{"id":107759,"date":"2023-10-12T17:05:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T15:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=107759"},"modified":"2023-10-12T13:43:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T11:43:14","slug":"21-05-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=107759","title":{"rendered":"How to Be an Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>How to Be an Ally<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

MAGGIE PHILLIPS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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SHALOM DE LE\u00d3N ON UNSPLASH<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What can non-Jews do to stand by the Jewish community during this crisis?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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Like many Americans since 2020, I have absorbed the message that it is not the job of victims and the oppressed to educate me, and that I shouldn\u2019t center myself amid someone else\u2019s pain. After the horrific attacks by Hamas on Saturday, as person of faith myself, I prayed for peace, for the victims and their families, for the Jewish people, of course. But, despite my status as a gentile-in-residence at Tablet for about three years, I didn\u2019t want to impose on any of the Jews in my orbit during this difficult time. And to be honest, I didn\u2019t really know what else to do<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Should I post? Was that too shallow? Anyway, what would I say? Who the hell am I? With just under 460 Twitter followers and a lackluster Instagram, there weren\u2019t exactly legions of Maggie Phillips fans waiting with bated breath for my official statement on geopolitics.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But this morning, I sat my gentile ass down and listened, as they say, while my Tablet colleagues talked about their experiences as American Jews over the past few days. And I realized that what we have right now in this moment is a crisis of allyship.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So let me help you, Jews and gentiles alike, bridge the gap that\u2019s keeping us from really being there for each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fellow non-Jews, here\u2019s what\u2019s been useful for me that you might like to know:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Israel seems far away, but for a lot of Jews, it doesn\u2019t. That\u2019s either because they consider the entire Jewish people to be their family, or because they have literal friends and family living in Israel. With that in mind, it\u2019s not hard to see how a little empathy could go a long way in a time like this.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Jews can (and do!) have complicated feelings about the State of Israel. Don\u2019t make assumptions about their politics or their Zionism. Right now, the main thing that matters is that there are people chanting \u201cgas the Jews\u201d en masse in major cities. Do we mean what we\u2019ve been saying about being against racism and Nazis?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Put politics to the side, and check in with your Jewish friends and acquaintances. Let them know that you\u2019re thinking about them and (if it\u2019s your thing) praying for them, for their friends and family\u2014by name, if possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMaggie,\u201d you may be saying, \u201cI know I\u2019m reading Tablet\u2014and this is a little embarrassing to admit\u2014but I don\u2019t actually know <\/em>any Jews personally.\u201d It\u2019s OK, you\u2019ve admitted you have a problem, that\u2019s the first step. We can work with that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve done\u2014and you can too, right from the comfort of your very own home!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Find a local synagogue. Reach out, even if it\u2019s just to leave a voicemail, an email message, or a comment on their social media feed saying you\u2019re standing with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 Do you belong to a church, civic group, or volunteer organization? Get in touch with the leadership and see about sending a bouquet of white roses, a symbolic gesture of resistance with its roots in WWII. (I got this idea from the Philos Project<\/a>, a Christian ally organization that delivers white roses to Jewish communities after acts of antisemitism.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Post about your support for the Jewish people. No, really! A good friend of mine observed that a lot of the uglier reactions we\u2019re seeing play out currently are downstream of a sort of \u201cgamification\u201d of world events\u2014for a lot of people, what they see flattened on screens and infographics and served up to them by algorithms is the extent of their engagement with an issue, and it gets further simplified to \u201cgood guys\u201d and \u201cbad guys.\u201d So much of the horror playing out in Israel is designed to be seen online<\/em>. So for someone feeling like their hurt, pain, and confusion are being ignored or jeered at, scrolling and seeing a post standing by Jews and condemning the actions of Hamas, might well kindle the small flame of hope they\u2019re struggling to keep alive.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Tablet\u2019s got some audio content coming your way, of real Jewish voices talking about their lived experience, right now. If you can, take the time to listen and get to understand the emotional and personal dimensions of this issue for individual Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now, for my Jewish friends: Disclaimer: I\u2019m not the Lorax who speaks for the gentiles on this one, and it really isn\u2019t your job to educate us. But letting non-Jews know what this moment feels like may help alleviate some emotional labor in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As disheartening as it is to realize, horrific violence overseas does not always live rent-free in everyone\u2019s head. I saw this myself when my dad was deployed to a Middle Eastern war zone in 2006, and young people we know were being killed by terrorists nearly every day. My friends and peers, good, well-intentioned people, were living in blithe ignorance and apathy. People\u2019s experiences are siloed, just like the news. Unless otherwise explicitly stated, don\u2019t assume someone\u2019s disinterest is callousness or antisemitism. Let them know that for you, what happened Saturday is personal above all else.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The last time I was at the Tablet offices, I declined to take a tote bag reading \u201cMensch\u201d home with me. I protested\u2014it felt like cultural appropriation! \u201cIt means you\u2019re one of the good guys!\u201d our office manager, Jordana LaRosa, protested back. \u201cDon\u2019t you want to be one of the good guys?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You know what? I do. I want to be a mensch. I imagine you do, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Maggie Phillips<\/strong> is a freelance writer and former Tablet Journalism Fellow.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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How to Be an Ally MAGGIE PHILLIPS SHALOM DE LE\u00d3N ON UNSPLASH What can non-Jews do to stand by the Jewish community during this crisis? . Like many Americans since 2020, I have absorbed the message that it is not the job of victims and the oppressed to educate me, and that I shouldn\u2019t center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107759"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107773,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107759\/revisions\/107773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}