An Open Letter to my Community:
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a Jewish household, structured by Jewish ideals, tradition, and culture. I attended Hebrew school regularly throughout my childhood two times a week, was very involved with my local youth group, USY, and I would try and attend services as often as I could. Now being in college, I have joined Hillel, which has brought me some comfort and sense of home on campus due to being such a small minority here. I proudly claim who I am and who I have become, from congregating in a place of worship filled with my fellow peers who also recognize Judaism in their lives. I speak my voice for the millions who were silenced some seventy-three years ago during the Holocaust. I gladly talk about my ancestors and keep their eternal lights aflame. My name is Elizabeth Finer, I am eighteen years old, and I identify as a Jewish American.
It is evident through senseless acts committed and globalized news about hate and speech crimes that the violence enacted upon my people has not come to a halt but rather sparked again. Eleven innocent lives were taken from the world in their place of worship, in their place of serenity, in their home, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; one of them being a Holocaust survivor. An event at a Brooklyn synagogue had to be canceled due to anti-Semitic graffiti being found on the walls, which included the words “Die Jew Rats”. A father, dressed up in Nazi garb, along with his son, dressed as Adolf Hitler, tried to reason their Halloween costume choices by stating on Facebook that “anyone who knows us knows that we love our history, and often dress the part of historical figures”. The state of New York is moving to revoke a license plate with the acronym ‘GTKRWN’, meaning to neo-Nazis and other hate groups: ‘Gas the Kikes, Race War Now’. A group of teenagers hurled a metal pole through a glass window of a synagogue on a Saturday evening in Brooklyn, running away moments later. Want to know something even more horrific than what I just described? What I outlined is only a small percentage of what we as Jews have endured over the past couple weeks. It honestly seems like it is just another day, another hate crime for us and it should NOT be that way. History has started to repeat itself and the events unfolding are going unnoticed.
It pains me to say that these acts have hit a little too close to home. Back in elementary school when I was just about nine years old, someone within my friend group began calling me Jew-can Sam (in reference to Toucan Sam and the stereotype that Jews have large noses). Being able to remember this event clear as day, years later, proves just how strong words can be. Flash forward a couple years to when I was the victim of hate speech during a school event in November of 2016. As I went to grab materials for a project, I noticed a swastika taped onto a piece of paper, on the outside of a recycling bin. Of course I was shocked. I could not believe that someone from my own school, in which I thought I was safe and had been reassured by administration that I was, had done something like this. A symbol of pure hatred and cruelty, relating to the most awful genocide in my people’s history, had been carelessly ‘flaunted’ in the hallways. I immediately urged for it to be removed, that it was neither a joke nor an image to be seen ever again. Not expecting a nasty comment in return, I quietly began walking away, tears forming out of disgust and anger. Yet what came next completely baffled me. A student, who made the sign, had the audacity to say right to my face “Why don’t you just burn it like they did to the Jews?”, all the while laughing to his friends witnessing all of this firsthand. I turned around, in disbelief, and ran into a classroom where my friends had been gathering supplies. I burst into tears, crying in fear of what would come next. Crying in fear of what had just happened. Crying because of what that symbol represented. Crying because I was just another victim that would be dismissed in today’s society, or so it seems. Sure, both of these events were not physical threats by any means but they did leave devastating emotional trauma and caused me to shelter my background for a while. To this day it makes me question the sanity of our world. It makes me question why some feed off of belittlement. It makes me question when it will all stop.
It is acts like all those mentioned above, and more, that have made this a time consumed by anger, worry, fear and sadness for the Jewish community. However, at the same time, it has showed the strength of our people as we come together and pray to rebuild a happier, more loving, healthier (physically and mentally) future for all involved. As we hold vigils for the ones taken way too soon, as we speak in remembrance of those who can no longer use their own voice, as we stand in solidarity and say ‘no more’, as we tell the stories of our past, as we hold hands and establish a sense of security, as we reach out to those we may not even know personally, as we unite with other nations: we begin to see our hopes and dreams of peace become a reality. This, this is the reason why I am more than proud to say that my family is Jewish and that I am too; for we come together in times of need, we come together in times of pain and sorrow, and we lift each other up, rising above the wicked.
And so, I propose a challenge. A challenge in which we, as a whole body, will stay guarded and protect others from distasteful occurrences like such mentioned above. Because despite what has been said, I am still here. I am still fighting for what is right. I am still dealing with what happened to me years ago, yet now, I am keeping my head held high. I am living proof that you can come out stronger and conquer evil. We must march forward, hand-in-hand, stomping on aversion’s grounds. The clock is ticking. Change is coming. Change is here. I fully believe that WE, this generation, are the change. And though we may not cause a drastic shift in society, I think that any effort to impose an impact on the youth of today is a step in the right direction in regards to shaping a more responsible humanity. This generation CAN and WILL end hate once and for all.