JEW (And the end of the world)

Cheap Jew. That's what my ex used to call me. In all fairness, she never quite said those words exactly. But she let me know 1000s of times that I am cheap. I probably am cheap. I'm not sure. I lack the self-awareness to be sure either way. I pick up checks. I tip well. I'm pretty sure I'm not cheap now, even if I had been in the past.

I had a daughter. And when she was alive I really was cheap. I felt as if every penny I spent was money stolen from her. I wanted to make sure that when I left that she would inherit enough money to be able to choose what she wanted to do. I wanted her to have every advantage. I didn't want her to be like so many young people are now--stuck working 3 jobs just to struggle to survive.

Once she was gone, money just didn't matter anymore. I might as well enjoy what little I have.

I'm a pretty good tipper but certainly not because I want to be. I just feel like I have to. First because I am afraid of being called a cheap Jew. But it's also because I've often worked in tipped jobs and I understand how hard those people work. Apparently, in my mind, the only thing worse than being a Jew, is being a hypocritical Jew.

I am cheap. I was born with, and continue to live with, the existential terror of being broke. Broke is scary. Broke is homeless. Broke is having to ask or beg others for help. I've never had to do that. But I've been on the other end of that transaction more times than I can count. I don't think that I would be off by very much to say that I have given money to every person that has ever been my friend. This is not a bid for sympathy. It's real. I have many people I would call friends. I can't think of a single one that I haven't given money to. It's not wrong to say that I have purchased every one of my friends. And now that I am thinking about it, I don't think a single one of them has ever paid me back. At least not permanently. A few times I have loaned money and been repaid. But then lent it again and that was the end of it. The worst part about it is that in many cases I end up losing my money and losing a friend. And somehow, I end up being cast as a cheap bad guy when I finally turn off the spigot.

A friend for more than 35 years was going through some hard times. His wife had left him and a couple of years later he had two cars repossessed and eventually had to give up his condo. I knew he had a drug problem, but I didn't realize how bad it was. I was unforgivably naive. I couldn't understand why his parents were being so mean to him. I found out later that he had already burned through most of his elderly parents' savings. Anyway, I let him move in with me. Free for several months and then he was supposed to split the rent with me. In the 19 months he was there, he paid rent twice. Not only did I not throw him out, I continued to lend him money on top of it. He always had some good, but bullshit, excuses. The truth is I didn't realize just how far gone he was. He ended up getting arrested for stealing at his job. By the time I asked him to leave he had barely survived a drug overdose and owed me almost $20k. Even then, I only asked him to leave because I was fired from my job and I had to give up the apartment. I could sense from him and his son that I was somehow the bad guy in all of this. Maybe I was. To me, I am the bad guy for giving him the rope to hang himself. By lending him money and not insisting on the rent was the same as basically paying his drug dealer for drugs. So now I am out a big pile of money and one of my best friends.

I am straining my wobbly memory, but as far as I can tell, every “friend” I have in the world owes me money. Many I am still friends with. We both just pretend it doesn't exist. I can honestly say that I don't owe anyone any money. The funny-ish part is that if you took a poll among those several dozen people that still owe me money they would probably all describe me as cheap. There is an irony in that. I'm not sure what this means. Am I “cheap” by virtue of never having put myself in the position of having to borrow from friends? And then never pay it back? Again, I'm not bidding for sympathy here, and nor am I saying that none of these people are “true friends’. But an objective observer would be forced to conclude that I have paid people to be my friends. Almost all of them. That is one small step above hanging a pork chop around my neck so that the dog will play with me. Or is it?

Because animals are a different matter. We get on well without my needing to pay them. Virtually every animal I have ever met has liked me. Whether I have treats for them or not. I'm not exaggerating. Animals love me. I even have a very good working relationship with horses. I agree not to try to put my giant Jew nose on their back and they agree to not try to kick me in my giant Jew nose. Which is fortunate in that, as I'm sure you are aware, it's almost impossible to miss my giant Jew nose. I don't have any Jew-y money agreements with any other members of the animal kingdom. But it is nice to have some friends that I don't have to pay for. Unless kibble counts.

If you haven't already surmised this I will simply say it out loud. I am a self-loathing Jew. This is not news to me. At least it shouldn't be. What's different is that it's the first time I've ever seen it in print. And it's the first time that I have truly admitted it to myself. Oh, it's always been there. If I am being honest with you and myself, I have always hated being a Jew. I've even gone so far as to tell some people and partially convince myself that I am only half Jewish. I conjured up some nonsense about my father not really being Jewish. It was quite elaborate now that I think about it. Without any reason, I toyed with the idea that my father, a tall, blue-eyed man born to a woman named Goodman, was not a Jew. It's nonsense. I have no idea where it came from or why I would say it, tell people, or even believe it. But such is my hatred of my own Judaism that I convinced myself that he was not Jewish, and only pretended to be so that he could marry my mother, trying to impress my very religious grandfather.

