I'm growing my shoulders

I was going to grow my hair but difficult times call for difficult choices and I have decided that I should focus instead on my shoulders.

I have spent the last several days reading not only the news reports from Canada, the US and England, concerning last weeks Freedom (hahahahahah) Flotilla. But more informatively, I have been reading the readers comments section that follows every article.

Let me summarize a week's worth of comments for you: Generally speaking, and with very few exceptions, the world hates Jews. Even a lot of Jews hate Jews -- and they hate themselves for being Jews. And given the opportunity on a silver platter, that hatred is no longer brewing quietly just beneath the surface of human civility but rather it is bursting through and becoming de riguer conversation. "You hate Jews? Me too. It's so good to say that out loud!"

That's why I have decided to grow my shoulders. I think most Jews who still support Israel (the number is dwindling) are going to have to do the same. I have no intention of going back to Poland or Germany because I never came from there and I am willing to bet my last dollar that whatever my grandparents called home in Poland and Lithuania was quickly trampled by cossacks long before I was born. I am also not going back to Canada where I was born because a) I don't like the cold or the snow and b) after living in Israel, I can't even begin to imagine life there. For me, it wouldn't hold a candle to life here.

I am sad that the world sees us as they do. For the most part we are not much different from any other people in Western Society. We wake up every day. Go to school or work. Do laundry. Drive carpool. Try to raise our children to become decent adults. Eat. Play. But for whatever reasons (and there are many ... have you read "Constantine's Sword"?) the world has collectively decided that we are the root of all evil and deserve whatever we get.

Of course, it hasn't helped that the president of the United States has jumped on the "I Hate Jews" bandwagon.

And that is why, going forward, I am going to need very broad shoulders. It is totally naive to think that this wave of Jew hatred will subside any time soon -- I'm talking generations, not weeks. I just feel bad for the Jews who hate themselves -- hard to grow broad shoulders without the necessary convictions of your people.

Last week my mother told me about a sign that supposedly someone had painted on the side of the Israeli Embassy in Manilla on the occassion of Israel's 62nd birthday in May. It said (and this is hearsay because I have done some googling and I can't find it): 62 years old and everyone still wants to fuck her. Happy Birthday Israel!

Can't Anti-Semites find a better way to spend their days?

Sometimes I get up earlier than the rest of my family so that I can spend a few minutes at my computer before the pandemonium of the morning begins. I need a few minutes to see what emails dribbled in during the night – usually from overseas – and I like to read some news papers and see what's going on in the world.

Today, I am sorry I bothered. Yesterday, it seems, was the seventh anniversary of the unspeakable beheading of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal South East Asia Bureau Chief who was posted in India. Unfortunately for Daniel, he was born Jewish. I don't think he lived a very Jewish life, but for his killers that was besides the point.

Normally he is not someone who crosses my mind. But when I read the article written by his father in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com – it's titled "the Normalization of Evil" and it's printed in the Opinion section and definitely worth reading), it hit me like a ton of bricks. Probably because I had just finished reading the front page of the Jerusalem Post only to see that despite everything that happened in Gaza a few weeks ago appears to have been for naught. The world runs to say how bad the Israelis are for bombing Gaza, then we stop and lo and behold, what happens? The Gazans start bombing Israel again. Of course, that is okay with the world... it's only the Jews/Israelis.

It is so mentally exhausting to wake up every morning and realize within moments of reading pretty much any paper anywhere that the world just can't come up with enough ways to hate the Jews/Israel. Don't people have anything better to do with their days? Wouldn't they all be better off focusing on feeding their families, and finding personal fulfillment in some positive way?

I am at a loss to figure out how such a small country, with such a small population, can possibly be causing such worldwide havoc. And spare me the controlling the world theories – they are pathetic and downright not true. It's always easier to blame someone else rather than looking at one's own shortcomings. Why work on getting a job when you can blame black people for taking all the jobs via Affirmative Action programs?

Why is it always okay that people can aim their bombs at our children but when we fight back, we are bad? It's not a rhetorical question. I am actually going to answer it.

The answer is that Jew/Israel hating is so ingrained in societies and cultures that most people don't even know they are doing it. It is just part of who they are. Let me also say that I know lots of people who aren't Jew/Israel haters, so I know, as a fact, that is it possible to get through the day without it. And I am willing to bet that those people have lives full of many other things (hopefully positive things).

I am really sick and tired of worrying about justifying the existential right of Israel (and Jews) to exist every bloody day.

Therefore, I would like to suggest to all haters of any kind (why stop at Jews and Israel?), that you find something better to do with your day. Stop blaming entire groups of people because they are different from you. And remember, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones … or bear arms.