Universal Unrest
I’ve been wondering lately why I can’t shake negative thoughts that infiltrate my otherwise sunny disposition. Last night, I dreamed that a friend had gone to protest the vandalizing of a Jewish cemetery. Several Jews had laid down beside the graves to keep haters from destroying the headstones. Instead, the haters opened fire and killed all of the Jews lying there in sleeping bags. I was watching in horror with the same question that has played through my mind my entire life – would I identify as Jewish when they came for me?
This is a question I had in 1985 when Leon Klinghoffer was thrown overboard on the MS Achille Lauro and was a question that ran through my mind during the 70s and 80s when planes were being hijacked left and right. It’s a question that becomes relevant every time the world’s turmoil spins closer to home.
When that happens, universal anti-Semitism waxes too close to home.
I thought of this as I was watching Downton Abbey the other night while Lady Rose fell for the Russian immigrant, who turns out to be a Jew (much to the horror of the family), and we learn that Lady Cora’s father is Jewish. “It’s always something,” Lady Grantham says when she learns Rose’s new beau is a Jew.
With ISIS and the Middle East a pressure cooker and the U.S. trying to “fix” it, I feel this impending sense of crisis escalating for both Israel and the United States.
I think about this with all seriousness as I bring my son to Sunday school today. The world is not safe for Black boys. Its safety for Jews waxes and wanes. And here I am, raising my Black son Jewish and praying that at some point in his life, he’ll embody both AND survive both.