Hiding Behind Ms. Smith

Not being Jewish in a world where my Jewish friends are in danger

Every day as I ride the bus into work at around 7 am, I watch a few Gadi Taub videos in Hebrew on X and gradually put on my Ms. Smith mental costume. That’s what the kids call me, and at least these kids know my name. The kids I taught when I taught Hispanic kids mostly just called us “Miss,” which was fine. I found out from an Israeli teacher in an Arab and Jewish school that the Arab parents have their children call the teachers “Miss” but the Jewish parents call the teachers by their first names. I like being Ms. Smith, and I love the culture of teaching where we all call each other by our last names.

As we cross a certain point in the bus ride, I feel the neighborhood where I teach closing in around me. It’s not that different from or that far from where I live, about an eighteen minute bus ride, but as I get close to school I feel the walls go up around me. Often my students get on the bus, as kids over sixth grade take public transit not school busses. At first they were shocked to see me, but now they are used to it. We have to cross a very busy street when we get off the bus to get to school, and the cars stop for the kids. I go with them.

As we cross that point, I put my thoughts about Israel mostly out of my mind. I focus entirely on what I have to do that day: attempt to reach these kids, and attempt to stay safe and sane. “As sane as possible under the circumstances” is as fitting here as it is on Israel Update.

Over the last two days, it has been very hard to cross that line. I am, like all of us, heart broken over the murders of Sarah and Yaron. The awareness that all Jews are in danger is acute. I am somewhat afraid for my own safety, since I’m known in the neighborhood as an outspoken Zionist, but it’s unlikely that the “Abolish Israel” crazies in my neighborhood read the blog or the libertarian to conservative press where I publish, and they tend to leave me alone.

April Smith is not a Jewish sounding name. I look English or Scottish. My students are often convinced that I’m English. Perhaps this is because I speak to them in proper American English, which most people they know do not do. The black teachers tend to speak to them in a more black neighborhood dialect, which I suppose builds relationships. I figure it’s part of my job to teach them how to speak like one of my smartest kids called, “a grown up professional.” Yeah, you got it kid. She’s volunteered to be my helper when her homeroom has my class, so she passes out papers, guards the pencils, etc. It’s interesting because she seems to be one of the popular kids, and hangs out with a tight group of girls, but she attaches herself to me in class. Her writing is excellent and detailed and she does her work. I hope she can make it to her full potential in whatever career she eventually wants.

April Smith of vaguely English ancestry may write about Israel and against antisemitism, but she is not recognizably Jewish. No one would know I’m a Zionist if they didn’t read my work or talk to me about it. I have the option to hide. My friends don’t.

That’s what first inspired me to write after October 7. I realized that it was wrong for me to stay silent when my close friends and their children were being threatened, bullied, or afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs and being cancelled in their fields. Let us not forget how powerful the threat of cancellation still is in academia and other leftist haunts. Their children, who had been for the most part unaware of antisemitism, now didn’t know why they were being bullied for being Jewish. Now I guess they know all too well.

I didn’t stay silent, and I won’t. But I can walk into a school that is entirely black and about a quarter Muslim and no one suspects I’m on the way to becoming Jewish. I doubt that most of the kids would even register it or care - in fact, one of them asked me if I’m Muslim. Interesting as I wear no headscarf. I said, “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss my religion at school.” My school is beautifully non-political, which I can not say for many schools in the area.

The Free Palestine people who turn into terrorists want to scare us out of going to Zionist events, out of visiting Jewish museums and synagogues and memorials. Be honest: would you be more nervous now about attending an event about Israel at a Jewish museum than you were last week? Or were you already pretty nervous last week?

I have the option to go to those places and those events, but if I do not, no one would know that I’m a Zionist if I don’t tell them and if I’m not wearing my Star of David. Even Jewish people sometimes take awhile to catch on. “I’m like rabidly pro-Israel” I’ve said. I’m far to the right of most of my in person friends now. I’m cool with that. Whatever my politics, they are still in more danger than I am from random gunfire from lunatics screaming “Free Palestine.”

You know how people used to do, maybe still do, clinic defense at abortion clinics? Those who put their bodies on the line to protect women’s right to choose, and who endured taunting and horrible insults from the anti-choice protesters? (Sometimes the protesters are nice, btw. I’ve had various experiences as I’ve gotten my women’s healthcare at Planned Parenthood for most of my adult life. When I told one that I was coming in for a check up post cervical cancer surgery, he asked if he could pray for me, and I think he was sincere.) Where are the non-Jews putting themselves on the line, physically, career-wise, artistically, or however we do? There are some great ones, but too few.

It’s so easy to hide when you can.

As soon as I cross that point on the bus ride home, I feel like I’m putting myself back on. Out comes my phone with all my Jewish and Israeli blogs. Out come my brothers and sisters from all over the world. I carry you in my pocket all day (triple emoji heart!)

What if I married someone Jewish and changed my last name to something recognizably Jewish? I wonder how people would react in settings like the one I’m in now. I can’t imagine that the staff would discriminate, but perhaps I am too innocent. I know that Jewish teachers have been harassed quite near me, just not in the places where I work.

I’ve wondered what I would do if a student made an antisemitic comment. It has never come up. Even when I subbed a class that read from the Diary of Anne Frank, the kids were just confused by the concept of antisemitism. “Why would people hate someone because of their religion?” was the genuine question coming from both white and black fifth graders. Do they know more by seventh and eighth? I have not attempted to teach the Diary of Anne Frank, not because of its content but because of its reading level.

The murder of Sarah and Yaron marks a turning point. Something feels different to me. I predicted this kind of thing all along and I’m sad to be right.

My own Governor Shapiro’s house was burned on the first night of Passover in what was obviously an antisemitic attack. This was his post on X about the murders.

What are we going to do?

Hiding is not an option.

Sending love to all of you, worldwide family. Whatever happens, I’m with you.