Not ‘As a Jew’ But ‘Because I’m a Jew”

In my name or not in my name? That is the question

Image created in Canva Magic Studio by the author.

Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows that I speak up when I see injustice.

When I see antisemitism, it’s injustice on another level — because it is discrimination and hatred directed at my own people: at me, at my wide, extended family, and at many others — both friends and strangers — with whom I share an understanding that no one else can understand. Because we’re Jewish.

It’s not an “us and them” thing, or some pretence at superiority, but a combination of cell memory and taught history that cuts deep. For Gen Xs and Millennials, while our childhoods gave us the impression that the most recent genocide of the Jews was far in the past, in fact, it was very recent history. So recent that, as I grew older, I became starkly aware how close that was to actually being us.

Many I know are the grandchildren of holocaust survivors, but not me. With one set of grandparents living in Palestine during WWII, and the other set living in the United Kingdom during those years, neither of which Hitler got his vile hands on, I don’t have that direct connection to the holocaust. But both of my Israeli grandparents had lived side-by-side with violent, bloodthirsty antisemitic pogroms in their early lives, while my British…