Dr. King fought against race prejudice and Jim Crow segregation, right?

So why do so many of us American Jews pretend as though we’re really committed to his work? Isn’t racial segregation still the ‘in-house’ policy of American Judaism?

Black Jewish congregations have existed in the New World for no less than two hundred and fifty years. Now let that sink in for a moment. Over two hundred years. Yet any fair and honest observer will admit that even American Protestants have made more progress in intra-religious race relations than American Jews. (And that’s no small claim, given that the KKK embraces a Protestant Christian orientation!) At least American Protestants admit that black churches and white churches are indeed “Christian” churches. White Jewish organizations, however, often have difficulties admitting or acknowledging the mere existence of black Jewish organizations as “Jewish” in the first place. Many white Jewish rabbis, educators and community leaders have never set one foot into a black synagogue or learned about black jewish organizations, and many of our community’s predominantly white institutions function to the complete exclusion of their black counterparts.

American Judaism’s racial segregation, a segregation in such full force and willful perpetuation that I must occasionally argue that its black underside even exists, stands as a continual reminder of American Judaism’s inability to live out the meaning of Dr. King’s dream of human equality and interracial harmony.

FACT: American Judaism is more racially segregated today, in the 21st century, in the year 2009, than it was during all the antebellum centuries of New World slavery.

Today… in the 21st century… in year 2009…

Demographic research on American Jewry still systematically excludes the vast majority of Jews of African descent.

Today… in the 21st century… in year 2009…

Historical scholarship on Judaism still systematically neglects and almost completely ignores the cultural and religious contributions of African-American Jews to American Judaism.

Today… in the 21st century… in year 2009…

Rabbinical councils and other Jewish leadership organizations remain racially segregated, and many Jewish professional organizations still cater only to Jews of European descent.

Today… in the 21st century… in year 2009…

American Jewish day schools and Hebrew schools still overwhelmingly teach Ashkenazi-centered and European-centered versions of Jewish history and culture, sometimes even to the complete exclusion of Afro-Asian Jews from students and faculty personnel.

Today… in the 21st century… in year 2009…

There still exists vast, visible and complex socioeconomic disparities between white and non-white American Jews.

And as a result, today…

An ecumenical, religiously inclusive and vibrantly multiracial American Judaism still stands as only a distant possibility.

By simply mentioning these few issues, we have only begun to scratch the surface of talking about American Jewish race relations.

But Dr. King understood that mere talk about racism has never amounted to a fight against racism.

What would Dr. King make of this situation, were he here to witness how his dream has unfolded in Jewish America?

What do you think he would say?

“Yes, my Jewish brother! Yes, my Jewish sister! It’s easy to talk about Ethiopian Jews’ struggles against racism in Israel, but how often do you talk about Black American Jews’ or Asian American Jews’ struggles against racism at your local JCC, or the local synagogue, or the local Jewish day school?

Yes, it’s convenient to talk about how Rabbi Heschel marched hand-in-hand with me during the Freedom Movement.

But how often do Ashkenazi rabbis march hand-in-hand with African-American rabbis on your own local rabbinical councils… or how often do Euro-American synagogues worship hand-in-hand or side-by-side with African-American synagogues? How can it be that hundreds of Black Jewish congregations (including the ones in your own home town) go unnoticed, unsupported and virtually neglected by your white Jewish organizations year after year after year? How is this anything but religiously sanctioned, Jewish Jim Crowism?”

If Dr. King uttered these questions, how would we respond?

Look, during this time of reflection, let us not as American Jews deceive ourselves. Let us no be quick to dismiss racism’s influence because we ourselves are too afraid to admit its role in our own lives.

Instead, we need to be honest about the racial apartheid practiced right here in American Jewish society.

Challenging the injustice of racial segregation in our own community is what provides us with the moral courage to challenge injustices in other communities– not the other way around.

And so this year, as we once again mark the importance of Dr. King’s legacy, the challenge for us to return to our own Jewish spheres of influence, with our own struggles with race prejudice, presses itself upon us. This time in a renewed commitment to the struggle for racial equality right here in our communities of American Judaism.

This is not a task from which we can always run. History will ultimately bring us our day of racial reckoning. And in the meantime, when we think about the precious memory of the Civil Rights Struggle, though a part of us may still not want to believe it, let’s at least have enough moral courage to admit the obvious: American Judaism–much like many other American religious traditions–is deeply, deeply racist.

