Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Sweden: "This is not bullying, this is a hate crime that has been trivialized so many times"


Via Algemeiner:
Hernroth-Rothstein’s remarks came on the heels of a Facebook post she uploaded this week, bemoaning the antisemtism suffered by one her two young boys. It reads:

    So I’m feeling tired. Really tired and sad. When my son came home today to tell me that a classmate had said “someone should throw that f—–g Jew in an oven and burn him”, he wasn’t angry, bur rather resigned. It’s not the first time, right? Nor will it be the last.

    I work really hard every day to give my children a strong Jewish identity here, in the Galut [Diaspora]. I am not here because I want to but because right now, I have to, and those who know me know that I have made many difficult decisions and personal sacrifices in order to assure that my family’s Jewish lineage lives on and that we stay observant despite the hostile surroundings.

    I am a single mother raising Jewish boys and I am so very tired. I am tired because every time this happens, every time someone calls my child a “dirty Jew” or makes them feel like less than human because of who they are and what they are it takes something from them and from the strength and values I am working so hard to instill in them.

    How do I do this? How do I live in a remote place and provide my children with Jewish education, Jewish pride and faith and most importantly – how do I counteract this society that keeps telling them to be less (and ultimately nothing) of what they are. Less Jewish, less annoying, less in the way of the “ordinary” world.

    My son is resigned and he is sad and that makes me sad and tired, too. As a parent, we sacrifice so that our children may reap the rewards. We do so they won’t have to, we hurt so they may heal. But tonight as I hang up the phone with the principal, the parents, the teachers and the counselor I wonder if I may be losing the fight and getting lost on my way from mitzrayim [Egypt].

    Tomorrow there will be meetings, a lot of nodding and assurances that “bullying” is unacceptable in a Swedish school. However, this is not bullying, this is a hate crime that has been trivialized so many times that it starts to sound like boyish banter. Nothing will come of these meetings, and I know this because I have been to so many of them before. They will say the right words and commit the wrong acts and then it is up to us to stay standing.

    I pray we get angry soon. But for now, I’m just really really tired.

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