By Karen Klein in Los Angeles
Times of Israel blog
I never spent much time in the trendy, “hip” spaces around Los Angeles, and lately I’ve been particularly avoidant, as they no longer feel like neutral ground or safe places. So I was hesitant to go to a friend’s gathering at Soho House Malibu this weekend.
I went in already on edge, with a vague, slightly irrational feeling I couldn’t quite explain. We were having a nice enough time when a woman began yelling at the top of her lungs, “I’m not leaving. I’m not moving from here. Yes, I’m a Jew, and I don’t care what he says. I’m not moving.” I felt the blood drain from my body. I began to realize that only I understood the screams. She was yelling in Hebrew. My nightmare had materialized, maybe 50 feet away.
I was caught off guard. Not to hear Hebrew, but to hear Hebrew like that. To hear those words. Even with my concerns before going, I didn’t actually expect anything to happen. I got up from my seat and moved closer. A tall man with translucent glasses and a man bun was arguing back at the woman. From what I could see and hear, it was clear he had heard her group speaking Hebrew and had begun harassing them. Security stepped in and quickly pulled the situation apart. Somehow, it just disappeared. I looked back at my friends, none of whom were Jewish or Israeli. They carried on, everyone carried on. The sound of the waves crashing below the patio took over, but I wasn’t sure I was still on planet Earth.
The next morning, I was still trying to process what I had witnessed. I recalled a conversation from a few weeks earlier. A close American friend who lives in Tel Aviv had asked me, “Is it really that bad there? It’s hard to understand from what I see online.” I told her it was bad, but not for me, that I keep my world small. I stick to my usual places, my usual interactions. As I thought about that conversation, I realized that the moment I stepped outside my standard orbit, this is what I encountered.
So, in that moment of recognition, I retreated back to something familiar. I went grocery shopping, half dissociating as I walked the aisles of my local Whole Foods, still piecing together the night before. An end cap was filled with Passover items marked on clearance. Matzah for two dollars and change. How could I resist another week of brie? At self-checkout, I flipped the box to scan it and looked down.
A small square sticker had been placed in the center of the box: “ZIONISM IS FACISM.”
My mind started to spin, my arms moved in slow motion as I tapped my card and walked out of the store. After sitting outside for a few minutes, I went back in, still holding the box, now damp from my tears. I found the manager, a young woman wearing a large gold cross around her neck. I didn’t know exactly what to say, so I just showed her. She gasped and was immediately apologetic, but more than that, there was something in the way she looked at me. Her expression carried a kind of quiet despair, helplessness, something unresolved. Even as she apologized, I could see it, the way she saw me in that moment, like someone exposed, like something wounded. She wanted to do something, but there was nothing that could be done.
Today is Yom HaShoah. It is not lost on me that this day has come at the end of a weekend filled with these moments. I am the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors, three of whom survived death camps. I do not forget that those before me experienced much worse than a sticker or backtalk at a socialite-filled clubhouse. Still, in comparison, these moments may seem small, but something in me is activated by them. I am feeling it before I can fully explain it.
When I got home, I ate my post-holiday matzah. As I ate, flakes fell onto my hands, onto my chest. Small pieces, breaking off, scattering.
I brushed them away.