The Threat to Teenaged Jews Is Real. Here’s What You Can Do About It.

Sometimes it’s difficult to communicate the potential danger that hatespeak and random acts of religious intolerance holds for us. By us, I’m talking about you and me. I feel comfortable in addressing you like this, because even if you are not Jewish, chances are that your culture has experienced oppression. As horrific are the acts of oppression on people of various religions and cultures, it’s something that binds all of us together – or should. We have all experienced it, we have all condemned it, and we have all been complicit in it. Hate is the gift that keeps on giving.

As Jews, we are no strangers to oppression. It was a threat during the times of Moses. It was a threat a little more than a generation ago that reduced our numbers by over 6 million. It is a threat today.

Especially to Jewish teenagers.

I remember being invited to a meeting at UCLA a few years ago by Israeli/American activist and philanthropist Adam Milstein. Jewish students were being muscled by hate groups disguised as cultural/political support groups. Students for Justice in Palestine is one such group. The meeting was to address the oppressive climate that Jewish students experience at UCLA, and at other UC (University of California) campuses. I was fortunate to meet a student whose journalism was being stifled by UCLA’s official newspaper, The Daily Bruin. Any article that was pro-Israel, or that reported on factual advances in technology, medicine or the arts in Israel was met with rejection after rejection. Complaints to UCLA Chairman Block seemed to go unanswered.

Adam had invited industry leaders to mentor UCLA students with an aim to finding a solution. We sat at individual tables in UCLA’s Hillel activity room, mind-melding with UCLA students while listening to their own experiences with anti-Semitism. Each of us who were there had to make a leap of faith to believe what we were hearing. Israeli flags were being tread and spat upon. Students were being threatened with violence. Teachers were getting in on the hate and actively protesting any affiliation with Israeli professors. UCLA students were experiencing what’s called ‘historical regression’ where knowledge and education starts to reinforce popular opinion. It happened in Germany when former ‘humanists’ took up the mantle of Nazi-ism and supported the expulsion of Jewish professors. In a bravely beautiful act of protest, a renowned Christian physicist considered to be on a par with Albert Einstein, who taught at the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin, left in protest and refused to give any more lectures.

But hey, that was 75 years ago. What is happening now mirrored the atmosphere of the events and occurrences that preceded Nazi Germany.

How does it feel to be the target of hate? More importantly, what do you, as a Jewish teenager, do about it?

Awareness

What is most important is to be aware. You’re reading The Dreidel, which is a great tool to get yourself up to speed on what threatens us. We report and discuss what happens to other people. What happens to you is your experience. Part of fighting anti-Semitism is to share your experiences with others. Seek out other Jewish teenagers – you’ll find them at school and at your synagogue. If you’re not part of a congregation, why not visit a synagogue close by. You needn’t be religious. Synagogues are great places to build relationships based on common concerns. Many of us define our Jewish identity not through the Torah, but through our connection to each other and to Israel. We are a people that are not only defined by religion. You will build awareness through sharing your experiences and listening to the experiences of others.

Education

People who hate along religious lines fear the truth. Always be about the truth, even when it is inconvenient or uncomfortable. We are not a perfect people. However, we learn from the lessons of history as well as through our education. A wise man once told me, “knowledge is amoral”, when I asked why such a genius like British physicist Stephen Hawking could support anti-Israeli rhetoric and programs. What makes our universe chug along should not be the limit to your education. There is a reason why college campuses are hotbeds of anti-Semitism. It’s because many do not filter their thirst for knowledge. Without that filter, anything is accepted. As Jews, we have an innate ability to filter out the noise. Avoid hatespeak no matter what culture or religion it is leveled at.

Tolerance and Understanding

I learned a great lesson from a Holocaust survivor. His name was Curt Lowens, and during World War II he saved over one hundred Jewish children. When I met Curt, only a few years before he passed away, I was impressed by his tolerance and understanding of those who were affiliated with his oppressors only by birthright, and his understanding that hate is not sustainable. Case in point – Germany is now one of Israel’s greatest allies, and one of the only nations where Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic hate speech is illegal. Your own life reflects tolerance and understanding. This is what makes us human. Empathy, an ability to share and understand what another person is going through is powerful. People who hate lack empathy. In their condemnation of an entire culture or religion, they show how ignorant and ‘inhuman’ they are. Stereotyping is racial profiling is bigotry is hate. We are not about that, and we will never be about that.

Activism

You needn’t be a doormat for hate, and you needn’t put yourself in harms way to fight it. The opposite of laying down is to stand up, and stand up we will. Individually, there is a lot that you can do. You can join or affiliate yourself with organizations like Stand With Us who has amassed a huge following of not only Jews, but others who recognize the importance of Israel. You can join others at your school to rally against thinly-veiled anti-Semitic programs like BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction). BDS’ goal is to erase Israel from the map, and their motive is anti-Semitism. It’s easy to find a chapter of a pro-BDS squad or club on your campus. They are like cockroaches in a restaurant. When the lights of tolerance and understanding are on, they’re hard to find. Once you extinguish that light, they operate within a void of ignorance and hate. The light switches on, and you see them scurry back into the dark recesses of intolerance.

Speaking out against these organizations that support BDS or invoke anti-Semitism is a personal decision that should be made with your parents, guardians, rabbi and friends. Never put yourself in harms way, and don’t sacrifice your education. What you can do is do good deeds for others and the community, write articles that put truth before hate. Engage with other teens, especially those of other cultures who share this common thread of oppression.

Why Jewish Teens

We spoke about how college campuses are the new breeding grounds for hate. American teens are un-filtered targets for content, and they soak up everything from the latest Cardi-B song to the latest conspiracy theory. The innocence that used to be characteristic of teenagers has been relegated to history for anyone with an Internet feed. Hate is the new porn that is delivered to anyone with an email address. Teenagers react to spam like a sponge reacts to water. This is how ISIS indoctrinates followers. This is how white supremacists collar dumb hicks who judge people by color. This is how anti-Semites influence college professors who infect their students.

Be immune to it, my Jewish teenage friend. You have an Internet feed. You’re probably on Facebook. You post to Instagram. Use your voice. Hitler would not have done the deed had their been an Internet back in the day. He would have been exposed early on and that information would have gone viral. He and those like him might like to control the news, but they can’t. The truth is out there, we just have to wear that filter that keeps us from inhaling hate. We can do it.

Richard Stellar
Editor, The Dreidel