My family came here from Germany in 1908, I was brought up with very German sensibilities, and even lived in Germany for a year and a half, and I don't really know how to engage it, either.
Our exchange group had exactly one Jewish girl in it, and at quarterly gatherings, she would tell us about how weird everyone was towards her, as if it was a bad thing to even acknowledge that she was Jewish. She got so frustrated with her schoolmates at one point that she...didn't quite yell, but got pretty intense...that they didn't do it, they weren't responsible, they didn't owe her any apologies, and for the love of Pete, could they please stop dancing around her Jewishness, please ask her any question they wanted, and just treat her like every other student in the school, thank you very much?
She finished her exchange year with a lot less stress and awkwardness after that.
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Our exchange group had exactly one Jewish girl in it, and at quarterly gatherings, she would tell us about how weird everyone was towards her, as if it was a bad thing to even acknowledge that she was Jewish. She got so frustrated with her schoolmates at one point that she...didn't quite yell, but got pretty intense...that they didn't do it, they weren't responsible, they didn't owe her any apologies, and for the love of Pete, could they please stop dancing around her Jewishness, please ask her any question they wanted, and just treat her like every other student in the school, thank you very much?
She finished her exchange year with a lot less stress and awkwardness after that.