And in all probability, it will be so for a long, long time.

If you want to honor the memory of Dr. King, and like me, you’re proud of your American Jewish roots, let’s start realizing his dream by being honest about how far we’ve fallen short in achieving it.

But in reality, how substantiated is this claim?

First of all, there is a huge difference between leadership and office. Leaders not only know how to tap into the relationship between power and ideas, they can use this knowledge to greatly influence civil society. On the other hand, an office is simply a puppet station designed to keep society running in case great leaders come around. As all of us should realize, Washington is full of great officials, yet short on great leaders.

In my opinion, all this whining about Senator Obama’s youth and short term in national politics really says more about the whiners than it does about Obama. They’re just pissed that he’s been able to achieve in a few years what took other Washington politicians decades to accomplish: clench the Democratic nomination to the Presidency.

Look at McCain, for example. With all those years of service, with that great reputation of being a war hero, with all of that bipartisan work and long years of inter-party bridge-building, this so-called “maverick” had to wait until he was over seventy years old before taking the GOP nomination. Now the Republicans want to use his experience as proof that McCain will be a better president. But this doesn’t follow at all. (Think of all the many crimes against humanity that have been committed by party-endorsed, citizen-elected and fairly “seasoned” politicians.) Instead, there seems to be a more simple reason why people are quick to question Obama’s readiness: sheer jealousy.

And this jealousy isn’t limited to the Republicans. There are many Hillary Clinton supporters who were pissed their candidate lost the primary. They complained that Hillary was more electable and that she had received as many or more votes as Obama. As evidence, they pointed to the fact that Hillary won the vote of the party’s backbone—that is, blue-collar Democrats, older Democrats and the “big” states like California, New York and Pennsylvania. And all of this is undoubtedly true.

The problem, however, with the “pro-Hillary” argument then, and the very similar “pro-McCain” readiness doctrine now, is that Obama’s very success demonstrates their conclusions to be wrong. For precisely the reasons that are raised by Clinton and McCain supporters, the evidence demonstrates Obama is more ready to be president than anyone else on the national stage. Think about it. The fact that he, in a relatively short period of time, grew from a Chicago community organizer to the national political arena suggests he’s more of a leader, not less. The fact that he won the voting count despite losing many white, blue-collar Democrats indicates his voting blocks, not Clinton’s, were the political backbone of this Democratic primary. And even more so, the fact that Obama won more delegates than Hillary while losing all the states with the highest delegate count should make his election feats more remarkable, not less. And the list goes on… he’s only forty-six years old; he’s African-American with the middle name of “Hussein”; he’s lived on multiple continents; he’s published two books while expanding his career in politics, etc. and he STILL has been able to master and ultimately gain control of the United States’ Democratic Party machine!

Taken together, what all this suggests are three absolutely critical things: first, that if winning elections is any indication of leadership potential, Americans believe beyond a shadow of doubt that Obama is ready to lead; and second, if other politicians doubt Obama is ready to lead, he or she really secretly thinks those millions of disagreeing Americans must be naive as hell; third, and most important, it conveys the notion that Americans are tired of good politicians in Washington. There are definitely times for good politicians, but there are also times for great leaders. Whether or not Obama will change Washington has yet to be seen. But one thing’s for certain. When he says to his supporters that “our time for change has come,” their massive response does just about everything except the one charge constantly labeled against him: suggest that he’s not ready to lead. Quite to the contrary, he’s so far led all his opponents to abandon their campaigns for the presidency. And unless you’re willing to say he’s a charlatan and demagogue, the obvious truth is that — even if not the greatest president — Obama has already made his mark as a great leader.

“I’m not voting for him because he’s black,” some of them say, “I just agree with his policy positions.”

Others agree… “Obama’s race should not be a factor in this campaign… We should vote on the issues—and the issues alone.”

Or how many times have we heard the following: “When I was growing up, my parents taught me to not see color… It doesn’t matter that Obama’s black; he’s a person, just like anybody else…”

Personally, I find statements like these nauseating.

Since when do voters, black and otherwise, have to justify their justifications for electing officials? Are we so racist that it is even scandalous for us to acknowledge a successful black candidate’s black identity?

Telling blacks to vote on the basis of issues, not race, is not only insulting to our intelligence, it’s also a goofy political tactic, feeding off the notion that a candidate’s race should never be an issue.
But let’s be honest. Most of the people who say race shouldn’t matter are liars. They are lying, lying, lying! And the main reason we know they are lying is because the only time voting on “race” becomes an issue is when white political homogeneity is threatened. When the “white males only” doors are being knocked on by women and blacks, then it’s time to scream: “SEX DOESN’T MATTER!.. RACE DOESN’T MATTER!…etc.”

