Chaverim! Jews! Lantzmen!

Chillax.

I know there’s a lot going in the world today. Sure, there was a war, and most of the world sided with the jihadi death cult over Israel. Now there are anti-Jewish riots across Europe, synagogues attacked, old ladies punched, children threatened.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before!

A Jew reads the NY Times

Look, we’ve been here. In the whole history of the Western world, we’ve never had it so good as Jews as in the last 60 years. What, did you think a thousand year old curse of anti-Semitism was just going to evaporate? Haters (and self-haters) will hate, it has nothing to do with Gaza.

But may I remind you that when everything seemed good, some of you complained that the lack of anti-Semitism in the West would at last kill the Jews through loss of faith and inter-marriage? So there you go. You’re never happy!

We’ll just keep doing what we do: winning Nobel Prizes, writing sitcoms and musicals, letting girls go to school (and choose husbands), doing dental surgery, going for Chinese, curing diseases, leading social movements, kibitzing, kvetching, kvelling, raising kids with values and education, launching tech companies, making matzoh balls, and having the greatest, ridiculous really, sex in the universe. That’s how we roll (but we sure as shit don’t roll on Shabbos).

Beheading, raping, wiping out disbelievers, bringing violence to the streets of peaceful nations that welcomed you to a new life… that’s the other guy’s shtick.

Sure, I am writing this from Canada, one of the last safe places for Jews on the planet (suck it, King!). But we know the score. Or at least, our parents did. Remember? We thought they were living in the past with their paranoia that it was a tough world to be a Jew in. They were living in the future! Who else but the Jews call it a “Golden Age” when we are not officially, and en masse, hunted, tortured, or expelled from our homes? So it IS technically still a Golden Age (my money’s on Hungary going non-Golden first, by the way). And. We have Israel.

So to all my homey-Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, and any others I’m missing- Ethiopian, Abuyudaya, even you Jews For Jesus (yeah, you you big lug). I know it’s hard out there. Some of your neighbours are showing their true colours. Show yours. Keep building, creating, volunteering, studying, innovating, laughing, celebrating life, and building bridges.

If the world wasn’t broken, there’d be nothing to tikkun.

And when that angry mob targets your shop, be confident! When they see your quality merchandise, they’ll be back as customers!

L’chaim!

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