Growing up Jewish

Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad.
Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One
The words of a Jewish Prayer I learned as a child.

The reason I am writing this rant is because I’ve noticed a lot of hatred toward Jews these days. Although I consider myself Pagan there are times my Jewish heritage screams out, “Why all the hate against the non Zionist Jews.” My family background consists of Ashkenazim, Sephardi Jews and a Mohawk. My grandmother converted to Judaism when she married my grandfather. I did not know this for many years as my family has kept many secrets. It was years before I found out about my Grandmothers conversion, I remember this like it was yesterday, I was sitting on a trolley with my Grandma, an old woman spoke to her and asked “Are you Johanna A. whose husband blew his brains out?” Grandma looked at the lady, looked at me and said tearfully “You must have the wrong person.” Tears don’t lie.

Most children have no say so when it comes to religion when they are growing up. You follow the faith of your father or as in my case my mothers’ belief. My mom followed the reformed sect of Judaism. My dad on the other hand came from an orthodox family and the two just didn’t mix well, it was at times very confusing to me. Celebrating Passover with my mom meant that I’d have to ask the Three Questions in English. When I spent a rare Passover with my dad and his parents, I’d have to ask them in Hebrew. My Mothers Fathers' family history was Sephardi, traveling from Spain to Prussia during the Spanish Inquisition. My Dads Father was an Ashkenazim Rabbi who fled Russia with his Wife and congregation to the US because of a pogrom.

All this family history has had a strange effect on my life. As I wrote in an earlier post on the blog: I was born into a Jewish family this life. Although I studied hard and did all that Jewish stuff, I could not for the life of me believe in a vengeful God. Being a child of abuse I had enough to deal with and at times I'd think that God was punishing me. Having been a member of that religion while growing I’ve heard all the lies about Jews; Jews are lazy, Jews worship money, Jews don’t do manual labor, Jews own all the media and banks in the world, and I’ve heard this more than once, you must have failed in business three times because you’re doing manual labor. My mother tried to prepare me for this hatred by telling me that I should change my last name. I never got around to it. Many of my friends believe that every Jew carries a Talmud in their back pocket, the fact is that many Jews have never read it. A good site on Jewish Law can be found at Torah.org.

The Jewish Holocaust is being talked about in a Paltalk chat room as I write this. It makes me sad to hear some of my so called friends either deny it or put it down. I’ve always questioned the number of Jews that died in “The Holocaust”, but to deny it never happened is just insane. Yes, there were other people who died under the Nazis hand. Hitler stared with the mentally ill and the retarded, then the gays and gypsies, we know this. However these other groups were never singled out as “Lebensunwertes Leben”, Life Unworthy of life as much as the Jews. At first it started with The Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race:The Reich Citizenship Law that took away German Citizenship away from all Jews. Next it was “Kristallnach”, or Night of Broken Glass, that was a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany and parts of Austria on Nov 9-10 1938. Jewish homes and stores were ransacked in a thousand German cities, towns and villages. I’ve heard the stories from some of my relatives who survived.
By the way, The Cartoonist Art Spiegelman tells the story of how his father that survived in a two part cartoon history “Maus.”

My good friends know where I stand of the Israel – Palestine issue. I’ve taken a lot of flack from many of my Jewish friends because I have and will always support Palestine. I once got in to a small argument at work for asking a co-worker “Why do the Israelis treat the Palestinians like the Nazis treated them?” Most of the Jewish folks I know are good people and wouldn’t know a Zionist if they fell over one. The Problem is that if you are Jewish, you’ve been brainwashed since birth, believing that everything Israel does is right, no questions asked. There are many sites on the net written by Non-Zionist Jews. Jews not Zionism is one of the best and speaks to some of the questions I’ve raised here. For those that doubt my question, “Why do the Israelis treat the Palestinians like the Nazis treated them?”, there is, If Americans knew. There is also SHIT LIST...7000+ Self-Hating Israel-Threatening Jews.

And so this Pagan ends his rant about growing up Jewish with the hope I've answered some questions and made you think. Please lets stop all this hate against Non-Zionist Jews and work together in solving the problems in the Middle East.

In Light and Love
Wolfdancer Dragon Starson