Yeah, right.

Where were all these color-blind Americans during the two hundred and thirty years when the Presidency of the United States was only available to white males? During how many of those elections were masses of Americans complaining about the fact that only white men could represent them?

These questions alone should keep one from voting for Obama on the basis of energy, trade or the Iraq war. In fact, I’m shocked there isn’t a movement to vote for Obama because he isn’t a white man!

What’s the real problem with voting for Obama because he’s black? Personally, as an American, I find it shamefully embarrassing that we, the alleged leaders of the free world, are incapable of voting for non-white commanders-in-chief. After all, if Obama is the first of his kind to hold the presidency, voting for him simply because he’s a “first” means one is voting on the basis of a relevant political issue: the racial exclusion of minority peoples from government.

Ultimately, the decision to ignore this latter issue is what I think drives a lot of pro-Obama apologetics. When people distinguish a vote for Obama from a vote for a black man, I think they are really expressing discomfort with black people in general. Evidently, to avoid being criticized for “seeing” skin color, they minimize Obama’s racial identity and trump up other aspects of his candidacy. In similar fashion, racists who dislike Obama avoid race-talk to explain away their discomfort with a black president. After all, if critics of Obama must begin their assessment of him with “I’m not racist, but….” it probably reflects a high degree of racial prejudice—either towards their listeners or Obama himself.

But c’mon, let’s be real.

In America, almost everything political is racial and everything racial is political.

Even if people say they’re not voting for Obama on the basis of race, even if they say they don’t “see” color, and even if they have the audacity to tell blacks not to do so either, I predict that when Obama is elected, many of these same voters will be proud to boast that they helped elect the first African-American president. And if I’m right in that prediction, then all this color-blind voting stuff will have done little more than inherited a centuries-old tradition of race-based voting that dares not speak its name. The only difference being that in Obama’s case, it is his blackness, not his whiteness, that’s silently endorsed.

Is this what we call “progress” on issues of race?..

I hope not. For no matter how well-intentioned and/or face-saving, remaining silent about race while voting in this election appeals to the worst, not the best, in American politics. And despite calls to “get past” race and live in a “post-racial” world, we need to acknowledge that voting for Obama because he’s black is one of the best reasons anyone could posit for doing so. After two hundred years of white men, I find any other sentiment very, very difficult to justify.

Unfortunately, ridiculous debates have raged for years amongst political commentators and op-ed columnists on the subject of whether or not it’s appropriate for Congress to take such an action. (If you doubt this, simply read the internet blogs on the issue.) Some people think the government has better things to do than apologize to African-Americans; still, others believe they themselves had nothing to do with slavery and therefore, the government should not apologize on their behalf. Even some black Americans disagree with an apology, insisting that it would be little more than a verbal pacification meant to distract citizens from more concrete efforts towards reparations.

In these debates, however, there’s been a disturbing tendency among people who are against such an apology—they often completely ignore what actually happened during slavery and Jim Crow. For example, many whites are quick to point out that most of those blacks who suffered these injustices are deceased, and so an apology to those people’s descendants can only misconstrue the identity of the victims and deepen present-day racial divisions, not lessen them.

But this argument is really quite stupid…

Why?..

For the simple reason that many of the deceased victims died precisely because they were murdered by whites. Consider the following narrative.

Two women, one white and the other black, have a short exchange during a pre-arranged dinner…
“So you want the government to apologize for slavery, eh?” says the white woman, “But why should our government do that when it happened so long ago? We’ve come such a long way since then. Look at Tiger Woods. I remember when there were no black golfers, but there are black golfers now. I never used to see black professionals, but now there are black news reporters and lawyers and doctors. And look at Barak Obama—he’s even got a shot at being president!”
The black woman shakes her head in disappointment.
“What’s wrong?.. Did I say something wrong?” asks the other woman, now concerned.
“It’s not what you said,” responds the black woman. “It’s what you didn’t say. What is it we’ve come a long way from?.. And why do you say it’s so long ago when you yourself remember these things?..”
“Well, I’m just saying that there’s been progress, and we shouldn’t look so far back into the past that we can’t see that progress. We need to concentrate on the future.”

