Got an ‘opinion’ on ‘the Jews’? I’m going to need you to shut up sweetie

If you don’t know what you’re talking about, shush

There’s a number of badly written articles on Medium right now written by people who are so ignorant about the Jewish experience that it makes my eyebrows hit the ceiling. Really, really stupid articles. Articles with headlines like ‘why you can’t be a PoC and antisemitic’ and ‘why it’s offensive to talk about antisemitism when Jews still need to own up to their race crimes’.

I’m going to suggest one very simple rule: if you aren’t Jewish, or you don’t know or have strong ties with the Jewish community, or you’re not educated and informed on the experiences of Jewish people, maybe sit this whole thing out. This conversation isn’t for you. This isn’t about you. This isn’t for you.

If you haven’t gone to shul (synagogue) and greeted the armed guards protecting you from anti-semites every week, you need to shut up. If you haven’t hidden your magen david (star of David) under your blouse because you are scared of the men on the bus seeing it, you need to shut up. If you’ve not walked a different way home from work because there’s a political rally shouting for you to ‘Go back to Israel’, you need to shut up. If you haven’t seen swastikas daubed on the walls of your neighborhood and places of worship, you need to shut up. If you haven’t opened social media to see your favourite journalist, politician, actor or rapper using slurs about your community and promoting militants that want to wipe you off the face of the earth, you need to shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know because you’ve never bothered to educate yourself.

You’ve never bothered to exist in a Jewish space and find solidarity with your Jewish brothers and sisters. It’s not just ‘the Holocaust’. It’s not just ‘medieval Europe’. It’s now. This is happening now. And no: not because Jewish people are ‘ZiOnISts’. A mass shooter in a Jewish supermarket doesn’t stop to politely enquire as to your views on the rights of Palestinians. An armed terrorist in Jewish kindergarten doesn’t ask your sobbing three year old whether she supports Likkud. A jihadist doesn’t pause on blowing your synagogue up to ask those who oppose settlements to leave. It’s Jew-hatred. That’s what it is. That’s what is happening now. And whatever ignorant statement you have to say about ‘Jewish money’ or ‘Jewish power’ only strengthens that hate.

Yes; there are definitely discussions to be had on racism within the Jewish community. Yes! Other religious groups and ethnicities are facing hatred and violence. Yes: Kanye has mental health problems that will impact his ability to verbalise his views sensitively. But none of that- none of it- negates the fact that you, as someone who is not affiliated, involved with, or even educated on, the Jewish experience, should not be commenting on or whitewashing Jewish voices and concerns on antisemitism.

If you don’t know, and you can’t be bothered to meet with or talk to a Jewish person to find out: shut up. This is not your space.

Silence is free.