Antisemitism Is Taking A Physical Toll
Struggling with sleep, isolation, and navigating Pride events as a Jewish Zionist activist.
The following is being sent out after friends asked if they could share my Facebook post. If I want something to be sharable, I'll sometimes copy/paste via the Solzy at the Movies Facebook page. But in this case, I opted to share it with the Buttondown newsletter audience with some modifications.
I've been sleeping terribly for six months now. The nightmares* don't stop. I'm still awake at 2 AM and then struggle to get through the following day without taking a nap in the afternoon. Being pushed out of formerly safe spaces for being Jewish is something that really hurts and honestly, it's antisemitic AF. Friends who I used to talk to daily have cut me out of their life. This war has turned me so insular that it is not even funny.
As for Pride this summer, it's doubtful that I attend any Pride events unless I know the space is explicitly Jewish/Zionist. I don't go to the parade anyway as I traditionally escape the neighborhood to see a movie. Speaking of Pride, the amount of non-Jewish trans friends have been dropping like flies because they don't have space in their lives for Zionists. I'm not even a Bibi fan and just being a Zionist is too much for the leftists.
I had been looking forward to seeing friends this summer during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago but if the last six months are any indication, I'm staying far away from downtown during that time. It's going to be much worse than 1968. I'm already avoiding going downtown on the weekends right now if I can help it.
As I wrote a few weeks ago: You cannot have my trans activism if you can't even have my existence as a Jew or Zionist.
* = I saw Monkey Man on Wednesday night knowing absolutely nothing about the film other than it being an action thriller and getting acclaim out of SXSW in March. The lead character's mother is murdered in a gruesome manner before being lit on fire by her murderer. I'm sorry but this film was just too gory for my liking and I could really have used a trigger/content warning because the nightmares really haven't stopped since October 7. It didn't help whatsoever.