This is the “victims-not-alive” argument at its best. Ultimately, it boils down to a very racist form of thinking—that for blacks to remember their own experiences is somehow inappropriate. When did mere memory become such an obstacle to good relationships? For example, many people who say blacks should not emphasize our nation’s racist past are the same ones who will protest to keep flags and symbols of the Confederacy active in public rituals throughout the Deep South.

The contradictions are pervasive and thought-provoking. So not only does the “victims-not-alive” rhetoric amount to a distraction from the real focus of honoring people’s memories, it advocates a state of affairs in which racist practices—such as discrepancies in hate crime victimization, health care access, educational opportunities, etc.—continue to be legitimized.

Americans need to wake up. An apology for slavery and Jim Crow is not a task for people who lived one hundred years ago. It is a present-day gesture made in reflection on the past, not vice versa. It is an effort to heal racism’s wounds, not reopen them. To demonstrate, let’s take a look at the three summarizing points of the House’s resolution. They are worded as follows…

Be it resolved, That the House of Representatives– (1) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow; (2) apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and (3) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.

If for no other reason than to memorialize the lives of people who cannot speak on their own behalf, we should support this relatively small gesture. Just as it is absurd for the German, Russian or Chinese governments to not acknowledge their atrocities because the victims are dead, it is equally ridiculous to suggest that our government should not acknowledge its human rights simply because the victims are no longer alive. To illustrate, consider the following story about a member of my own family who suffered under Jim Crow—my uncle.

According to family lore, my uncle was a hard-working, kind-hearted man. But there came a time when the whites living in his area spread a false rumor that he had “whistled” at a white woman. So instead of immediately and haphazardly fleeing the state, my uncle decided to stay in his hometown until he was able to find a new, safer place to live for his wife and children. In the meantime, he told my grandfather that if he was found wearing only one shoe, it would be because he took it off and threw it away while in danger.

True to his word, a few days later my uncle was found… He was wearing only one shoe, and his body lay literally in pieces. Apparently, whites from a neighboring town had hunted him down, lynched him, poured alcohol on his open wounds, forced him to lay on railroad tracks and made sure his body was dissected by a train—all for allegedly “whistling” at a white woman (an accusation his children have, until today, declared to be false and ridiculous). Despite the warning exhibited by my uncle’s lynching, little did my extended family members know that in the near future, his former residence would be burned down during a race riot and hundreds of the town’s black inhabitants massacred and exiled.

It is common knowledge that similar incidents, affecting millions of African-Americans, took place all over the United States during the Jim Crow era. They were often sanctioned by local, state and federal officials in this country, and to this day, there are many people who remember these atrocities, either through first-hand knowledge or family narrative. In light of these events, it is unfortunate that many elderly African-Americans who personally witnessed these terrorist acts still tend to not speak publicly about their childhood experiences, and all too often, whites have used this silence to deny that these atrocities ever took place.

But whether the details are made public or not, we know black Americans have been racially segregated, exterminated, raped, and enslaved in this country. And for these reasons alone, it is absolutely reprehensible to discourage our government from merely “apologizing” for the American people’s—including black people’s—role in them. To suggest otherwise is tantamount to saying that what our government did in the name of Jim Crow apartheid was both morally and politically negligible… an assertion that my uncle and millions of others would surely contest, if only he and everyone else were alive to do so.

NO FENCE.
NO BORDER PATROL.
LAND MINES!

Hmmm…
One wonders if the person who decided to place this bumper sticker on their car has ever had a family member die or be maimed from a land mine explosion. But in light of the ignorance giving rise to such ideas, humane sentiments might be too much to ask.

My initial, knee-jerk response to the absurdity of the sticker was soon replaced by a calmer moment of reflection. I thought about it for some time and eventually concluded that this bumper sticker exemplifies a critical issue in our life as a country, an issue that legal theorists still debate in elite institutions around the world: the relationship between law and ethics.

