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I’m really fucking deep in a spiral over that holocaust tweet, so I’m going to tweet through it and would really recommend that if you’re Jewish and also trying to grapple with anxiety, mute this thread so you don’t have to see it.
I am so sick of the narrative asking why Jews didn’t fight back, not only because it assumes that somehow Jews in Germany ignored all basic instinct for survival, but because of the bigger question it avoids asking: how do you fight back against your neighbors?
I wrote about this in my diary last night. I don’t see how any of what we’re dealing with ends easily or cleanly. OK, let’s say we jail the insurrectionists. Then what? They sit in prison for a year, stewing with resentment?
The ones who don’t get jailed lose their jobs and have more time to plan and organize and train? They blame the ones who spoke out against them?
This is why the threat of domestic terrorism is so much greater than the boogeyman we’ve waged a 20 year war against.
This is why the threat of domestic terrorism is so much greater than the boogeyman we’ve waged a 20 year war against.
When you ask why the Jews didn’t fight back (and again, they fucking did) you put the blame on the Jews for not saving themselves in the face of their country turning against them. How is the question not “why didn’t non Jews resist accepting evil?”
But no, that question isn’t asked, because the underlying theme truly is “why would the Jews assume they were safe?”
Because, of course, we should know better. We should never assume we’re safe. We don’t have that right.
Because, of course, we should know better. We should never assume we’re safe. We don’t have that right.
The Holocaust isn’t the only time Jews have been reminded we have no right to a home. All of my family came here by 1918, fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. I am a 4th generation American. By the time I was born, the only naturalized member of my family was my great grandmother.
After Trump was elected, my mom and I spoke on the phone about an abstract question of “should we look at buying something in Vancouver now?” but over time that fell by the wayside, forgotten as the initial panic subsided.
Last night I sat in bed, trying to figure out how to convince my family that we need to start thinking realistically about our next steps.
Have you ever done that? Thought about dismantling your home, the tangible memories, the possessions you love and are proud of?
Have you ever done that? Thought about dismantling your home, the tangible memories, the possessions you love and are proud of?
What do we do? Do we sell our house, move to another countr where we know no one, out of fear that our home is no longer safe? How do you make that choice to uproot everything? Do we take that risk only to realize in three years that we were running from a shadow?
I’ve never once wondered why Jews didn’t leave Germany but I’ve always thought I would have been one of the early ones to flee. Now I’m faced with that question and I understand why they did not. The thought of having to do it makes my hands shake and my chest tighten.
These are the feelings many Jews are facing, and we are facing them not because we refuse to fight back, but because - how do you fight back against your neighbors? How do you fight back when you see that the government won’t?
So, non-Jews, next time you get ready to ask why Jews didn’t fight back, know that you’re not just asking about amorphous “those” Jews who died in the Holocaust. You’re asking that of those of us who are living and doing very real math now about what country would be safer.
Then turn that question right the fuck back around and ask why their neighbors, their friends, the dissenting party in government, didn’t do more to stop it. Because that’s the question we’re all asking about you.
