Unhappy news

I am a big sister. (You probably didn’t know that.)

This means that I am over protective of my little brother, and that my least favorite game as a child was Monkey in the Middle. Too often my brother ended up the monkey, laughing delightedly at being included while the others laughed at him for not being able to catch the ball. That game made me so mad.

When I started making plans to go as far away as possible for college, my brother was the most against it. I thought he just didn’t understand that I am at the age where it’s time to leave the nest, so to speak. What I didn’t understand was that he still needs me. When I left, he was one of the most outspoken about how he was going to sit in my room and read, so long as I don’t mind. He’s probably the only one who has done that.

I don’t keep in contact with him as much as, say, my parents, but he knows I’m an e-mail or Gmail chat away. Last Friday as I checked my e-mail coming back from Munich, I was surprised to find an e-mail from him. He had sent me a “hey, what’s up” e-mail the week before, so I didn’t expect to hear much from him so soon afterward. The subject of this e-mail was the name of a friend of ours, leading me to worry that something had happened to him.

Something had happened to him all right, but it was something that shook my brother badly as well. He started off the e-mail saying, “I don’t know why you need to know this, but…” I almost laughed at that, because it’s exactly as self-effacing a beginning as I myself might have written. He went on to tell me what had happened: someone had vandalized our friend’s home. Not only TPing, but the words “F%$^ Jews” and swastikas were drawn on the lawn.

My brother, almost 14 years old, I learned later hasn’t been talking about this at home. Instead he came to me, overprotective elder sister, while I was on vacation, telling me that he was really scared that this is still happening, that hate crimes like this could be committed in our little town. Why am I not as much surprised?

I feel terrible, being so far away when my family needs me to be nearby. I just want to give my brother a hug. To give our friend a hug. I’m excited again that this friend is coming to Europe in June with my old German teacher, and I’m going to try my best to meet them here. I talked to my mom recently and apparently he, too, is scared. Scared that he might get beat up at school. The high school I went to. The high school my brother will go to in the fall.

That’s the part that stuns me. That at this high school, a dear friend of mine is worried about getting beat up because of how he was born. He isn’t even 100% Jewish, nor is he particularly religious (I don’t think). Neither are we, but to someone who doesn’t understand? We probably seem really Jewish. My dad is the only one in my family who’s “truly” Jewish, and we make up our own traditions out of Jewish and Christian holidays. We don’t go to a church or synagogue. But to people who simply hate Jewish people, does that matter?

You don’t think that that kind of hate still exists. I was shocked, at least. I thought the haters had moved on to LGBTQ people, not Jews. I thought we were over hating Jews. And yet I look back on my own behavior in very Catholic Austria: I am always very cautious as to whom I allow to know that I am not Catholic, or even Christian, and that I celebrate Jewish holidays. I am always wary about whether or not what I say will be judged, and that I will be stoned for my sins. (Or just hit on the head by a newspaper by a stranger, which we heard has happened.) So here, I can understand this kind of thing happening. I’ve just heard so many bad things about Austria. But in the little town at home?

I wish I could be there to give my family and friends some strength. I wish there were something I could do.