AND SO IT GOES

 The self examination and introspection continues apace, venturing into frank, unknown territory. It is the equivalent of the childhood rhyme of the spinning - and where it goes, nobody knows. Not even the spinner. That is the excitement, the dread, and the challenge. The largest, hardest demand is to be honest. Honesty can cost in myriad ways, many refreshing yet painful as well. We will see.

Yesterday, if asked to define a 'Jew", I would have chosen this answer: a Jew is one whom others say is a Jew, with all inherent connected issues. In other words, there is an element of perhaps helplessness, loss of independence, when thinking of this question and answer. However, there is far more to it than that. Much more, a great deal of it historical in both cause and effect.

A Jew is one who is never, cannot ever, be comfortable in place. Always, there is that dark eternal element of uncertainty, of fear, real, deep fear, willing to admit it or not. Through the centuries, Jews were always the "other", the alien in the midst, always susceptible to distrust and accusation. Always a convenient scapegoat, a distraction to be used by a dictator in time of peril to his position. And yet, that lesson never seems to be internalized, as with shock, again and again, Jews, citizens, long time residents, integral parts of society, find themselves denied that membership, that acceptance.

Steven Spielberg made a phenomenal movie called Schindler's List. But he made another, earlier one which actually has Jewish overtones and inner meaning. E.T. The Extraterrestrial. E.T. wanted to go home. Wanted to belong, to be where he indeed belonged. He lived in precarious safety, depending upon the courage of others to hide and protect him, at great cost to themselves. Sound familiar yet? Habayta! To home. Always and forever the eternal plaint and wish, etched on walls of synagogues,  even in a secret synagogue of Terezin.  

A deep desire, need, to go home. Home. A place where one was not the other, a place of warmth and welcome. A place of refuge for imperiled Jews  scattered throughout the nations of the world. Brought home, welcomed, simply because the Jewish people recognize that we are all in this together and it matters not whether the Jew has Asian features, black skin, long beards, or waves a Pride flag.  Or even denies one's Jewishness, whatever and however that is defined. A Jew is a Jew, like it or not, and that assurance is always there, admit it or not.

So where am I in all this confusion? I am a Jew, a proud one, never to deny it and its importance to me. Yet I am American, the third generation to live here, with three more following. We are Americans. We are Jews. We are the same; we are different even within families. We are secure, yet also look to our passports, kept up to date, certain of who we are, yet not so certain as to how non Jews think of us. 

Thousands of Jews have died fighting in the wars of this nation, but the antisemitism continues, grows, today, with killings in synagogues, attacks at schools, in stores, walking on the street, recognizable as a Jewish person. We have vandalism on our institutions, vile hate writings dumped on our lawns, our children frightened by scenes of maddened, red-faced troglodytes screaming "Jews will not replace us!" Who the hell wants to?

What we want is to be home. Wherever we choose to make home. We are not the alien like ET. longing to go home. Why can we not be home already? Why cannot the haters of the world leave us alone, not give us extra space on their dais of "to be hated" people? Why are we growing, exponentially, a deepening fear for our children on campuses as antisemitism, in all its faces and disguises, grows, in violence, in filth, in danger?

Why is it so difficult to be a Jew? Why fight so hard to remain, openly, a Jew? Why? Because we are Jews, a people which has outlasted all the great conquering nations of the world. All the efforts to kill, convert, or exile. All the horrid pogroms, massacres, economical oppression, and scientific plots for extermination. All the governmental inspired, approved violence against their Jewish citizens. We are here. Here we will remain.

 I am a Jew.