Have You Experienced Anti-Semitism? Share Your Story

[Yehuda57]

I like the questions. Aside from the benefits of educating the questioner, we'd all do well to every so often have to articulate to a non Jew "why are you wearing that hat?" or "Why don't you shave your beard?" etc.

[Euclid]

I like the questions. Aside from the benefits of educating the questioner, we'd all do well to every so often have to articulate to a non Jew "why are you wearing that hat?" or "Why don't you shave your beard?" etc.

You'd get those questions in many Orthodox places too  

[Dan]

I like the questions. Aside from the benefits of educating the questioner, we'd all do well to every so often have to articulate to a non Jew "why are you wearing that hat?" or "Why don't you shave your beard?" etc.

+1.
Tzitzes/beanie is a very common question and easy answer.

[Yehuda57]

You'd get those questions in many Orthodox places too  

I enjoy questions about Chabad minhagim from frum people as well. It's good to have to stop and think about something you do by rote.

+1.
Tzitzes/beanie is a very common question and easy answer.

For you. Take a 14 year old kid who lives in an insular frum area and has never answered that question before and it might be more complicated.

[Yonah]

I wrote this in December 2019, after the Chanukah Attacks and Jersey City shooting - https://medium.com/@yonahwolf/wearing-it-on-my-head-472bfe38129f

[Yo ssi]

One friend told me he'd never experienced antisemitism, and I responded, "We were on the train together in France with people cursing and threatening us!" and he waved it off like it was nothing.

I was on the train in France and my friend got slapped, it was some drunk he was with his friend and the guy dragged him off at the next stop.
It was in the AMs

[monkey]

I was around 10 years old. In BP on my way home from school riding my bike. I passed a bunch of teenagers. One kid spat at my face and yelled something. I sped off petrified.

[Sam Finkelstein]

I was about 10 years old when a bunch of black teens came up to our schoolyard fence and shouted that they’re Nazis and will f*** us up.

Three years ago in Zurich a bunch of teens in a car sped up at me as I was crossing the street and shouted in German.

But BH I haven’t experienced much else besides that.

[JoshNY]

Not maybe anti Semitic, but was definitely quite funny-

In a small airport in Europe, a girl of about 4 was looking us up and down and telling her brother very loudly -"Look at that man (beard and black coat) - do you think he is he an eeeevill man? He probably turns into a draaaaagon!!"

Needless to say her embarrassed looking mother was trying to shush her...

Made us realise how strange we must look to people not used to seeing Chasidic garb...

[Sam Finkelstein]

Not maybe anti Semitic, but was definitely quite funny-

In a small airport in Europe, a girl of about 4 was looking us up and down and telling her brother very loudly -"Look at that man (beard and black coat) - do you think he is he an eeeevill man? He probably turns into a draaaaagon!!"

Needless to say her embarrassed looking mother was trying to shush her...

Made us realise how strange we must look to people not used to seeing Chasidic garb...

Reminds me of another story, though perhaps this is more anti-semitic. I was waiting in ORD for an international flight and sat down at a table near the Swiss gate where there was a father and son (presumably on that flight to Switzerland). As I pulled the chair out, the kid literally jumped into the air in faux panic. I ignored it and kept sitting there. Then the father says really loudly, "das ist ein Jüdische mensch." I ignored it and kept sitting there.

[S209]

Depending on what type of incident we’re reporting, literally hundreds of times.

Three times *in the last couple of months* within 2 blocks of our home we’ve had cars stop and yell/threaten/curse at us. One of them was a car stopping in the middle of County Line to yell at us! One invoked Hitler. This is in Jackson NJ, considered a very safe township with ~10,000 Orthodox Jews.

[ckmk47]

Went to a Post Office in Queens with my husband and son to make the kid a passport.  She was astounded that he had no SS# and I insisted a passport could still be made.
She went to the back to get protection. She brought out a BIG guy to back her up.
I never raised my voice, I was just insistent.
I see it's not coming through here, but the whole thing had an antisemetic feel.
She's behind a bulletproof barrier.  No need to get the intimidating guy to tell us they CAN'T HELP.   ~ 2018


On a jetbridge, approaching the plane. We're told by someone official that we'll need to gatecheck our carry on because there's no room on the plane.  It was interesting that the people before and after us didn't have to check their carryons.  We didn't argue - no point.
Of course there was plenty of room in the overhead bins.


