I found your essay very thought-provoking. But at the same time I am bothered by your stereotyping of the two women at the writing retreat. You know your roommate is Jewish but you figure the other one is too because she looks affluent and has a daughter named Rachel?

Jews = Money? That’s an anti-Semitic slur dating back centuries. It’s the stuff of Eastern European pogroms, the Holocaust, white supremicists.

So I have to say to you: “You Said What!”

“You’re eating dinner with your roommate and another woman, a friend of hers, also older, also Jewish, like your roommate. That is, you know your roommate is Jewish, and you think this woman is also. Both of them have grown daughters named Rachel. Both women look affluent. Is it their clothes? Jewelry?”