Betrayed, Daily

How it feels to be Jewish on December 3, 2024

At Caffe Aronne on the Upper East Side

The betrayals just keep piling up. Earlier tonight, a work friend took me aside at an event. Turns out, she’d overheard a mutual author friend of ours react with disgust when my name came up.

“Zibby?” she’d sneered. “Ugh, she’s a raging Zionist.”

It came from an unlikely source, someone I really trusted.

Every day, it’s something else. Last weekend, at Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica, I proudly signed about 100+ copies of On Being Jewish Now, posted a video about it, and filled a corner of the store with the books. Then, for the first time ever, we got a 1-star rating on Google: “Terrible store. Terrible people.” Oh, really? What a coincidence.

Also last weekend, another close author friend posted a photo in stories with “free Gaza” imagery. That one took my breath away. I thought about it all day and then finally wrote to her and said, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I just have to tell you: this hurts.” She responded as nicely as one could under these circumstances — which I appreciated. What can anyone respond, I guess, after they’ve publicly indicated they support a position that essentially calls for your death? Where do we go from here? Heart emojis! Bye!

I can’t even keep track. I wish I’d started keeping a list on October 8th of all the antisemitic incidents. All the hatred. Then again, who wants to remember this later? Perhaps I’ll start my own list now. There must some sort of collective Google doc with reports of things like this? Perhaps I can start one. But who would care?

People have accused me and others of speaking into an echo chamber. Where else can I speak? I’m speaking where I always have. I can’t help who listens.

My son had a school assignment tonight for which he had to ask me a bunch of questions about my childhood. The last one was, “What’s something you’ve never told me before?”

“I told you about the time I found a note that said ‘I hate you’ in my desk, right?”

His eyes lit up. “Noooo! You did? Did they get in trouble?”

A girl in my second grade class was jealous of my burgeoning friendship with a girl she’d laid claim to. Leaving me a note in my desk (“Dear Zibby, I hate you. From, Guess Who?”) was her answer to feeling threatened. I told the teacher. I can’t remember what happened next, but I knew that someone, in what I’d thought was a safe and supportive classroom, had turned on me.

I feel like that now. Only there is no teacher to go to. There are no rules that govern this behavior. When people act out and bully others, there are no consequences. So they keep going. Yes, I report hate speech on social media and even reported one action to the FBI last week. But where else? Nothing moves the needle.

Not only has all this happened lately, but it has happened in the context of more horrific news about the hostages. I’ve watched the video over and over again of Edan Alexander who cries telling his parents and grandparents to stay strong as he remains in captivity. Then there’s Omer Neutra, the soldier from Long Island, whose parents have been fighting for his release for 400+ days and only just learned he was killed on October 7th. There’s a new photo circulating of his mom holding Hersh’s mom’s hand at the funeral. These are the images that fill my soul.

I interviewed Martha Beck today for my podcast about her upcoming book Beyond Anxiety in which she reminds the reader of the difference between fear and anxiety. Fear comes from a real, tangible threat and disappears when the threat goes away. A leopard comes in view, the heart races, and then, after the leopard leaves, the heart calms down.

Right now, I realized, I’m not anxious. I’m afraid. It is fear. There is a real, tangible threat: a burgeoning, ever-boldening tide of Jew-hatred around the globe. A targeting of the .2% of the population (yes, again), coupled with a weak, malleable, misinformed collection of social-media-addicted U.S. citizens who have allowed the infiltration of radical Islamic fundamentalists to tarnish who they are and what they stand for.

Many of our fellow Americans have traded common sense and decency for social-justice-sounding rhetoric that is the opposite of just. They swing flags of nations they’ve never cared about or visited, inserting themselves into the middle of a story they forgot to read. They’re like extras in a movie, being trotted out for a scene. They don’t even care that it’s a movie designed to torture and kill. They’ve been suckered into becoming pawns in a scheme they don’t understand, smiling as they hold signs overhead calling for the slaughter of their peers, as the puppet masters laugh.

And we, the Jews of America, have to just take it? No. I don’t think so.

We are all trying to get the attention of the teacher.

If nothing else, lately, I’ve learned how to roll with all of this. My body doesn’t always react when I hear horrific news. I don’t cry as often anymore. I rarely get that sick-to-my-stomach feeling. I’ve donned a protective shield because I realize I’m on a battlefield with arrows shooting at me from all directions. So now I’m alert. Ready. Actively consuming information.

I try to go about my business. Market books! Write a fun, escapist novel! Interview authors! Pick my most anticipated reads! But inside, all the time, I am watching, waiting, fearing, planning, learning. I’m doing deep dives into the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage situation and reading People Love Dead Jews, awake all night, tormented by terror images. I am consumed with the survival of the Jewish people, with protecting myself and my loved ones during this time, not knowing if it’s about to get better or worse. I hope it will get better. I pray it will get better. Let it get better.

Another upside? I’ve found more allies than I can count. For example, Caffe Aronne on the Upper East Side proudly stocks my anthology (and I am so grateful). The contributors to On Being Jewish Now and the founding authors of Artists Against Antisemitism have become trusted families. People I meet every day, like Erin from the Wise Woman podcast today and the co-authors of Chutzpah Girls in Israel, are new compatriots in the fight to survive. Unlike in Israel where civilians become IDF soldiers clad in uniform, here, our only uniform is a Star of David. A badge of solidarity.

It’s heavy. And when I take off the protective armor at the end of the day, I am beat. It’s a lot to be hated for the race you belong to, to know everyone else has it all wrong about you, and yet won’t listen when you try to set them straight. I know other races can relate — and it would be so nice to get a fist bump from them, a “you got this” or “we get it” or “hang in there.” But there’s only silence and turned backs.

This feels like fiction. But it’s true.

A “raging Zionist,” my friend? Yes. And guess what: that actually isn’t an insult.