My Grandfather was Louis Rosenberg, a proud Jew. I think if you have the last name of Rosenberg you may as well embrace the Jewishness, because you sure as shit aren't fooling anybody. He was also a mailman and a great man. He was a nobody. But more than 300 people attended the funeral of this “nobody Jew”.

Because he was a Jew, he faced incredible odds against him when he tried to become a mailman. They simply didn't hire Jews at that time. He earned the position by showing up at 4am every day for almost 5 years. Once or twice a week someone would call in sick and they would give that route to someone who showed up and waited for hours. Way more often than not he would wait for hours and have nothing to show for it. Through sheer tenacity he finally received enough fill in shifts to be hired as a mailman. The first Jewish mailman in the Bronx.

Louis Rosenberg delivered mail for 30 years until his retirement. Even though I am a Jew, I don't really care about my possessions. The one “thing” I value is a gold Omega watch that Louis received from his coworkers when he retired in 1966. He became one of the postal workers union most respected members. He even made history as becoming the first to organize a strike among union mailmen in Chicago—a place where he knew that his brother carriers were being mistreated.

It makes me a little misty eyed and nostalgic for unions. Does anyone else remember that little sliver of history when working people had tenable and tolerable lives? It was from right after the war until the finger fuckery of Ronald Reagan and company. It was a short-lived golden era for working people. And my grandpa was proud to be one of the people to live it and make it happen.

Louis Rosenberg was proud to be a Jew. I, to my shame, am not. I have always run away from it. As a child, I can remember being humiliated that the other children had Christmas. All we had was stupid Hanukkah. A holiday nobody cared about. Not even Jews.

I know the great Louis Rosenberg sensed my shame. I'm sure it hurt him but he never let on. He simply said, “don't worry. If you forget you are a Jew, someone will be along soon enough to remind you”. He was right of course. Friends, schoolmates and even girlfriends had no problem reminding me that I was a Jew. That I was different and definitely not one of them. One girlfriend told me that she loved me but could never “be serious” with me because I was a Jew. To my very rare credit I replied, “who asked you?” and I broke up with her. Of course, I buckled soon after when she invited me to go to the Bahamas with her. She was from a rich and connected D.C. family. Her father had been a speechwriter for Richard Nixon. And to make it worse, she was absurdly pretty. Way out of my big-nosed Jew league. My little head dragged me to the Bahamas with an anti-Semite--an anti-Semite with particularly perky breasts.

I went to Hebrew school a little bit but I had no interest in it. My mother would drop me off at Sunday school and I would wait until she drove away and then walk down the street to a video game arcade to play Space Invaders. So, when it came time for my Bar Mitzvah, I had no idea how to read Hebrew or do any of the things most Jew kids could do. But my Grandpa made sure that I had my Bar Mitzvah anyway, by finding small and easily memorable sections of the Torah for me to memorize and recite mechanically in July of 1975.

I was ashamed of being a Jew. My grandfather was not. In his later years, he finally realized a dream. Louis, a humble mailman, was able to make numerous visits to the then new State of Israel. I could feel his pride at their accomplishment. My grandmother Molly had a gift for languages and learned to speak both Arabic and Hebrew for use during their trips--this when they were both in their sixties. Louis spoke only English and his native Spanish.

It made no difference because he knew that as long as Israel was alive, Jews would have a safe place to go for when the pogroms started up again, as they now are, all around the world. He helped raise millions of dollars and helped plant 1000s of trees in the new, struggling and always-in-danger state of Israel.

Meanwhile I was ashamed of being a Jew. And of being made fun of for it. It was common and constant. Especially after leaving New York for Florida. In Florida, the words kike, hebe and nigger were said constantly and quite comfortably. Among my classmates of 2nd through 12th grades, the words kike and nigger were quite common. I had never heard either word ever spoken in New York.

So now that I have finally admitted this to myself and am now announcing it publicly, the question becomes why do I feel this way? And furthermore, why now? Why pick this particular time to finally come clean with both myself and the rest of the world.

I think I know the answer. It's that Jews are finished. We are under attack on every front. Young people in America have decided that Israel in particular and Jews in general are the problem. In fact, it seems to be the only thing that liberals and white Christian theocratic (MAGAs) agree on. It's the Jews fault. American progressives have decided that Israel is the bad guy in their fight with Hamas. They stand with Palestinians in shouting “from the river to the sea”. And that statement means one thing and one thing exactly: the destruction of the State of Israel. Yes, liberal American college students believe that Israel has no right to exist.

