I told you—calmly, openly—that you could ask me anything. About antisemitism. About Israel. About the war. Whatever you were wondering. Whatever felt too raw, too complex, too politically radioactive.
I offered conversation. I offered myself.
You didn’t ask. And I tried not to push it. But the week the Bibas family news broke, I couldn’t help myself.
No, I get it. The photos were too much for you. Frankly, they were too much for me too—mostly because my son’s also a ginger.
You fiddled with your Alhambra bracelet and asked me about Lake Como. Look, I’m not a travel agent. But unless you want to spend €10,000 a night for an entire house, the hotel is the way to go. You sighed—because apparently, five-star travel is stressful.
And I watched you keep talking.
I remembered that you once told me I wasn’t someone you wanted to talk to about this with. (Fair—my listening skills are still a work in progress.)
When I shared that a local minority leader had refused to meet me for coffee, you defended it: “Well, Joanne, I’d be intimidated to talk to you too.” You meant it as a compliment. Because I “know a lot.” Because I “have strong opinions.”
And for months, I nodded along, unsure why that line got under my skin.
Now I know.
It wasn’t about intimidation. It was avoidance, dressed up as flattery. A way of saying: your pain is too inconvenient to bear witness to. Your truth is too sharp to hold up close. You couldn’t hear it—couldn’t learn from a Jew. (Unless the topic is Condé Nast.)
A few months pass. It’s Coachella time. God knows, you’re probably there—staying in Palm Springs. (Nothing says “resistance” like a poolside mezcal #SpiritualReset.)
Massive. Neon. Applauded.
You didn’t repost it. (No one I know did). But no one gasped either. No one said, this is a line too far.
Because it didn’t feel like a leap—it felt like the next logical step in a culture that has turned Jewish grief into white noise, literally.
That sign wasn’t just vulgar.
It was everything I heard your silence say—the casual permission. The aesthetic of hate dressed up as solidarity. The vibe you trusted more than my voice.
You believe women. You believe Black people. You believe LGBTQ people. You know how to name harm and center the harmed—until it’s Jews.
Then you flatten us. You doubt us. Or worse, you use us.
Yesterday, when you posted the Bernard Marks1 clip—a Holocaust survivor confronting ICE in 2017: “History is not on your side”—I nearly dropped my adaptogenic latte. No mention that the video was seven years old. No context. Just the moral glow of borrowed outrage.
Do you realize that in 2025, Bernard Marks might never have been allowed in that room?
Not because he lacked courage—because you would’ve kept him out.
The price of admission is our history, in exchange for your approval. You demand we edit our identity to earn your empathy. Sure, you’ll share our ghosts; just not our living. You’ll cry for our grandparents. But not for our children.
That grief you claim to honor? You don’t want to see what it looks like now, do you?
After you booked the hotel, you could’ve circled back. Could’ve asked: Joanne, what’s it like to feel history tightening around your throat while we scroll past? What’s it like to tell your son not to say he’s Jewish to strangers—to explain that his identity makes adults uncomfortable?
Where your curiosity stopped, mine began.
And now I have questions:
Was it easier to watch me unravel and call it “nuance?”
Did the carousel of slogans just feel more comfortable than one hard conversation?
Did you feel more justified because—well—Joanne has a “Jewish bias?”
Truth be told, I don’t need your answers. I’ve read your silence. I’ve measured your distance.
And of course—I saw the neon sign. It wasn’t a shock. It was a reckoning. No one flinches when it’s Jews.
Bernard Marks passed away in 2018. May his memory be a blessing. No, I don’t know if he was an anti-Zionist
You’re my favorite. This is brilliant and captures so many of my one-sided conversations with once long-time friends in my head.
It hurts.