I’ve been reading Dara Horn’s famous book-
 
“People Love Dead Jews”
 



Here are some quotes that stood out to me:

 

“When I began writing as a child, my driving force was not the urge to invent stories but the urge to stop time, to preserve those disappearing days”
 

“This sort of hiding was an essential part of the [Anne Frank] diary’s original publication, in which several direct references to Jewish practice were edited away. 
 
They were also part of the psychological legacy of Anne Frank’s parents and grandparents, German Jews for whom the price of admission to Western society was assimilation,
 
hiding their differences and ingratiating themselves to the culture that ultimately sought to destroy them.”  - Dara Horn
 

–
 

Here are my thoughts:
 

Both of these quotes remind me of my own upbringing and childhood, as when I was little I often worried about my life experiences being ephemeral, 
 
worried constantly about not being “present” enough, that my childhood was not about enjoyment but about survival. 
 
Now that I’ve been all but diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, it makes me wonder about what 2,000 years of attempted genocide and pogroms will 
 
do to the psyche of the survivors and the descendants of those survivors.
 

Generational trauma can be really difficult to talk about, even more so in a family of Jews who have been actively and rigidly trying to conform to the societies 
 
they found themselves in (first in Germany, now in the U.S.A)- the side of my family tree that is Jewish is decidedly agnostic and non-religious. It begs the question 
 

And if it was self-protection, did it work? Are we any better off now than we were 80 years ago? How about 120 years ago?
 

In many ways I feel like I don’t belong in Jewish society/community anymore. (not that I ever did!) - I feel that my ancestor’s shirking of religiousness 
 
somehow condemns me to not ever fully participate in a culture which could have otherwise been mine.
 

I was raised Catholic, as my Mom was (and maybe is?) Agnostic, and my Dad is Catholic. That being said, I can’t stand the Catholic Church. 
 
I know many Jews get accused of being “self-hating”, but in my opinion, there are no people that are MORE self-hating than White Catholics. I can’t stand that culture.
 

And the more I read about other Jew’s essays and experiences, the more I realize that I’ve always been a Jew, in all ways but in name. I love debating people, 
 
but can only stomach the responses of people who I love and trust. I have always had a bad memory, which has been very distressing to me my entire life 
 
(If I can’t rely on my memories, than am I really a whole person? Who is a person if not their own retelling of their lived experiences?)