Hamas came into Israel and brutally murdered hundreds. Cut babies’ heads off. Raped women in front of their husbands. They continue to hold and brutalize hundreds of Israeli hostages. Hamas has taken billions of dollars in foreign aid, much of it from Israel, and used it to buy weapons and create tunnels while the Palestinian people starve. Hamas puts its soldiers and weapons in hospitals and among civilians. Basically holding their own people hostage to hobble Israeli retaliation. No one on television ever mentions that the point of Israeli attacks is simply to get the hostages back. Hamas could end this instantly by returning them. But they won't. And the media just plays along with the charade that Jews are attacking Gaza for shits and giggles.

Look, I hate Jews. I hate the corrupt Trump-like ball of shit that is Benjamin Netanyahu. But Israel is not to blame here. Not even a little.

Just once, I would like to see these college kids answer one simple question. “What would you expect the U.S. to do if Mexico sent terrorists into San Diego to kill and rape Americans? And then kept a couple hundred more Americans as hostages so they could torture and butt-fuck them?” They don't give a fuck. You know why? Because at the end of the day it's just Jews being fucked, killed and humiliated. It's OK because it's just Jews. And the world hates Jews. You know it. I know it. And the events of recent months have laid that fact completely, nakedly, and repulsively bare.

Iran tried to drop 350 drones and missiles on Israel. They could have killed tens of thousands. There is not a single nation on earth that would be expected to tolerate that without response. Except Israel. Why? Because Jews are supposed to take it. Jews are supposed to die. Jews killed that made-up Jesus guy and so every last Jew deserves what they get. The world has once again showed its true colors. The world hates Jews. Always has. Always will. And you know what? They are going to get their way. Jews are done. Once they finish off Israel they will pick the rest of us off one at a time until we are all gone.

But be careful what you wish for you dopey goyim douchebags.

There are less than 15 million Jews in the whole world. Less than the population of imbecilic Florida. And yet Jews are responsible for advancements in health and technology and god knows what else. You know I could look that shit up. But I don't want to and I don't need to. Because you already know it. The truth is that Jews are smarter and better. Fuck, we were even the best boxers when we needed to be. Jews don't hit their wives or fuck their kids. We are just better. You know it and that is why you hate us. So go fuck yourself. The Jews are on their way out but the rest of the world isn't far behind.

But I thank you. Thank you for freeing me. Thank you for helping me stop running from my Judaism. I was never religious and I still won't be. But I am now proud of my Jewish heritage and I will tell any dumb ass motherfucker who will listen.

I, DAVID LOUIS LITVIN, AM A PROUD JEW.

There has always been a peculiar form of kinship between black people and Jews. We have some important historical similarities. I'm not going to go too far with it because the Jewish and black experience is quite different. But it shares one particular trait: separation. Blacks are unable to simply “blend in” by virtue of their skin color. Jews don't blend in either, but they have much more of a choice.

Both Jews and Blacks have suffered all the worst of racism and antisemitism. Jews have the holocaust and Blacks have a millennium of subjugation, slavery and humiliation.

It brought something else that Blacks and Jews have in common. Self-loathing. It's not our fault. The world has told us how bad we are so much for so long that we have had no choice but to believe it ourselves.

Jews are finished. Even if the species survives, it isn't going to include Jews. The world is once again firing up the ovens and this time they will spare none of us.

But there is hope for our black brothers. The world hates you for the same reason it hates Jews. Because you are better than them. You are bigger, stronger, faster and far more durable than white people. You are even smarter. Even Blacks don't believe it, but it is true. When you account for centuries of disadvantage, Black's actually outperform whites in cognitive ability tests.

Take it from this Jew. White supremacists don't hate us because they are better than us. They hate us because they fear us. They hate us because they wish they could be us.

Let's share this together. Blacks and Jews. We were the parents of this world. We spawned these assholes that then turned on us.

The first humans were black. The first monotheists were Jews. For better or worse, we made this world. Our children who wandered into the cold north grew into the white cultures that now kill and subjugate us. The cultures that threaten the very existence of our species.

Us Jews will go first. But once you are done with us the rest of you won't be far behind.

It is my hope that our black brothers will survive the white corporate holocausts that are coming.

Climate change

Plastics in our oceans and bodies

Antibiotic resistant bacteria

Viral contagions

Nuclear adventurism

White Supremacist Authoritarian Theocracy

Impotence and dropping sperm counts

I don't know which one or two or three of those will get there first. But they, plus some others I don't know about are coming for you. There may or may not be any Jews left to watch the curtain fall on humanity. But fall it will.

But it's OK. The earth will be just fine without you.