Tag Archives: cost of being Jewish

May 26, 2025 · 7:30 am

Cossacks

by Rich Orloff (New York, NY)

I was raised in a middle-class home

In a middle-class neighborhood

Safe and secure

But raised with the fear

That the Cossacks might be standing outside our door

Ready to rape and kill everyone inside

This was never spoken aloud, of course

It was planted wordlessly

My parents never intended to give me this gift

It was simply how they approached life

My mother, born in Belarus

Trained as a little girl where to hide in their little house

If and when the Cossacks came

Her family left in the middle of the night

Telling nobody

Erasing themselves from the world they lived in

My father, born in Chicago

The son of immigrants

A mother from Poland who never learned to read or write

Or show warmth

A father from Ukraine whose only advice to his son was

Never show fear

As you’ve probably guessed

The Cossacks never stood outside our door

But they had already successfully invaded

The souls of my parents

I learned how to protect myself

And have been prepared for annihilation ever since

I share this with you

Not so you will pity me

But so you know who I am

And if, when we meet

I treat you like you may be a Cossack in disguise

I apologize for not seeing who you are

Rich Orloff writes both poems and plays.  His poems have been published in The Poet, Fragments (published by T’ruah), and Fresh Words magazines, and they’ve been presented at churches and synagogues, performed in theaters and schools, read at meditation and yoga groups, and spoken at events both lofty and intimate.  Rich’s plays include the Purim-themed musical comedy Esther in the Spotlight (performed so far in New York, Miami, Toronto and Tel Aviv), the comedic revue OY! (over 50 productions in the United States – and one in Bulgaria), and many more, of all lengths, styles and subjects.  Rich’s plays have had over two thousand performances on six continents – and a staged reading in Antarctica.  More at www.richorloff.com. 

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June 17, 2024 · 7:30 am

My People

by Marcie Geffner (Ventura, CA)

I lay on the narrow exam table with “everything off” except the blue-and-white hospital gown tied at my neck and open to the back.

It was early morning in Los Angeles and I was hungry—empty, really—and tired from the clear liquid diet—apple juice, vegetable broth, ten lemon JELLOs—and the routine colonoscopy “prep” I’d endured the day before.

A surgical assistant approached me with a wristband.

Inwardly, I moaned. Did I have to do this? Answer: yes.

“Hold out your arm,” the assistant instructed. “Just think of this like you’re at a music concert.”

At my side, the stocky, dyed-blond nurse stiffened.

As did I.

It had been only four days since Hamas militants massacred two hundred and sixty people at a dance party in Israel’s Negev Desert. Israeli soldiers now stood guard at the site, strewn with mattresses, tents, food, clothing, and one militant’s dead body, left there as a warning. In Israel, 1,200 people were dead with another 2,800 wounded. In Gaza, the death toll surpassed 1,500. The war had only just begun.

Could anyone be as clueless as this surgical assistant seemed to be? Apparently so.

“That’s…maybe not the best comment right now,” I said.

The nurse murmured, “I am half-Russian, half-Ukrainian.” Her thickly accented voice came low, as if for my ears only.

She sounded like my grandmother. Born in Kishinev, my father’s mother immigrated first to Panama, then to Los Angeles as a young woman.

I was born Jewish and brought up Jewish. As a teenager, I’d spent one glorious, fearless summer in Israel, studying Hebrew, harvesting potatoes, traveling throughout the state and visiting my great-aunt and great-uncle, who lived part-time in Netanya.

Later, though, my feelings toward my religious heritage changed. As an atheist, I had no interest in prayer. As an adult without children, I felt marginalized, even unwelcome, in synagogue life. But I don’t celebrate Christmas, either. No Christmas tree. No Christmas lights. No Christmas cards. I’m an outsider in almost any religious space.

So why did this Hamas massacre in Eretz Yisrael feel so personal?

Because even without formal religion, I’m still a member of the tribe. I’m not always sure what that means, but I’ve never denied it and can’t imagine that I ever would. Jewish values, history and culture are visible threads woven through the fabric of my life. I don’t know whether I still have distant relatives in Israel, but really, everyone who lives there feels to me like my family. Those vicious attacks? Those people murdered? They could’ve been my loved ones. Or me.

