Anyone who has heard-as I have-Jew-hating remarks said to her face because to the speaker she didn't look Jewish knows both the survival value and th… - Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

We forget that people can change, including our own people; including ourselves.

That I am lesbian is my usual awareness. My close people are almost all lesbians, mostly not Jewish. I live in Santa Fe, among gentiles; and though I am lonely for Jews, I don't go to shul, and never did; and don't pray, or even know the prayers. I think Israel a boiling contradiction; and besides, they don't give queers citizenship. But the rise of Klan activity, Reagan and his white-on-white cabinet, synagogues bombed in France, have me in a sweat. Dreams of the camps. I need to know the network I may be forced to count on. I want to know the tradition, what binds us besides danger.

gentiles persecuted the Jews for thousands of years before the Nazis got efficient at it