Dear ladies & fellas
If you are following my blog for some time, you might already know, that I am both, Jewish & bisexual. Also I live in Western Europe, to be exactly, I live in Switzerland. As you may know, anti-Semitism in Europe is on the rise. But what it does mean, besides the terror-attacks, that first hit us Jews mercilessly in Toulouse, Vienna, Paris & Bruxelles & now spreading to anyone in Europe, like in London yesterday???
To be honest: I quite struggeled to write this piece after the terror-attacks in London yesterday, because I did not intend to sound selfish & as somebody, who only cares about my own people. Till now anti-Semitism & terror-attacks against jews are not taken seriously, which lead the jihadis to continue their attacks on anyone, they despise. Because „red lines“ were either not drawn or it was not acted accordingly, when the first targets of terrorists in Europe were Jews.
So in this piece I write about my experiences as jewish woman in Europe in 21th century:
- The bookshop, in which I work has a lot of students from the university nearby, as customers. Most of these students have anti-Semitic predjudicies. But the two students in this incident took the cake: One day, two students, a woman & a man, approached me at the bookshop, because it seemed that they could not find a certain book, which was on a shelf near the floor. So I had to go down on my knees, to grab said book & give it to the students. When I was about to stand up again, all of a sudden, I felt how my hair was pulled. It was quite painful. First I thought, that my hair was caught in a shelf or something like that, because I can be really clumsy. However, I realised that one of the students had actually pulled my hair on purpose. When I was about to ask them, if they were insane or something, the female student interrupted me & told me, that my colleague told them, that I am Jewish & so those students were curious to see, if I wore a wig, like some married, Jewish orthodox woman do. So these folks pulled my hair to satisfy their curiosity. The female student told me also to relax because they just wanted to „look“. Because I was at my workplace, I swallowed my anger & continued to assist them.
- During the last elections in the USA, I had an argument with another student & member of the Swiss „Green party“, who thought that Ted Cruz, the Republican politician, is Jewish, because of his nose. When I told the student, that it is anti-Semitic to claim that somebody is Jewish just because of his/ her nose, he became recalcitrant & told me, that I, as a Jew, don`t have to defend Ted Cruz because he is also Jewish & that Ted Cruz & I, share the same nose & therefore Ted Cruz has to be Jewish. I really tried to explain that stuff to this guy, but he kept insisting, that I would defend Ted Cruz because he is Jewish…
- Back then, when I was a member of the JUSO, the young Socialists here in Switzerland, a female fellow-member approached me, because she was stunned, that I, as Jew, was a JUSO-member. According to this woman, we Jews are the servants of the capital, the capitalism & the banks. At that incident I was a bit more chipper & told this woman, that we Jews are actually a very caring & social people & that, because of people like Amy Winehouse & Michel Friedman the GNP of Columbia doubled.
Folks, I also cannot count how many times non-Jewish people told me, that my nose is Jewish, but I am sure, that if I would have received 1 CHF or 1 EURO, each time somebody told me that, I would have done my nosejob years ago.