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Saturday, May 15

We are all Jewish

I'm feeling freaked out today
I was just reading about how the Shiite Moslems chanted at the Americans
as they fought their stand off in their holy city "Jews! Jews!" As if all Americans are Jews and all Americans therefore deserve to die.

Here we are. It's the year 2004. I grew up thinking that atrocities like Hitler and the murder of six million Jews, like the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion and or murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, like the friggen Pharaoh back in Egypt and the slavery of the Hebrews..could not happen again.

But I don't feel that way anymore.

It's so strange to me that in this day and age, anyone could hate anyone else for being Jewish. This is a religion that encircles a group of people as different and diverse from each other as is the human race. Show me a Jew with a big nose, I'll show you ten with perfect little Gwyneth Paltrow noses. Show me a cheap Jew, I'll show you ten who are generous to a flaw, myself included. Show me a dis-honest Jew, I'll point you to entire communities based on pride, honor and goodness. Show me dark haired Sephardic Jew, I'll point to my grandfather, my mother and myself and our blonde hair and blue/green eyes. Show me a Jew how believes that Israel should not exist at this time and I'll point you to millions of Jews who will fight for its existence with their lives. Show me a Jew who believes in the oppression of all Palestinian people and I'll point you to millions who dedicate their lives to fighting for the human rights of all people.

It seems to me that to hate a Jew, to kill a Jew, because they are Jewish, makes as much sense as thinking millions of Catholics are all the same.

Can you walk out today and think that every Catholic you meet will be of the same species, same ideals, same thoughts as every other Catholic?

Of course not.

and....of course....even ....if by some freak of the universe...every Jew on this planet had the same dreams, the same beliefs, the same ethnicity, the same desires, the same needs....it would still be a crime against humanity to murder them to seek to destroy them in the name of what?

A holy war?


I'm so frightened...because I am watching a wave of anti-Semitism spread out across this world...and it's making me realize that the horrors of the bible, the near genocide by the Nazi's is not a slice of history but a warning of what can come again one day... if we are not careful..

Are you African American?
Are you Asian?
Are you Latin?
Are you a woman?
Are you gay?
Are you handicapped?
Are you Arabic?
If you are a minority in this country or any other country, you probably know what racism feels like, or sexism, or homophobia..

So stop the spread of Anti-Semitism... speak out when you hear a "dirty Jew" joke.. Speak out. Reach out. Call out. Don't be quiet.

Because the next time some group of people or peoples tries to create genocide you may very well be their target.

I am so sad today..for this world.

Recently I found an old letter written by my mother 10 years before she died.
My mother who lost family in the Holocaust.

She wrote, "Has mankind learned nothing?"