I sort of give up the writings for many months, not that I didn't want to write anymore, but I didn't really find time to just concentrate on my blog.
Last time I wrote, my post was about how I left christian religion to look for something else, something new inside of me : my own spirituality and beliefs.
I think for a few years (maybe from the age of 11 to 14) I questionned myself a lot, then just gave up tormenting my soul, then asked myself again, sometimes thought I should still adress my prayers to G-d so He could open up the doors of His knowledgements and finally take the real and only path... all without success !
I was in a public middle school, where most of pupils were from immigration and didn't really know french language or culture, refugees from Albania, Yoguslavia, Africa, Irak etc, also lots of Muslims from North Africa (born in France but having difficult time to integrate the french school system and way of life, eventually delinquents). I think it's important to mention this detail for the understanding of the next paragraph and future posts.
I will always remember my history-geograpy teacher, he was a Jew from Morocco. At that time I didn't know he was jewish, but I found it cool to get to know about someone jewish in school, where the majority was Muslim. I also remember of discovering antisemitism in school, where a young teacher's assistant was constantly insulted by a group of boys, because they thought he was jewish... I didn't understand what was wrong with being jewish and why they would insult him for being so ?!
the following year, I had a different history-geograpy teacher, a woman, who was also jewish (but I didn't know), and I think this year had a huge impact in my life... We started learning about the Second World War.
I knew what happened, because my father was 12 years old during the war and he told me about what happened between France and Germany, and when the teacher taught us about what really happened in details, I asked a lot to my father even if it was hard, I felt guilty make him remembering about the terrible time he went through, losing family, house, forced to exil without anything to eat, nowhere to sleep, had to hide from the germans and remembering him and his siblings as orphans... just writing this is hard for me, anyway...
We were studying about the Final Solution, and Hitler's goals... I think I just listened, wrote and learnt as a good student, of course I didn't understand and the same question over and over again "WHY?", but one day my teacher decided to show us a video about the Shoah, and oh G-d this had affected me and never let me be the same person again after watching this...
I can still remember what I felt... Now this can sound very strange, but I felt empty, like... dead, of course I felt sad, and my eyes filled with tears and I was extremely shocked by the story and by the pictures and I remember this part of the film in the baraqs where this man was sooooo skinny and sick and hungry and ate his tissue, and other things that I don't want to describe...
At the end of the film, when the teacher turn on the lights, I think she was giving a speech but I couldn't hear her, all of me was paralyzed until one of my classmate started laughing and the teacher yelled at him and asked him what was so funny about all of this, and he simply answered "who care about them, they are just Jews"
How to explain what happened to me when I heard these words, I started crying, I wanted to scream, and I think if the teacher didn't send him away by force yelling at him, I would have grabbed my chair and hit him.
Okay, it was terrible statements to make, okay after watching the video one could have had the same reaction, but his words affected me personnaly, hit myself like he was insulted me, like I was myself jewish and I never ever understood why I felt like this that day...
And it was the beginning of my searchings about the Jewish people, the history of Jews, and then Judaism.
Last time I wrote, my post was about how I left christian religion to look for something else, something new inside of me : my own spirituality and beliefs.
I think for a few years (maybe from the age of 11 to 14) I questionned myself a lot, then just gave up tormenting my soul, then asked myself again, sometimes thought I should still adress my prayers to G-d so He could open up the doors of His knowledgements and finally take the real and only path... all without success !
I was in a public middle school, where most of pupils were from immigration and didn't really know french language or culture, refugees from Albania, Yoguslavia, Africa, Irak etc, also lots of Muslims from North Africa (born in France but having difficult time to integrate the french school system and way of life, eventually delinquents). I think it's important to mention this detail for the understanding of the next paragraph and future posts.
I will always remember my history-geograpy teacher, he was a Jew from Morocco. At that time I didn't know he was jewish, but I found it cool to get to know about someone jewish in school, where the majority was Muslim. I also remember of discovering antisemitism in school, where a young teacher's assistant was constantly insulted by a group of boys, because they thought he was jewish... I didn't understand what was wrong with being jewish and why they would insult him for being so ?!
the following year, I had a different history-geograpy teacher, a woman, who was also jewish (but I didn't know), and I think this year had a huge impact in my life... We started learning about the Second World War.
I knew what happened, because my father was 12 years old during the war and he told me about what happened between France and Germany, and when the teacher taught us about what really happened in details, I asked a lot to my father even if it was hard, I felt guilty make him remembering about the terrible time he went through, losing family, house, forced to exil without anything to eat, nowhere to sleep, had to hide from the germans and remembering him and his siblings as orphans... just writing this is hard for me, anyway...
We were studying about the Final Solution, and Hitler's goals... I think I just listened, wrote and learnt as a good student, of course I didn't understand and the same question over and over again "WHY?", but one day my teacher decided to show us a video about the Shoah, and oh G-d this had affected me and never let me be the same person again after watching this...
I can still remember what I felt... Now this can sound very strange, but I felt empty, like... dead, of course I felt sad, and my eyes filled with tears and I was extremely shocked by the story and by the pictures and I remember this part of the film in the baraqs where this man was sooooo skinny and sick and hungry and ate his tissue, and other things that I don't want to describe...
At the end of the film, when the teacher turn on the lights, I think she was giving a speech but I couldn't hear her, all of me was paralyzed until one of my classmate started laughing and the teacher yelled at him and asked him what was so funny about all of this, and he simply answered "who care about them, they are just Jews"
How to explain what happened to me when I heard these words, I started crying, I wanted to scream, and I think if the teacher didn't send him away by force yelling at him, I would have grabbed my chair and hit him.
Okay, it was terrible statements to make, okay after watching the video one could have had the same reaction, but his words affected me personnaly, hit myself like he was insulted me, like I was myself jewish and I never ever understood why I felt like this that day...
And it was the beginning of my searchings about the Jewish people, the history of Jews, and then Judaism.
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