I extended my arm toward the surgical assistant.

“I don’t watch all that stuff happening on the news,” she declared, as if “all that stuff” could not have been of less interest to her. Or to anyone.

She snapped the band around my wrist.

I withdrew my arm.

“It’s easy to look away,” I said, “when it’s not your people.”

Marcie Geffner is a writer, editor and book critic in Ventura, Calif. If you’d like to learn more about her and her work, visit her website: www.marciegeffner.com

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February 12, 2024 · 7:30 am

Waiting for the cracks to fill

By Molly Ritvo (Burlington, VT)

I’ve noticed so much pain in the past months since October 7–that terrible, terrible date.

It was a date when hope was shattered.

When my sense of safety in the world suddenly caved open.

When hate for Jews bubbled to the surface.

Recently, at Target, my mom said I shouldn’t buy a Hanukkah-themed dress for my daughter. 

I’ve read so many social media posts about pro-Palestinian rallies and cries for stopping aid to Israel. 

There is so much vitriol directed at Israel.

The recent city council meeting in Burlington after a Palestinian man was shot was so painful to witness. 

Many DEI emails I have subscribed to over the years have been sharing anti-Zionist messages.

So many writers who I admire are sharing messages that don’t mention the hostages. Just the blame on Israel.

They all sting. They all hurt. Like a gut punch.

My cousin (who I adore) is part of a progressive Jewish group that is actively anti-Zionist. 

The ADL said this group is antisemitic.

It feels as if these words are losing some meaning. 

I stopped going on Instagram because all I saw were anti-Israel sentiments. Some say that anti-Zionist isn’t antisemitic. But they still hurt just the same.

After visiting Yad Vashem for the first time after college, I remember seeing the window at the end of the museum looking out into Israel and thinking: It’s a hope. A blessing. A refuge.

Is it still?

I have heard from Israelis that they feel more connected to other Israelis now. Maybe that’s a trauma response. 

In America, it’s not the case. There are more sides and splits than ever.

Left. Right. Pro. Anti. Blue flags. Red flags. What are they all doing to us? Scarves. Stars.

So far my daughter doesn’t know there is a war or that being Jewish means knowing that antisemitism exists.

Someday I will have to tell her.

Someday I will have to tell her that being Jewish means carrying trauma in our bodies. 

Someday she will sit in a class and learn about the Holocaust and she will feel anguish and I won’t be able to stop it.

I wish I could say that I feel optimistic and hopeful about a two-state solution.

I don’t.

I wish I could say that Israel wasn’t harming innocent lives. 

It is.

I wish I could say that terrorists don’t exist. They do. They definitely do. They’ve left wounds and raw despair and death in their footsteps.

I wish I could say things will get better soon. 

I am afraid they can’t. 

Too many lives have been lost. 

Too many young people danced in nature at a concert that turned into a nightmare.

My synagogue hired additional security recently. They carry additional weapons now.

The Israelis I know are committed to peace work.

It feels that the American Jewish community is so torn apart.

We are all so tired and wary.

In these cold Vermont winter nights I wonder how we find that still, small light inside of us that doesn’t flicker out.

Where do we find that still, small part that somehow has hope despite the messages telling us over and over again that we’re wrong?

I had a thought one day that maybe we did something wrong, for just living.

And then I realized that is what the terrorists want. For us to not have the right to live.

We do have the right to live.

Diaspora Jews have a right to live. Israel has a right to live.

There’s a split at my home synagogue. There’s a split everywhere, with cracks growing wider and wider. 

I worry that my daughter will someday ask about the war that started when she was in kindergarten, when she liked chocolate ice cream and crispy wafers and playing in the snow and going to the library after school on Wednesdays.

I worry that I will need to tell her that it was just the beginning. I worry that I will need to tell her that the cracks kept widening until we found the courage to fill them with small ounces of hope. 

