Your allies stand with you and remember.
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It is greatly appreciated.
We, well most of us, can tell who our real friends are and who are the fair-weathered ones, who thrive on transactional, conditional, and/or situational support. Those who try their damnedest to gaslight us that they are really supportive of Jews and abhor anti-Semitism, but only when it suits them! Those whose "bona fides" are "some of their best friends are Jews", which manifest in "I have Jewish relatives!", "I once fucked a Jew!", "Someone, allegedly, in my distant past fucked a Jew!" or "I have seen a Holocaust movie!" That last one might seem like a joke, sadly, it isn't! Those who try to 'splain to us what anti-Semitism really is or, more often than not, isn't, including trying to "redefine" it. Those who use minority voices in our own community to show us who "the good Jews" really are. Those who ignore, diminish, or disregard our feelings, concerns, and fears as inconsequential to the rest of the world's problems. Those who demand we have the "right" opinion and have none of our own. Those who bastardized the memories of our people massacred in the past, through ignoring it or inverting it. Those who try to redefine words to fit their narratives. Those who remind us "All Bigotries Matter" when the topic is anti-Semitism. Those who invade our spaces to talk down to us, and ridicule our beliefs/fears/concerns, and dismiss anything we say. We see those false friends!
In seeing the false ones, we also see the REAL ones, those who DO support us! Those who DO speak up and out with and for us! The ones who DO challenge us in a respectful way that allows for a genuine conversation, not one where we are devalued. Those who DO stand shoulder to shoulder with us through dark times, even placing themselves in jeopardy by doing so. We see the ones who DO make mistakes and rather than "taking their ball home" or acting out, they LISTEN, and even if we still don't agree, understanding is created. Those who MAKE an effort to learn about Jewish history and culture. Those who DO know when to speak out and when to defer to us. And, finally, those who REACH OUT to us in times of crisis with compassion to check in, to see how we are doing, how we are feeling, and letting us know they are there if we need them! So, the TRUE ALLIES, the REAL friends...we see you too!
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
April 19, 1943 - May 16, 1943