Back in the 80's -  Italians routinely chasing my husband as he passed certain blocks.

[sillypainter]

Am I the only one with no standout stories? I never have stories to tell, by me everything is a noner....

[Essen est zich]

It is very hard to find a Lubavitcher who has not expirenced any type of antisemitism or visible descrimination.

[Yonah]

I was about 10 years old when a bunch of black teens came up to our schoolyard fence and shouted that they’re Nazis and will f*** us up.

I always find it ironic when people of color quote hitler. I was once about to get off a bus in Brooklyn as a teen. A black kid behind me gave a “Heil Hitler” salute. I turned to him and said “You know he hated you guys just as much as us” as I walked off the bus

[Euclid]

I always find it ironic when people of color quote hitler. I was once about to get off a bus in Brooklyn as a teen. A black kid behind me gave a “Heil Hitler” salute. I turned to him and said “You know he hated you guys just as much as us” as I walked off the bus

That's if he even knew where that salute originated from, and who Hitler was.

[Moshe Green]

Does living in Israel, one of the only countries where Anti-Semitism is legal, count as "experiencing Anti-Semitism"? If so, you just have to open the paper to see the hate they spew day in and day out. Just yesterday, PM Bennet (yeah, that guy with around 6 seats [1/20th] in the Knesset) gave a speech about how they are only going to help "working families" because they serve in the army and they work, and they are "the good ones". This was obviously a bash on many Chareidi familes (who by the way, are working 24/7 to raise the next generation, much harder than those in Tel Aviv) who because of their religious beliefs [yes, we tried to make a Chareidi platoon, but the government ruined it,] cannot serve in the army and are Moser Nefesh to live on next to nothing in order to stay in Kollel and actually the real ones who protect and preserve Eretz Yisroel. Golus Israel.

[YitzyS]

I've been subject to Antisemitism by a forum moderator who started a thread on the subject using the hateful and bigoted spelling of the term 

[YitzyS]

Thankfully, I don't recall any major stories in which I've been subject to blatant Antisemitism, like people doing anything drastic to me. Yeah, there's been the cold looks, the snide comments, and other things that have not made too deep an imprint in my memory, but on an individual basis, nothing too memorable offhand.

However, as a member of a community, I've undergone much hate and have been subject to potentially dangerous rhetoric. One prime example:

Much of this is painting the whole community with one brush, with is a true form of antisemitism. When one Christian steals, do we say that all Christians are thieves? No. But when one Jew does something, we paint all Jews with the same brush. If a reporter sees Lakewood as "a bunch of Jews", and doesn't think about the fact that each one is an individual whose stupidity doesn't represent the rest of the community, then that reporter is antisemitic.

Such sentiments can have a potentially drastic result, Hashem Yerachem, such as this one:

https://www.thelakewoodscoop.com/news/2020/03/breaking-howell-man-arrested-for-making-terroristic-threats-against-jews-in-lakewood.html

BH this was averted

[JoeyShmoe]

Does living in Israel, one of the only countries where Anti-Semitism is legal, count as "experiencing Anti-Semitism"? If so, you just have to open the paper to see the hate they spew day in and day out. Just yesterday, PM Bennet (yeah, that guy with around 6 seats [1/20th] in the Knesset) gave a speech about how they are only going to help "working families" because they serve in the army and they work, and they are "the good ones". This was obviously a bash on many Chareidi familes (who by the way, are working 24/7 to raise the next generation, much harder than those in Tel Aviv) who because of their religious beliefs [yes, we tried to make a Chareidi platoon, but the government ruined it,] cannot serve in the army and are Moser Nefesh to live on next to nothing in order to stay in Kollel and actually the real ones who protect and preserve Eretz Yisroel. Golus Israel.

I don't think it's fair to equate Anti Chareidism with Anti Semitism