On Jewish identity

Identity is irrational but that doesn’t make it unreal. I am a Jew. I’m not a believer, don’t belong to a synagogue. I married out of the community. But I am a Jew. I fast on Yom Kippur and say Kaddish for my parents. When in Israel for work, the only time I go, I try to get to the Wall to pray and ask forgiveness of a God I am sure does not exist.

Nothing, however, takes me deeper into this irrational, inescapable ethno-religious identity than extreme violence against the Jewish state. The unprecedented 72-hour Hamas rampage through southern Israel was a forceful reminder of something lying near the core of my Jewish identity: to be a Jew is to know that you will be hated, not by everyone, but always, somewhere in the world, someone will hate you.

I learned this the very first time I was called a ‘dirty Jew’ in school. I was eight years old and my father taught me it was part of being Jewish. History reinforces my father’s lesson.

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Πηγή: engelsbergideas.com