My Jewish Identity Isn’t Based on Being Hated

I went to a Channukah lighting ceremony and one of the key Rabbinical authorities in this country kept inserting every 3–5 minutes in his speeches how much we were hated and it came across as a form of fear-mongering to me.

The Ultra-Orthodox communities who do bad things to their children and wives in the Northeast United States use that same form of fear-mongering to their advantage: The world is unsafe so we have to live in extremely insular places and prevent our kids from going to college and being in secular spaces and they have to get married at 18–20 to people they don’t know, further locking them into a cycle of abuse and .

If they ever want to leave the religion (for legitimate reasons including abuse or loss of faith), they often have to leave the community and are cut off. Oh yeah, and they lose their children too because the Orthodox Community likes to lawyer up (read more about it Footsteps.org).

But I digress.

I know there are statistics for “hate crimes” that are up. I know people at universities are disagreeing with foreign policy or Israeli policy. I know there are some people who are drastically worried about their safety as Jews in the last couple months (and maybe even before that). I respect those fears of my fellow Jews. I have a complicated relation to their fear and these last couple months have been a learning experience.

But I don’t have them myself. The voices of a people are made up of many voices. And this is one voice that is not feeling any particular fear on this side of the ocean.

My Jewish identity isn’t based on people hating me. It’s more about religious connection, celebration, and heritage.