How That Time I Got Bit By a Shark Reminds Me of Today's Dangerous Spike in Antisemitism:

I do not know how to lead people away from danger.

In the weeks since my last post, antisemitism continues to spike across America and all throughout the world. The college protests were hardly peaceful. Students chanted phrases calling for the obliteration of the Jewish state and the genocide of Jews everywhere.

Did every participant know the meaning behind their words? I don’t know. But I sure did. And I’m fucking terrified.

Watching thousands of angry protesters flood the streets in Sweden to protest a young female Israeli singer’s participation in the Eurovision contest was another gut punch.

The literary community continues to disappoint as well. An actual Nazi-style blacklist went viral on social media. The list categorized Jewish authors according to a color-coded ranking system. Jews were ranked across a spectrum of bad to good, depending on their degree of Zionism. The bad Jews, marked in red, are writers who support Israel’s right to exist. Green Jews, the good kind in the latest antisemitic calculus, are ones who have publicly expressed their anti-Zionist position.

That some Zionists aren’t even Jewish—well, that must be a layer of complexity these bigots haven’t considered.

My body has fluctuated between symptoms of anger and fear and sadness. Urgency seems imperative. I wonder: What can I do?

Occasionally, my anxiety relaxes. My mind breaks free from my body, and it floats overhead, quietly observing the social psychology of evil with something akin to fascination.

I am not myself. And yet, I have never been more myself. I know who I am, something I find hard to believe about anyone joining the masses. Mob mentality is a collective sweep that almost anyone can fall prey too. Perhaps my natural abhorrence for crowded spaces is related to my distrust for groups in general. The idea of trading personal identity for group admission is not something that’s ever appealed to me.

This is one of the many reasons I’m drawn to Judaism. While Jews are first and foremost a community, one that existed even before they entered into a covenant with G-d, Jews are taught to question everything, to seek out multiple teachers, to keep striving. If there is any other group that maintains the integrity of the individual within the structure of the larger community, I don’t know of it.

Also, Jews don’t proselytize, and if they did, I probably wouldn’t have sought out conversion. Because: I won’t be captured. I need relationship that feels mutual, where I am able to join something bigger than myself without suffering from personal obliteration. For me, this is love, and it’s a love I’m discovering in Judaism.

Even if I were already associated with a religion that seeks out converts, I would fail at missionary work. I lack the charisma for leadership. I’m the utter opposite of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. That dude could lure rats and children away by playing his magical pipe, whereas I couldn’t even lead swimmers out of the waters where a shark lurked. True story.

It was the summer of 2002, and we’d traveled to Hawaii for a vacation. I didn’t enjoy swimming there. I prefer the clear water and sandy shores of the Caribbean. But one afternoon, my husband and I happened upon a beach with turquoise water. We ran across the soft stretch of sand, dropped our towels, and raced in.

The ocean was crowded. My husband stopped and pulled me toward him for a kiss. We embraced in the shallow water, my hands wrapped around his neck, my feet swishing through the water while he stood firmly upon the sand.

We were kissing again, when suddenly, my foot became trapped between the crushing jaws of some underwater creature. Probably a shark, the locals told me later, when the medics examined my razor-shred flesh. It was probably drawn to your toenail polish. An honest mistake.

It felt like sharp blades crunched the top and bottom of my foot all at once, and I knew I had to escape, that something was trying to eat me, even though I couldn’t process the situation with words. I fought back, kicking my leg and screaming. My husband later explained that he hadn’t understood what I was doing. He’d thought I’d freaked myself out, maybe brushed a toe upon a slimy rock.

I remember him saying something like, “Calm down. People are looking at us like you’re crazy.”

And I’d wanted to scream—“Shark!”—but I couldn’t remember how to find words. I lost my vocabulary. And when the creature finally let go, I tried to tell my husband that I’d been bit, but instead of saying Something bit me, my words came out all wrong. Instead, I yelled, “Did you bite me?”

The absurdity of this utterance didn’t occur to me in real time. Obviously, my spouse was no suspect in the crime against my foot. His mouth had been on mine the entire time.

But I couldn’t make sense. Plus, I wasn’t sticking around. I raced away. What if the creature lunged at me again? I pulled myself out of the water, lugging my bleeding foot upon the shore, where I watched the sand turn red.

And still, my husband had not followed. And all the other people kept on swimming too. When my husband realized I was bleeding, he made his way out. But nobody else did. I hadn’t been prepared for this. Having grown up on movies like “Jaws,” perhaps I’d internalized a false expectation that when people scream in the ocean and run out bloody, others will follow.

They do not.

And so, I am reminded of that shark bite now, during this time of rising antisemitism, and how despite the abundance of Holocaust films and stories we’ve seen depicted at the movies and between book covers, people remain unmoved to stop it.

Sure, there are a few voices, but who can hear them against the roar? I am actively searching for allies, for persons taking a stand on behalf of the Jewish people. Others are less likely to detect whispers in the wind.

When I first saw the blacklist of Jewish authors, I wondered, what can be done? Since facts no longer work, and argument proves a repellent, I wanted to dilute the antisemitic documents and tropes going around the internet with something different, something absurd. I posted a challenge on Twitter for people to flood the internet with alternative blacklists, absurdist ones. If we cannot overcome antisemitism, perhaps we could dilute it with something more entertaining. I even offered prize money.

Alas, nobody took a bite.

Perhaps my idea was too complex. The world follows simplicity. My mind is the opposite of this. I need to strip my thoughts down to some singular thing. Isn’t that what all leaders do? They invite followers with simple slogans. People feel like they’re joining something.

I don’t have an easy message. And righteous anger lacks charisma. Plus, who wants to be dragged out of the shiny blue water or away from the power of a crowd? It’s difficult to pull people away from what’s trending. People want to know where they’re going.

Imagine grabbing a hand from the antisemitic mob in Sweden. I can hear that person think: You have nothing to offer me. And I wouldn’t have a thing to give or a place to take such a person. The angry crowd won’t leave. They’ve already arrived. All that energy. All that dopamine. Why would anyone want to leave it all behind?

A Screenshot of My Twitter Post: