As a Jew with a Blog...

As a Jew with a blog, I feel compelled to  say something about the California synagogue shooting that happened this past Saturday.  It's taken me this long to be able to contemplate saying anything, and I don't even know what I'm going to say; this post will evolve as I write it.

Chief among my emotions right now, as they ride high, is a sense of not being safe in my world.  I live in a safe neighborhood, in a relatively safe city, in a relatively safe country, but suddenly my feeling of safety is RELATIVE.  No longer does it feel safe to be a Jew.

People who look at my yarmulke are looking longer now.  I'm used to the quick "what is that" glance; but now those glances hold for a few seconds.  I don't get a greater number of looks than before, so mostly I don't care, but still, I notice the difference.

I debate whether it is safe to do the Jewish things I have always done.  I dealt with hostility over my yarmulke and fringes on and off from the time I started wearing them (yarmulke right before high school, fringes middle of college); this feels different.  I've never been afraid for my physical safety before.  I even find myself wondering if I should continue to go to synagogue.  The answer is yes, especially this week, the week right after the shooting.  If I don't go, they win.

That's what this comes down to: a fight for freedom.  If I stop wearing a yarmulke and/or going to synagogue, the terrorists, the extremists, the anti-Semites...they win.  They win their battle and their war to get rid of Jews.  I won't let them.

I WON'T LET THEM.  Till the day I die, I won't stop being Jewish and expressing it.  I will die for my people before I stop being one of them.

Besides, I have a gorgeous new synagogue blouse; it goes with a skirt for which I haven't had a blouse in a while; and it should be warm enough to wear it this Saturday.  It is pink, and I plan to wear my pink silk "pomegranates" yarmulke with it.

I am proud to be Jewish.