Leaning into history

I've previously mentioned my March of the Living trip in high school. This trip to Jewish sites and concentration camps in Poland coincided with and enhanced a developmentally normal but very intense period of my life of Holocaust obsession. I simply couldn't learn enough. 

And then some time after that, I turned away from the obsession. One of my memories of the trip was when Deborah Lipstadt  (one of my now heroes) spoke to our group and said, "Many of you here today will now embrace your Jewish identity because of the anti-Semitism that you've learned about here. I want to encourage you to embrace it despite that."

It struck a chord with me because it seemed that within the small Northwest-based group I was a part of on the March, my Jewish lifestyle stood out as somewhat unique. I was one of few who had Jewish practices at home and who seemed to know a bit more about Jewish identity. As the years passed after the March, I thought of Lipstadt's words and I wanted to make sure I was leaning fully into my identity as a Jew from Torah and from internal pride rather than from victimhood. 

As part of this, I began to avoid referencing the Holocaust, tried to learn more about other groups' histories of being mistreated, and began to squirm during the Passover seder that leans so hard into "throughout history they have always tried to destroy us." 

I believed that in an era where minorities were celebrated, anti-Semitism no longer existed with the force it always had in the past. (Charlottesville was an exception to this... "Blacks and Jews will not replace us.") 

October 7 awoke in me the realization that not only was I wrong, but that hatred were permeating in unexpected places. 

I'll need to spend more time on the details of this elsewhere. It is my goal with this blog to avoid blanket observations that you as a reader can find in other places, and instead to focus on my own experience.

Well, as I began to see that hatred of Jews was coming from unexpected places I started to become obsessed again. I'm feeling the drive right now and noticing how similar it feels to when I was in high school and learning about the Holocaust. 

Just now I came from picking up three different books from the library about different angles of anti-Semitism. Three. I don't know which I'll read first. And at home on my bedside is a young adult book I picked up in Israel with short stories about anti-Semitism from different periods of time in different parts of the world. I don't know which of these I'll read first but will probably jump around a bit in classic ADHD style until I choose my focus. 

And thing is that I find this exciting. Some of this is history of specific historical periods. Some is philosophy about what causes anti-Semitism. Some is a combination of both. All of it is mine. 

Last week my mom and I went to the North American Jewish Choral Festival. Four days of Jewish music from all different parts of the world and different parts of history. It was exciting to know that all of this could be ours -- Ladino, Yiddish, Hebrew, English from all different countries. What made the music Jewish was different for different pieces. Sometimes it was the liturgy. Sometimes it was the concepts contained. Sometimes it was just who the composers were. Sometimes it was about how the music is and was used. Jewish identity is not just religion or ethnicity. It is different shades of both of these things and more. 

One of my favorite songs from the festival originated during the Crusades. Talk about a horrid time for Jews. But having this love song survive and come now to my modern Jewish ears means a certain kind of survival. My knowing the history doesn't feel like victimhood. It feels like embracing my ancestors and knowing, with pride, who I am. 

I don't know how to explain that -- that a history that encompasses being hunted and hated can make me feel like I belong to something important, but it absolutely does.