her Jewish studies students didn\u2019t choose topics concerning antisemitism or Israel, she asked why. Her students are constantly facing antisemitism outside her classroom online and in person. Their anxiety about \u201csaying the wrong thing\u201d when it comes to Israel means that they don\u2019t want any more discussions or pressure than they already face. Exhausted, they come to her class to find ways to deepen and strengthen their Jewish knowledge and history and find \u201cJewish joy.\u201d They want \u201cto remember what we\u2019re fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n
My child\u2019s experiences echo some of the code-switching I did as a teenager in Virginia more than 35 years ago. As an adult, I realized that my Jewish identity, practice and ideals were carefully separated and toned down when we were a small minority amid Christian Southerners who were perhaps ignorant at best when it came to treating Jews as equals. Not much has changed, although, in Winnipeg, the majority culture is coded as secular Christian rather than religious, and there are many more Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other religious traditions around.<\/p>\n
I recently attended a Jewish-Christian interfaith event on the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, when the Pope decreed that the Catholic Church should guard against antisemitism and that Jews hadn\u2019t killed Jesus. The event\u2019s planners had great intentions. The speakers were good. Rabbi Lisa Grushcow (PhD) and Dr. Murray Watson, a Catholic theologian, brought thoughtful, intellectual views on the subject. They didn\u2019t shy away from much-needed dialogue as a bulwark against rising hate. Unfortunately, the event moderation left something to be desired. The well-intentioned Catholic senior citizens, who rose during the Q&A to speak, didn\u2019t have critical questions. Instead, they wanted to \u201ctestify\u201d about the \u201cgreat Jewish boss\u201d they\u2019d had or seek reassurance that it was OK to disagree with the nice \u201cquite Orthodox Jewish couple\u201d in their senior living facility when it came to the West Bank\/Judea and Samaria. I couldn\u2019t help myself. Leaning over to a Jewish friend, I whispered that it\u2019s good there are these amazing Jewish examples mentioned, because of what it suggested about the rest of us \u201cno-goodniks\u201d!<\/p>\n
After several awkward moments, I felt relieved when the event ended. As a small minority in Canada, we need allies and connections. We cannot afford to give up on building bridges with others. First, we might make deep friendships and gain positive community, but also, with rising hate, it\u2019s important to have allies (like those school tablemates) who stand up and tell haters to stop when they spout prejudice.<\/p>\n
That said, this work to counter antisemitism isn\u2019t solely our problem. Perhaps my teen and those students at Tulane are right. We should devote more energy to our Jewish joy, culture and history. Let\u2019s embrace all the good, rich parts of our identities and re-invest in our learning and celebration. My kid, and most of his tablemates, didn\u2019t want to give hateful stereotypes any airtime. In this instance, he was probably right. Lots has changed since I dealt with this in high school. I was often forced to give all the explanations and information about Jews, since I was the only Jew there. Then, afterwards, there was Jew-hate spewed towards me anyway.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s changed is our understanding of what causes criminal behaviour. We now recognize that a short skirt doesn\u2019t cause sexual assault. Nothing we do specifically, as Jewish individuals, brings on this hate. Nothing the modern state of Israel or individual Jews do created this ancient hatred. It\u2019s not our behaviour or fault. We don\u2019t have to own this or fight this alone. Antisemitism is an old symptom of a much more invasive disease of ignorance and hate.<\/p>\n
The solutions are complicated. Meanwhile, let\u2019s consider shutting down these biases when they pop up, just as they did in my kid\u2019s Grade 9 class. Let\u2019s offer some Jewish joy to the mix \u2013 and let\u2019s also remind one another that it\u2019s not all on us. What causes antisemitism? Antisemites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Joanne Seiff <\/b>has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/i>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>. \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Grade 9, the English teacher rotates table placements monthly because sitting with different students helps expose everyone to new worldviews. In general, this makes sense; discussions about literature require us to hear lots of opinions. This was also where, last week, my kid got exposed to a view that our household could have done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[801,3429,24443,218,2727],"class_list":["post-47906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-antisemitism","tag-family","tag-jewish-joy","tag-judaism","tag-school"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}