Devorah Firestone
2 min readMay 14, 2023

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We have had our structures burned down, regularly threatened, injured, killed, and otherwise stymied too. Not to the same degree, but it still happens, to the point that it’s barely news. Often it hasn't been news because our population is small. We had and have some advantages but they aren't the same and the issues don't show up the same way.

When someone gets angry at me online for being a Jewish woman while dating, I get threatened at the table as opposed to people not answering. Or swearing or saying other reportable hateful things online for which they seldom lose an account for.

Unless we self-report a hate crime people assume it didn't happen.

Others don't know how often I or people I know have been threatened, have fought over it, been forced to look at a turned back or had someone's voice fall or look at me like a monster if I say I'm Jewish. Just because you don't see or understand the discrimination, conduct or dog-whistling doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It just means you don't get it. And exclusion for being culturally different is pretty rampant too. People get angry at us for not being what they expect. I shouldn't have to hide what and who I am to avoid abuse.

There has been a saying going round about how we couldn’t immediately be picked out and therefore you can brush off what happens. No, Sir, that’s WRONG. That didn’t and doesn’t keep us from being picked out eventually. It didn’t save us 80–100 years ago from expulsion and extermination, and it doesn’t help any of us now. And you belittling and making it wrong for us to speak our own experiences only ensures we will not have time to help you because we’ll be too busy protecting ourselves, while you are treated as if you deserve help but we’re not.

In fact statistics suggest that we have problems at the level of East and South Asians, but people largely don’t help to protect us and I NEVER hear that they don’t deserve what they’ve worked for because they’re priviledged. I’ve never been more than middle class myself and most of the Jews I know have never been more than that.

Oh and it was an AA Christian family 3 years ago who surrounded and verbally assaulted me in my shared home in order to break me down mentally and "save my soul." If your G-d teaches you to abuse people to make them obey, you need to rethink your G-d. I didn't jump to conclusions over this, I judged them as the awful individuals they are. My AA friends as a whole were disgusted but it was Jews I'd never met who came to the house as a group to ensure my safety.

Most of the problems between people are about tribes, not race, race is just an unfortunate extra indicator (and a beautiful one) in some cases and one people focus on too tightly because it doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s tribes that fight with and make war with each other due to differences.

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Devorah Firestone
Devorah Firestone

Written by Devorah Firestone

Engineer for people with disabilities, actress, long-term activist, scholar. Loves cooking, Porsche and boats. #antiwar #inclusion #films #A11y

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