Life in the shadow of two holocausts

It’s a strange feeling, growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust.

It’s never a topic of conversation; there are never any “hey, so how about that Holocaust?” comments thrown into the air at the bar on a Friday night, but it’s there nonetheless, hiding in the shadows. The quiet “after the war, they moved away to…” (because sometimes there is only ever one war, and only a small number of people able to move away). The subtle “oh, I never got to know that side of my family…” (because sometimes there is no one else beyond grandparents). The head swivels when a mention of Anne Frank is made, or — depending on which circles you run in — a reference to Magneto’s backstory is tossed out.

It’s a stranger feeling, still, growing up in the shadow of two holocausts.

Strange because one is over, while one is not. Strange because one is capitalized, while one is never even defined as such. Strange because history was made and defined by one, while one is forgotten even as it marches on.

It’s a strange feeling, being Native and Jewish.

One informs the other — after all, Hitler modeled his Final Solution off of the American government’s treatment of Natives, and what brings people together quite like attempted genocide? — but, still, there’s a separation there, an inability to be both Native and Jewish.

There’s an unlimited amount of times people can say, “Native and Jewish? How does that work?” and a very limited amount of times I can laugh and say, “Well, when a man and a woman love each other…” and pretend that I’m not shaking with anger. There’s an unlimited amount of times people can assume that I scalp people, that I hate Christmas, that I will never be successful — or that I will be too successful, depending on which aspect of my identity they’re focusing on at the moment.

There’s an unlimited amount of times my heart can break when I hear of synagogues being defaced, of Natives being murdered with no ripples on the water. There’s an unlimited amount of times I can flinch when I hear things like, “You’re too pretty to be Jewish,” “You don’t look Native American, what’s your blood percentage?”, “Native Americans don’t exist anymore — we hunted them into extinction,” or “You’re a minority goldmine, I bet you’re accepted to everything you apply for.”

Being Native and Jewish means that people look at me and decide which I really am, and I’m usually boxed up and shelved as Jewish — because people don’t like their Jews to be anything other than Eastern European; because I look more like a stereotype of a Jew than of a Native; because I can speak more Yiddish and Hebrew than I can Blackfeet. Never mind that the Jewish community isn’t as white as the driven snow; that there is no “right” way to look Native, let alone Jewish; that Native languages (and religions, and cultures, and our right to exist) were beaten out of us, made illegal to practice until well into the 20th century.

But when I visited a concentration camp in Germany and left dreidels on the frozen earth, my whole heart was breaking — not only half. When I read about the boarding school era and its survivors, the effects still echoing in Native children today, my whole heart was breaking — not only half. And when I light the Hanukkah candles and murmur the prayers to my audience of a single (extremely bored) cat, my whole heart glows — not only half. When I read articles about the success of the Blackfeet language immersion program, my whole heart glows — not only half.

Being Native and Jewish means that people look at me and try to force me to decide which I really am, and I’m usually left straddling both lanes, because I am both. Every single day, I wake up into a world where, if it weren’t for those meddling kids otherwise known as my parents, I wouldn’t even be alive. Every single day, I wake up into a world that strives to split me into two halves, strives to make me choose one, strives to make me forget the other. And every single day, I wake up into a world and choose to keep sewing those two halves together, going over the rips and tears torn into them and making them stronger, making them last another day.

 

Leah Tribbett is a recent graduate of West Chester University.