(Jewish Group) As a Jewish teen in the Bible Belt, I face anti-Semitism all the time

[Behind the Aegis]

My entire life, my mother has told me to grow thicker skin — that I need to block out the nasty words and comments. If you react, she says, it only gives them more power. I recognize there is truth to her words — wisdom, even — but exactly how thick must my skin get?

At times, it feels like no matter how tall I stand — how steadfast and strong and tree-like — my peers, and even adults, blow harder and harder with their anti-Semitic comments each time. When I go to school, or when I’m out and about, I often feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle on my own.

I’m a 16-year-old high school student, and I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, in a North Carolina county with a population of just 100,000 people. Fewer than 90 Jews live there — just a handful of families, really. There are so few of us that the closest synagogue is 35 minutes away from my home, and the rabbi only comes once a month on golf trips when he’s visiting from New York. And in the winter — when the golf resort closes — his visits are even rarer.

In my high school of 2,500 students, I regularly experience anti-Semitism. Some comments from my peers stem purely from ignorance, like the time a friend told me I’d ace our economics and tax law units simply because I’m Jewish. (Newsflash: I’m not good with money because I’m Jewish, Kathy. It’s because I find calculus a breeze.)

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[elleng]

1. 'In the South, there is an air of hatred that is a constant reminder

of the opinions and culture of the pre-integration era. Other parts of the nation seem to have moved forward, but we are forever stuck in 1962. My own high school didn’t become desegregated until the 1970s,and was home to race riots for years afterward. I recognize that in this atmosphere, no matter how much my family — or any other member of any minority group, for that matter — assimilates to Southern culture, we will always be two steps behind and just a little too outside their happy, mainstream bubble.'

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I studied the history of Judaism with a rabbi from Lynchburg, VA (yeah, like Falwell's Lynchburg).

He grew up down South and had endure stupidity like Baptists asking to see his horns.