Molly Ritvo is a writer and author living in Burlington, VT. She has been writing for her whole life, beginning when she was selected as the class poet in the 1st grade. Her work has been published by Upstreet Literary Magazine, Tiny Buddha, Elephant Journal, Mother.ly, PJ Library, At the Well, and more.  She holds a BA from Tufts University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Molly has worked as a freelance writer, a communications specialist for many different organizations, and a journalist. She is currently writing her debut novel, a collection of poetry, and working as a communications’ consultant and grant writer. Her most important role is being a mom to her daughter, Jimi. Find out more about Molly and read more of her writing at mollyritvo.com.

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July 23, 2012 · 6:51 am

The High Cost of Being Jewish

Cheri Scheff Levitan (Atlanta, GA)

For “fun,” while my husband was out of town, I decided to go back in time and add up how much we’ve spent – er, invested – in developing the “positive and confident” Jewish identities of our two children.  The list included:

  • An annual synagogue membership (to ensure we’d have a place to go for our son’s bris, the kids’ b’nai mitzvot, high holiday services, etc.);
  • 13 years of a day school education (K through 8 at The Epstein School and 9 through 12 at The Weber School);
  • An annual JCC membership to ensure that the kids would be able to attend:
    • Over 5 years of various JCC sports programs;
    • 8 years of various JCC summer camp programs;
  • A semester in Israel with the Alexander Muss High School in Israel program; and
  • Numerous round-trip plane rides to New York, Florida, or Israel to celebrate family holidays and simchas.

While I’m not complaining (actually, I guess I am), this list of “costs” is deceptive.  You see, while membership has its privileges, all of the organizations associated with the list above strongly request (or require in some cases)  – in addition to tuition – contributions to annual fundraising campaigns too.  I’m sure that even my Christian friends and relatives can relate to these challenges.  Adding up the numbers, I almost fainted!

So, how much did we spend in total?  Before I tell you, I must share two things that happened earlier this year.

The “easier” event to talk about involves an unpublicized, perceived act of anti-Semitism at a high school in Eugene, Oregon.  While, admittedly, I don’t know all the facts, it seems that a teacher who has been “earmarked as a racist” inserted an anti-Semitic slur (the K _ K E word) into a question on a discussion sheet about the movie “Swing Kids.”   The movie is an interesting portrayal of resistance by German youth during the Nazi regime.  However, Jewish parents and their students were not warned in advance about the film’s screening or content, especially as it pertains to the ways Jews are portrayed.  As a result, many of the Jewish teens in the class reported feeling uncomfortable, and even traumatized.

The second situation is a bit more complex.  Unless you don’t read newspapers or watch the news, you undoubtedly heard about the rabbi, his two children, and the principal’s daughter who were murdered outside a Jewish day school in Toulouse, France.  A letter from a woman named Becky (Rebecca “Beck” Caspi, Director General, Israel Office and Senior Vice President, Israel and Overseas of The Jewish Federations of North America), who attended the victims’ funerals, crossed my desk shortly after the tragic event.  She wrote:

“I’ve been thinking about how a father, who chose not to pursue fortune or fame, but to dedicate his life to teaching, lost his life because of that decision.  And I’ve been thinking about his wife – now a widow – who lost not only a husband, but her two beautiful sons.  Aryeh was only six and Gavriel just three.  And I’ve been thinking about Miriam Monsonego [the principal’s daughter] who got up to go to school and was brutally murdered instead.

None of them had to be at the Ozar HaTorah School in Toulouse [that] Monday morning.  They were part of a Jewish community that was building a Jewish future – securing our continuity as a people – by investing in education.  And for that, they were sacrificed.”

As both of these situations highlight, we pay a price for choosing to become, to stay, and to be Jewish.  Sometimes, the price is financial.  Sometimes, the price is fear.  Sometimes, the price is anger (and accompanying ulcers).  Sometimes, the price is life itself.

I feel bad about having counted my “identity-building” dollars in the wake of all of this.  Does it really matter how much it has cost us?

The choice to be Jewish – and to ensure the Jewishness of our children – is ours.  With it, there is a price that we willingly pay.  So be it.  Regardless of how it all gets added up in the end, the price is clearly very high to those of us who make this choice.

Cheri Scheff Levitan wrote this piece for her blog, Through Jewish Eyes (http://throughjewisheyes.com), where this excerpt first appeared in slightly different form. It’s reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

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