Why do people hate Jews? — my experience as a college freshman
Why do people hate Jews? What did we ever do to deserve hatred from so many people?!
I am a college student in Illinois, and I’m just trying to live my life, get some sleep, and do my homework, but there are people out there, terrible people, who want to shame me for being proud to be Jewish. I AM proud to be Jewish, and that’s my business not yours.
I go to a very accepting school, with many other Jewish people like me, however, recently, Swasticas and Anti-Jew symbols and messages have been popping up across cmapus. It seems to be a new ‘epidemic’ this year and it has spread like wildfire. Hate is a dangerous thing because it’s easier to spread than love.
I attend Yom Kippur services and Rosh Hashanah services at the local Chabad on campus, but what really eats away at me, is the police car sitting right outside the service. Should I have to fear my life every time I want to celebrate a holiday, or spend time with people like me? It makes me sad to know that a police man has to sit there all night just to ensure the place doesn’t get shot up or burned down.
What has this world come to!? This is 2019, yet it seems people still have the mindset of 1930. How do we change? There is no solution, but they won’t get us.
A couple weeks ago, the campus Rabbi sent out an email to all the Jewish students, and asked them to attend a student government meeting where they were going to define what the word ‘anti-semitism’ meant, because of all the recent hate crimes on us Jews.
Our Rabbi wasn't expecting much, but maybe a hundred people, the ‘good’ Jews of campus who show up to all events. However, 4,000 Jewish students showed up to this. People who had never attendned one service, one class, or had even met the Rabbi. They showed up because they were Jewish. Orthodox, conservative, reform, whatever, we are all Jews and that word has importance on our life. And that’s the true meaning of being Jewish.
At that meeting, however, hate still was present. Many Anti-Zionsit students came to boycott us, with signs like “Fuck Israel” and remarks about Palestine. Yes, a college campus. Yes, college students.
Now, there wasn’t a single Jew out of the 8 or so members on the student government, so they ended up keeping their, generic definition of anti-semitism, as opposed to the one we wanted them to change it to, being against Jews. The way the Rabbi put it, white people cannot define racism, because it is not about them, so how can non-Jews define anti-semitism when it is not about them?!
As you can imagine, this was a loss in our eyes, so what did we do? We staged a walkout. All 4,000 of us, decked out in Israeli flags, staged a walkout. We stormed out of there without a care and went to the grassy quad across the street. It was dark out but that didn’t stop us.
We made our own light and we got into a huge cirlce. A boy with a megaphone gave us a speech about how hate is not okay and we are not going to stand for it. That day also happened to be one year from the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting. We read the names of those people lost, and mourned each loss as if they were our friend.
A girl spoke about a quote from her grandmother in the Holocaust, and naturally the news came and cameras came, but did we care? Nope. There were tears everywhere, sad that people were lost, but proud tears to see the Israeli flag flying high on our college campus.
We grabbed the people next to us whether we knew them or not, and all sang the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikvah.” I didn’t even know how I remembered the words, but all my years of Sunday school came flooding back to me, and I proudly sang that song with my fellow Jews.
I cried not because I felt unsafe or because we ‘lost’ today, but because I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be apart of something so amazing, so much bigger than myself.
Hundreds of times throughout history people have tried to destroy the Jews, make them slaves, exile them. But guess what!? We were the first religion and we’re still here thousands of years later. So many cultures vansihed in the textbooks, but why didn’t we? After 6 million people died and we were slaves for hundreds of years, why did we make it to today?
The reason is because being Jeiwsh is more than a religion to us. Being Jewish means being a part of a community and family. So as you can image, many, many, Jewish students ran for student government positions for next year. We don’t let history repeat itself. Ever.
That’s my story and experience as a college freshman, and I’m proud to share it, and proud to say I am Jewish. So next time you sigh at the thought of high holiday services, or fasting, remember this. Being Jewish is a privelegive, not a hassle. Just remember, the haters make us stronger.