A leather-skinned man on Wellington Ave is holding a cardboard sign that says something about giving him money. He’s yelling at anyone who will listen, saying my family owes him two million dollars! Mine! We owe two million dollars! Naturally, pedestrians avert their eyes, continue scurrying to the train, bus, whatever. A woman in her mid-thirties is trying to walk around him, but he’s on something, keeps shifting around on the sidewalk as if he has to pee. I am wondering if I should be scared. Never sure these days. I keep my necklace inside my shirt. I don’t wear anything with Hebrew characters in public. I rarely name my religion aloud anymore. You never know.
One Friday afternoon last summer, I was walking through Wrigleyville, sweat coating my back, when I saw a small man in a skull cap asking if anyone was Jewish. I am! I love living somewhere with people like me. The man was giving out blue boxes of Shabbat candles. I’ll take one! But I don’t do that anymore either. I’ll avert my eyes. Maybe I shouldn’t have said yes so quickly, so excitedly. You never know.
We are not all scared, and if we are scared, we may not be scared all the time, but it’s still becoming strange*. Last year, I read an article in The Atlantic called “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending” one idle Monday morning at my desk at work, swinging my legs and forth in a black office chair, wondering whether it was fear-mongering or accurate or some combination. You never know.
This year, we’ve seen it in Boulder, in DC, at Governor Shapiro’s Pennsylvania home after Passover. It’s in my own city of Chicago—at DePaul, in West Rogers Park. College students were attacked. A man was shot on his way to synagogue. Makes me wonder whether it’s safer to live somewhere with more or fewer Jews. Probably shouldn’t even be writing this. How well can I hide in plain sight? How well can I chamleonize myself to look like the white, goyishe American everywoman?** You never know.
Sometimes when writing feels futile I do things with achievable outcomes. I sit on the toilet seat and cut my toenails into a trash can. I like seeing the half-moon shaped clippings scattered along the bottom of the plastic bag. I’ll wipe down the stove and the countertops with grapefruit-scented cleaning solution and a paper towel. I’ll make a grocery list of things I don’t want to forget: olive oil, eggs, canned chickpeas, a small tin of tuna fish. I’m doing this now, actually, and tweezing hairs off my face, avoiding finishing this essay by keeping up with maintenance, pitching articles about this very topic to magazines around the country. I hope that’s not futile. You never know.
*“Strange,” I realize, as I’m editing this, is a mild way to put it, but I’m leaving it for the moment. Am struggling to think of the right adjective.
**Did some research. Chameleons apparently can change their color in small ways to adjust to their environment. They also “lack traits such as sharp teeth or claws, venom, and speed. They must rely on being able to blend into their surroundings well to evade predators.”
***
Thanks for reading! <3 Hope everyone’s doing okay.
***
Here are the upcoming readings I’m doing:
June 18, 7:30pm - Loose Chicks @ Labyrinth Social Club
(I’ll be reading some one-sentence essays!)
August 28, 7pm - 10x9 @ Kibbitznest
(The theme is “second chances”!)