(no subject)

[holli]

Actually, wait, I have a real post, sparked by this comment on vaznetti's journal.

Here's the thing. I can remember my mom making me take off my Star of David necklace on the way to the airport, even for domestic flights. When we went on trips for my bat mitzvah and my sister's, she told us not to tell anyone what the reason for the trip was, anywhere but in Israel.

When a family I babysit for asked me if I'd accompany them on a trip to Jordan, both my parents flipped a shit. They absolutely forbade me to go, swore up and down they'd never forgive me if I did, insisted that they couldn't possibly be conviced that it was safe. All of this even though the family I'd have gone with was part of the Jordanian royal family, so there would have been bodyguards with us the whole time, and no chance of traveling anywhere dangerous. And anyway, I wasn't exactly going to pack tefillin in my luggage, you know?

But that didn't matter, because the fear is so ingrained, and my parents think I'm being careless with my safety if I'm not just as afraid as they are.

And it seems like irrational fear-- I mean, *I* think it's irrational fear. But it's not baseless, even if I haven't experienced the causes for it myself. And I think I do feel that fear, a little bit, every time I tell myself that anti-Semitism hasn't been a force in my life, that I have nothing to complain about, that I have nothing to bring to the discussion.

Which is just-- you know, I can't stop being part of an invisible minority if I make *myself* invisible, can I? And I feel like that's what we've been doing-- I had no idea half the people who've been posting about this are even Jewish, before now.

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I think if your parents were having children during the 70s and early 80s, and watching the news, it wasn't an irrational fear. Those were some pretty bad years, for Jewish international travel. (I'm just old enough to have understood what was going on on the Achille Lauro; I think I was ten.) I mean, parents are irrational creatures, when it comes to the safety of their children; but the instructions they gave you remind me a little bit of the protocols diplomats' kids learn. It's all about not being noticeable or available as a target.

Visibility is a risk, as any lurker will tell you. I'm all for that risk, because who wants to be always in hiding?, but you have the right to set the level of risk where you choose. The nice thing, of course, is that on the internet, one act of visibility tends to spark others.

AIFG!

[holli.livejournal.com]

I had to wikipedia the Achille Lauro just now, because I'd never heard of it-- but, yup, that was the year I was born. Paranoia becomes so much less frustrating when you know the reasons for it!