Anti-Semitism -- My Loathed Origins

I never asked to be a Jew. No one has ever requested my permission to be "born" Jewish and be treated as one, whatever that means in whatever context. I never wanted to, by default, be seen as someone who follows Jewish tradition and believes in Yehovah, the original God for many believers.

I never liked being asked to say "Amen" after someone chanted a prayer, nor did I like when my surname was made fun of because it had the addition of "shtein" in it. I never killed anyone, let alone Jesus, and I am in no way a greedy or financially corrupt man. Originally, "Amen" means "believe" or "have faith" in Hebrew. A command.

And yet, I was born due to the events of the Holocaust, also known in Hebrew as the Shoa. My great-grandfather, lost his entire family in the Shoa. If it weren't for that period in my people's history, perhaps I wouldn't ever have been born. As such, this site that you're reading from, would not have been established.

Ironic, I know. If he decided to give up on having another go at raising a family, my Grandmother would not been born, my Father would not be born, and thus, I wouldn't been born. And it is all because of a certain man, who decided to commit genocide. In the grand scheme of things, Adolf Hitler re-created the lineage of the Rubinshtein family, and along with countless other families.

Knowing this insight feels very disturbing. He didn't have to give up, did he? Enoch, the great-grandfather. He could've decided to go down the path I am going down today. A voluntary celibate. But, I have very little information about him, in order to be the better judge of that.

Anti-Semitism, while a great stain on humanity, has also created things and beings. If people wouldn't hate us so much, we would not have a desire to escape to the Middle East and resettle. I'm pretty sure that, there were similar cases, where survivors decided to re-establish their families, after their former ones died. It does not mean that anti-Semitism is a good thing.

This is to say that, not all negative properties necessarily lead to more negative implications without a potential for good. Look at me. The woman whom I see as my life's overreaching antagonist, indirectly encouraged me to lead a life of solitude and philosophizing. Antagonistic entities and forces, whether evil or mere challenges, encourage us to do things we would not do otherwise; realize insights, we wouldn't otherwise be even aware of, theoretically.

While I don't like being called a Jew, simply because I'm irreligious, I do accept the fact that my existence, as well as that of my preceding bloodline, has been a product of one of the world's most notorious genocides. Millions were slaughtered, but as a result of this massacre, some were also created.

Do I like this fact? No, I do not, but I accept it. I accept it because I owe it my existence. Also because it reflected poorly on my mental health, given that I suffer at least a third generation of mental health probelms (from one branch, at least).

One of my great-grandmothers, so I have heard, lost her eye after someone in her hometown threw a rock at her. If she and her husband hadn't escaped to South America, they would also have been slaughtered by the Nazis.

And even there, I assume, they've encountered anti-Semitism. My other grandparents, now dead, did not live happily, for they were scarred by their common past. Looking back, it was no surprise that their lifespans were short; will mine also be...?

When you have an ancestral past such as mine, the world looks different. It feels uncanny when people do things such as not believing the Holocaust existed or, far worse, praised it. Praised Nazism, praised Hitler, and worse of all, condemned the Jews for trying to survive by doing what evolution demands. To be more fit as a nation, in the name of longevity.

Why do you think our military is so advanced and powerful? Why do you think the Palestinian nationalists are weak against us? It is because we have learned, the hard way, how imperative it is, to survive. And since the day Israel was declared, we are, to this day, in a legal, actual state of emergency. We have survived not necessarily because a supreme force wanted us to do so, but because might makes right, and thus we have become the militarized society we are today.

We need a nation not because we are necessarily entitled to it, but because it's the only practical answer to avoiding another holocaust, caused by our many enemies. The Palestinians, by revolting against us, fail to understand the power we have inherited from the agony, torture, and death of our ancestors.

If there will ever be a Palestinian nation, it would be foolish for it to be created through brute force exclusively. Genocide is far more traumatizing than having "your land", so to speak, invaded by colonizers.

As long as the trauma stays in our collective consciousness, we will not leave this disputed land, especially when the roots of this trauma, continues to exist to this very day. This isn't to minimize Palestinian agony. I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't fight death with death indefinately.

Hence, the glorification of Nazism and anything Nazi-related, is something hard for me to accept. Perhaps when the members of your bloodlines are to be either killed or traumatized by a stronger, unforgiving people, you will learn the true meaning of unforgiving. Of what deserves to remain unforgiven!