I’ve never not been jewish. I knew the shabbos prayers before I knew how to read a full sentence in english. I thought the Hanukkah candles were the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
Yes there were incidents, but I never really noticed any of that. You never really notice the bad things when you’re little. Sure there were dirty looks when buying matzah or having police barricades for Purim. All of this passed by me as if it was never really there though.
Then came Oct. 27, 2018. I slept late on a Sunday, which never happened, and when I woke up I was told I could not attend Hebrew school that day. The news came on and my magical safe jewish bubble popped. I remember crying after seeing the photos. That was the day of the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. After that though, life just continued to go on, I had my bat mitzvah, I started high school.
Then October again, 5 years later. This time it is Oct. 7, 2023. I cannot even begin to express the fear, the anger, and the absolute crushing sorrow I felt seeing the news. At 14, I had to actually wonder if all of my family that lives in Israel was dead. My family was safe, but too many people weren’t. My family by faith, that lived across the world from me, was murdered.
That is when I started noticing antisemitism. It followed me everywhere I went. When my principal acknowledged the tragedy on the loud speaker, my class laughed. “October 7th Stan” written on light posts followed me on walks. My direct messages flooded after reposting a “Bring Them Home” message. Paragraphs were texted by my lab partner about how I should feel ashamed of myself. Passerby shouted profanities at me, my family and my rabbi as we exited the synagogue. Bomb threats occurred during Yom Kippur.
My parents were sending me news reports saying not to wear my Magen David in public. First they tell us we need to wear stars, now we need to hide them. This is the push and pull of being Jewish. The stark reality no one tells you when you’re born into it.
My experiences are all mild at best, I’ve heard much worse. I have never been physically attacked or lit on fire or shot. I can never talk about Oct. 7 in school. When helping to create a Jewish Student Union at my school in March of 2023, my teachers told me to avoid the topic of politics. We could not acknowledge the lives lost.
The following Oct. 7, my JSU tried to create a safe room to discuss heavy feelings of that day for people who supported Israel or not. Nobody showed up. That same day many posted “Happy October 7th” on their Instagram stories though, mocking what took place. There is so much hate and buzzwords used today. People cannot even hold a real conversation about it.
Schools are supposed to be safe places to discuss big topics, but mine feels like the place to avoid it. Unless you want to get in trouble for being too political or being isolated for your values. At the very least, New York City public schools need to take initiative to foster important conversations, so that its students are not harboring hate.
I never noticed antisemitism before, now it’s in the background everywhere I go.
Juliette Medina is a teenager from Brooklyn and a student at the School of the Future. She was also an attendee of the New York Jewish Teen Summit that occurred on March 1.