For some time now, the “immigration problem” has been a thorn in the side of politicians who must work to protect civil liberties while catering to racist, anti-immigrant constituencies. For example, by focusing on politically correct terms like “new immigrant populations” or “naturalized citizens” or “illegal aliens,” we avoid discussing the racial dimensions of people’s discomfort with Hispanics and Latinos. Of course, there must be legal language that speaks to issues without naming names, etc. But without overstating the case, the fact is that when many people talk about immigration, they’re talking about why they don’t want to live next to, rent from, work for, work with, intermarry with or eventually vote for people who speak Spanish and have darker skin. In short, many United States citizens have embraced a long-standing tradition of racial hatred against Native American, Hispanic, Caribbean and Latin peoples—a tradition highlighted by the so-called “immigration problem.” In addition, the racist, anti-immigration lobby also avoids discussions about the possibility that obeying the law could be wrong. Because of our historically myopic prejudice, we Americans often forget that laws themselves may be used as vehicles of injustice. Consequently, we neglect the problems which may arise when people’s attempts to improve their quality of life are dismissed by rigid observance of law.

“But,” a critic might reply, “Aren’t U.S. born citizens bound by the law? Then, why shouldn’t immigrants also be bound by the law? The fact is that illegals are breaking the law—our law!.. How would our society function if native-born citizens didn’t obey the law, even if they did so to live a better life?..”

No one would deny that law is central to the maintenance of order in society. But to the objection above, we might respond by asking if “order” is the goal of society in the first place. Laws exist because of an ethical condition, and that ethic is the inherent value of our survival. Moreover, this value is itself dependent on our ability to work together as a human family for the good of future generations. This is something we all know. We all know what it means to live with other human beings, as a human family. To suggest otherwise is dishonest. Therefore, the goal of society need not be law. We don’t need laws to teach us how to live alongside other human beings. We may know how to do it, but we often choose not to do it. In fact, the goal of any human society has never been law itself. Rather, it is always the higher value of human-togetherness—that is, the maintenance of human bonds and the sustenance of human families.

This is why I contend that the so-called “immigration problem” is less a problem with immigrants and more a problem we Americans have with our own humanity. All of us, at some time or another, want to feel that as human beings, we’re important. We want to think that others value our presence and that our lives are special in some way. But it is scandalous these days to suggest that as human beings, we Americans are nothing special. It is scandalous to insist that America is not the greatest country in the world, that we are not the freest, or that our “democracy” isn’t always democratic. Instead, we convince ourselves that there is nothing wrong with us, that we are the stand-bearers of peace, truth and justice, and that those other people, those people who “illegally” come across our borders, are the sources of our shortcomings.

In the past, if we as Americans didn’t live up to our own values, then we often found a particular group of people to blame. It’s a racist form of logic we’ve seen time and time again in our nation’s history. “If it weren’t for those people,” so the thinking goes, “we wouldn’t have all these problems.” Of course, the “problems” usually turn out to be issues reflecting the desire of Americans to be racially exclusive. For example, the man who is writing this column happens to be an Afro-Native American Jew. While honoring and cherishing his “Americanicity,” he cannot but help think about the various stories that made his citizenship possible. And these stories—like those of most Americans—were not always rosy. They were riddled with strife and conflict, with no small part due to the American social order. After all, there was a time when Black Americans who (illegally) escaped from slave plantations comprised a “Negro problem.” In the same respect, Native Americans who (also illegally) escaped from disease-ridden reservations contributed to this country’s “In’jun problem.” Also, many Jewish Americans who (illegally, I might add) escaped from Nazi Germany were a big part of this nation’s “Jewish problem.” And today, it is terribly unfortunate that Hispanics and Latinos escaping persecution and/or poverty have been used to manufacture a so-called “immigration problem.”

With this history of turning people into “problems,” we Americans come face-to-face with the values of our own culture, values that in our treatment of immigrants may be far removed from those of “one nation… with liberty and justice for all.” Let’s face it. When much of the country is talking about building a wall across our entire southern border to keep out “illegals,” we must seriously question our commitment to those “IN-alienable” Jeffersonian rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And so to avoid dealing with our own contradictions and dishonest loyalties (usually to money and power rather than people), we retreat into rhetoric about how superior we are when it comes to “obedience”, “law” and “order.” In fact, we adopt a credo familiar to those who committed some of the more significant crimes of the 20th century. To deny any oppressed people an opportunity to live in peace alongside us—all in the name of “obeying the law” or “following orders”—is a sign, if nothing else, of our loss of human sensibilities.

