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I do believe that it's better to assume ignorance than malice; to assume that people can be taught. So I'm going to talk a bit about my experiences, so it's clear why I got so set off.

I went to a Jewish school from preschool through second grade. My school semi-regularly received bomb threats, enough so that the procedure was known to me and it was never that surprising. We evacuated and got picked up by our parents. I didn't really notice until I was a bit older that the secular school I switched to in third grade never received bomb threats. It wasn't an Israeli school or anything--just a bunch of children having our lives threatened simply because we were Jewish.

I don't have large family reunions or events, because a lot of my family died during the Holocaust. My grandparents were orphaned. One of my few living relatives of that generation never had any kids, because she was beaten so badly in the camps that she became infertile. I didn't get to visit where my grandfather grew up until I was in my 20s, because there were always safety fears. When I did, we toured the "Jewish neighborhood," which hadn't been a bustling centre of Jewish life in decades, since most of the Jews were either killed or fled overseas to North amerikkka. And it was the Jewish neighborhood because Jews weren't allowed to live elsewhere. It was a ghetto.

Even in my adulthood, I've dealt with the belittling of my culture and history by others who are well-intentioned and would never view themselves as antisemitic, having it denigrated as backwards or selfish and not necessary in today's world. My sister has had her mezuzah stolen from her door. And none of this has had anything to do with Israel, or wealth. I've never been to Israel, and refused to go when my family surfaced the idea. I also have no relation to any Jewish media figures or billionaires, any more than any gentile on this site is tied to Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Tucker Carlson. There are so many poor Jews, and so many Jews who have lived before Israel was established and had never dreamed of tying their culture and religion to a colonial state, and anti-zionist Jews after.

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Seeing mutuals and other posters I like on here brush off antisemitism is distressing. So many people I otherwise like and trust treat it as a difference of opinion, or an annoying position to just roll your eyes at and ignore. Even I didn't say anything for a while!

But at a certain point, you see people that are in your circle being casually chatted with between posts about how they hate Jews. You see your mutuals and friends go "[x] isn't that bad, just edgy" or "they're just opposed to Zionism and Israel" or "I haven't seen them say anything actually antisemitic," and then you check their posts and they're going on about how Jews are allowed to commit genocide and nobody else is, or about reading the name etymology and Early Life Wikipedia sections of billionaires or media company owners (looking for a Jewish gotcha), or downplaying how bad Hitler was, or saying how they don't want to hate all Jews but every one they meet is annoying or evil, or how Jews keep proving antisemitic conspiracy theories right and we're just going "mask off."

This isn't a tolerable difference of opinion, or getting angry about "guilt by association." This is discomfort and distress about supposed friends and allies either ignoring, missing, or condoning blatant hate for Jews, and treating it as something that's just cringe and annoying, or even something you kind of agree with but think was worded poorly.

Antisemitism is real. Elon Musk is using his platform to agree with the idea that Jews are trying to replace white people. My family is dead and I have received death threats as a CHILD for being Jewish. There are streets in Europe paved with Jewish gravestones. There are universities that I would've been barred from in my grandparents' or even parents' lifetime.

So treating me getting angry about it as petty internet drama that we just need to log off and settle down from disgusts me. Saying "I find the drama dumb" as if it's a difference in opinions on fedi moderation or media, and not about openly saying you hate Jews, is disgusting.

Please think about actual fucking Jewish lives, and don't treat an actual form of bigotry with a death count as just petty online discourse.

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