I Just Got Slapped for my IDF Shirt
An hour ago, I was accosted outside my local 7-Eleven. (For Angelenos, it's the one on 3rd and Gardner, near Pan Pacific Park.)
I was wearing my olive-green IDF t-shirt.
A young man, coming out of the store yelled at me as I approached the door.
"Hey, fuck you!"
I looked at him confused, as I had forgotten the shirt I was wearing. I was focused on the Double Gulp -- Diet Coke blended with Coke Zero with a splash of lemonade -- that was about to be mine.
The fellow got in my face, and launched into a tirade about baby killing, Zionists, and settlers. He told me to go to another 7/11, and tried to block my path. I tried to go around him, with a cheerful "Have a nice day," and he blocked my path again and slapped me, sending my glasses flying.
It was an open slap, not a punch. It was designed to humiliate rather than injure. Having been humiliated by better than the likes of this cretin, it didn't have the desired effect of goading me to either run or hit back. I stayed calm, as much out of shock as anything else.
My violent interlocutor -- who was tall, Black, about 27, and in possession of a fresh pack of small cigars — continued with his tirade. As he did so, I tried to inquire why he had felt it necessary to strike me.
He told me I was free to call the police and he was ready to go to jail. I told him I didn't want him to go to jail, I just wanted an explanation.
I thought of all the angry students I’d dealt with over the years, including the furious young man who had discovered I was sleeping with his girlfriend. The only way I know to manage that sort of crisis is to stay calm and keep asking questions. Survival via Socratic dialogue, I suppose.
The young man’s jaw worked as he assessed his options. There were onlookers. After a pause, he went into the parking lot and retrieved my glasses. He handed them to me, and repeated, "Fuck you, faggot."
It was the “faggot” that annoyed me. I told him again to have a nice day, my own anger flaring, but as I’ve said before, where I come from, real anger manifests as a teasing, lilting, sneer. (It's not your way, probably, but I'm 57 in a couple weeks. I ain't changing it.) The man sprayed a handful of final obscenities, climbed into his BMW 3-Series and drove away.
Part of me feels proud for having stood up to the sort of wretch who strikes people in parking lots. I didn't run, or fight back. I looked him firmly in the eye and held my ground, perfectly aware that at half my age, he could easily hurt me badly. Part of me feels very lucky it wasn't worse. (My face stings, and my glasses needed to be bent back into shape, but I am otherwise fine.)
It is no secret I am a Zionist. I am perfectly prepared to lose friends over that. What better thing to lose friends over than issues of life and death, faith and politics? But what I cannot do is continue to wear my IDF shirt in public. That is a privilege and a provocation reserved for a childless man.
I am a dad. My kids need me. Clearly, in May 2024, people are angry enough about Israel to not only shout abuse, but to slap strangers in front of convenience stores. I cannot risk my safety, not because I am a coward but because I am a father who must do what he can to avoid injury (or worse) at the hands of someone enraged by global events.
You will not stop me from going to my 7-Eleven, and you will not make me back down from those vulgarians whose emotions have slipped beyond their control. But you will make me put that shirt in a closet. Because that's what this dad must do.
My heart is still pounding. Back to work now, in a Los Angeles Galaxy shirt — safe enough for a papa to wear.
It's a really difficult position. I have 2 kids under the age of 4 who need me but also am not about to hide my Jewish identity because to do so would be shameful to my children, parents, especially to my grandparents who faced far worse than some confused young asshole accosting me on the streets. Remaining true to your faith, your identity your values regardless of the price is a position ALL people of faith or conviction, atheists, Christians, Catholics, Buddhists have found themselves in, holding that line is a moral imperative as burning as protecting your children. What to do??
I am not one of those going so far as to say antisemitism is as bad as the 1930's, which I've heard many times these past months. But I am of growing concern at the violence being committed in the name of a terrorist organization, the willingness to look only at certain aspects of this conflict within a major context of history, and the complete and total ignorance of those using words, such as genocide, that have very specific meaning and weight in ways that do not hold to the definition of those words.
It's frightening. I am very sorry you were the victim of this individual's misguided rage. I cannot say how incredibly impressed I am by your stolid response. I would wish for myself the ability to do the same, but doubt that I could.
And to those who continue saying, "There is no rise in antisemitic behavior! It's all mainstream BS!," between the ongoing campus attacks, and more and more incidents like this, there is a trend in a very dangerous direction.