To be sure, the political issue of immigration will be discussed for many years. And the debate over the relationship between being an American and being human is far from over. But one thing will remain constant for years and years to come: the fact that “pro-American” sentiments will often mask “anti-foreign” agendas. And like the bumper sticker calling for land mines suggests, a desire for a racially segregated world often lay beneath all our patriotism and national consciousness. So when we’re discussing the “immigration problem” with family and friends, whether we’re discussing it at the grocery store or the barber shop or even while on the job, I challenge us all to think about that bumper sticker and remember the possible repercussions of demanding “law and order” in exchange for the value of people’s lives. In a way, that sticker actually pointed out the real issue behind all the rhetoric—our survival as one human family. As all of us know, but few of us take seriously, our Hispanic brothers and sisters already risk their lives, every single day, for a better opportunity here. No walls or border patrol or even land mines will ever put a stop to that level of human courage. And in the face of that courage, we American citizens must be courageous enough to welcome our neighbors with open arms.

Fifteen minutes later, reality would sink in.

It’s an interesting experience to live in anonymity with others you know hate you—and that, despite your anonymity. After all, one of the more comforting aspects of visiting a place as a tourist or vacationer is the simple fact of being anonymous—no one there really knows you or what you’re about. As a result, the consequences for how you fit into the social order don’t have the same implications they would if you were closer to home. I’ve noticed this tendency time and time again in my research on Afro-Jewish communities. We black Jews, it seems, tend to exist and thrive in America through various sites of anonymity (which I think tells us as much about America as it does black Jews). But during our vacation my wife and I would experience, all in the span of two or three minutes, what most Jews of color have known and experienced for generations—that there are many places in the world where the rules of visitation and anonymity simply don’t apply. And in those places, “what you’re about” is ultimately irrelevant, because all that matters is conformity. In fact, all that exists is conformity. Let me explain.

As we were walking through the Farmer’s Market held in the main town square every weekend, I noticed some graffiti painted on a metal dumpster by the sidewalk. Now the graffiti, per se, did not disturb me at all. However, what did attract my attention was the one word I could make out…

That it was just a sign, I know… But something about this sign was disturbingly familiar. It was as if the authors of this sign and the vandals of Kristallnacht all had the same art instructor. The bleeding paint from the top of the “J”… the letters becoming smaller as they approach the “S”… the stylized defamation was textbook Nazi rhetoric.

Yet the closer I walked, the more I saw that “Jews” was only a part of the artist’s message. The sign actually read…

–with “DEATH” in larger letters than “Jews.”

I should’ve known what type of person wrote the sign or why it was there, but I was surprised nonetheless. “Are we still fighting this battle?” I thought. “Yes, I know we control the media, and I know we just never came around to the “Jesus Saves” thing, and I’m still trying to figure out how my Zionist cousins have taken over the world…” But this sign, I thought, was not any of those. Rather, it was about Jewish life… and Jewish death. It was a sign about our existence, but it called for our non-existence. What surprised and scared me even more than the message itself was the response of the people who witnessed it, for the sign was not off in some isolated alley, hidden from the views of passersby. It was not scribbled on the wall of an abandoned building, or etched into the paint of a junk-yard automobile. At least under those circumstances, the message might have somehow blended in with other things that should be neglected, forgotten, abandoned and ignored. On the contrary, it was in broad daylight, during work hours, in a metropolitan commercial district, in the middle of a public park, and in a place where I myself saw forty or fifty families—with children—casually walking by it and not giving it a second thought.

And so Lauren and I were presented with a choice: (1)- leave the message alone and live with the comfort of being anonymous Jews, or (2)- do something, but live with the discomfort of visibility.

We chose the latter… After all, there was sitting before us a large sign reading “DEATH to Jews.” And needless to say, we were Jews—whether our vacation permitted us to hide that fact or not. What would it have meant for us, we thought, to remain anonymous in this situation?

Eventually, after informing two local business, three police officers and the local Reform synagogue, we were finally able to get a commitment from the city to have the spray-painted words immediately removed from the town square. And needless to say, my wife and I have reconsidered any employment opportunities in that area.

As I stated earlier, it’s funny how some types of anonymity simply do not matter—regardless of where one finds oneself in life. The irony is that it seemed my wife and I were more anonymous—that is, free to be ourselves—back at home than away. I guess the old saying, “home is where the heart is” has some merit, for the experience made both Lauren and I think strongly about what types of invisibility we maintain for the sake of safety and comfort. More importantly, it made us think about the types of invisible worlds that as black Jews, our children might have to inherit in order to be anonymous—that is, “normal.” It all goes to show that with all the changes that have taken place over the course of the twentieth century, with all the wars fought, lives destroyed and ideologies debunked, we still inhabit a world where simply being human is a dangerous game to play, especially if it demands that you be anonymous in order to exist.