I’ve been thinking about why people move lately. I wonder what compels them to leave their home. At the same time, I’ve found myself reflecting on my own identity.
The concept of “the wandering jew” was first introduced to me when I was skimming an extremely outdated etiquette book titled: Don’ts For Husbands where the author directed good husbands to UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES:
“Walk in and out of rooms like the wandering Jew”
Being Jewish I’ve heard slurs, jokes, and harmful comments; however “the wandering jew” was new to me. So as a good jew, I began to study it. I found the wandering jew refers to an old antisemitic myth about a Jew who taunted Jesus on his way to the cross. They were then cursed to wander the earth never to stay still. I initially laughed at the absurdity of the myth and the idea. Yet I couldn’t shake a nagging pull at my identity. I have felt adrift, not cursed, as though I have physically and mentally been wandering, never fully pausing. I further reflected on my Jewish identity and on our collective history of diaspora. How this identity ingrains in each of us an understanding of what it means to wander. After encountering the term “wandering jew” I cannot unsee the connection between my identity to migrating, to wandering.
I am a Jew, I do wander, am I a “wandering jew?” I don’t really like the term, I am not trying to “reclaim it”. So no, I don’t think I am a wandering jew. But now I find myself developing greater empathy and compassion for people who also have wandered far from home. I think more about their journeys, their struggles. Although I have traveled extensively, I wouldn’t consider myself a “immigrant” a “migrant” or really a “nomad”. My lived experience is vastly different to someone who has migrated, dislodging their whole life to live elsewhere. However, I cannot help but feel a stronger thread binding me to their experiences.
My reflection on migration and identity is not unexpected. I try not to read too much in the news, however the recent reports of student visa revocations in Albany, deportations in Plattsburgh, and arrests in New York City caught my attention. I have been to these places, this is my backyard. These cases often founded on social media commentary and participation in protests deemed “antisemitic”, has been jarring. Followed then by the recent case of Abrego Garcia being wrongfully deported to El Salvador. These combined stories force me to confront the fragility of our life and of our communities.
It’s strange and sobering: I am a citizen of the United States by birth, with multiple generations of family born here, yet I feel as though my citizenship, my home, my life, is fragile and tenuous. Some of my roots are cut, and I am adrift. A government official will come along at any moment. Find something “undesirable” with me, and then deport me to somewhere they will never call a concentration camp.
A recent silver lining to what I am calling “a dark time” in American politics. Is the opinion and ruling from Judge Wilkinson. Specifically these lines:
“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear”.
If a person wants to protest in the U.S. or speak their peace it is their right. It’s not the government’s place to interfere so deeply in our lives to make us afraid; of conversations, of protests. I hope for a return of normalcy for those whose visas were revoked, for those deported, for my community, for myself.