Being a Jewish girl at a public school has always been a challenge for me; unfortunately, I experienced antisemitism throughout middle school and high school. When I was a freshman, I shared a study hall with my older sister, Lily, who was a junior at the time. At the front of the class, there was a whiteboard that students were allowed to draw on. One day, a girl wrote an antisemitic comment on the board that read, “Merry Christmas, but not Happy Hanukkah.” When I saw the message, everything around me turned red. I could hear my chest pounding. I was beyond angry, yet I was too afraid to do anything about it. I looked over to my sister, and she was upset too, but also didn’t feel the strength to do anything about it. At the dinner table, my sister and I discussed what had happened in study hall that afternoon. Our parents told both of us that if we didn't speak up, then the girl would get away with it. Thus, she would never learn her lesson if she hadn't known how much her comment offended us. So, my sister and I decided to talk to her and the teacher about it. Since I was just a freshman, I let my older sister take charge. She walked up to the teacher, shoulders back, and declared, “What you wrote on that board yesterday was extremely offensive. How do you even think that it's ok to write such a thing?” I smiled when Lily said this, proud that I had a sister who wasn’t afraid to stand up. Unfortunately, many people who are full of hate like to act dumb, as if they never did what they were being accused of; thus, this girl chose to be one of those people. With that conversation not going as planned, my sister and I went to the principal's office and told them what happened. The principal took the situation from there, and the girl was punished with lunch detention for a week. Thankfully, she never did anything antisemitic again. 

Reminiscing about this story reminds me of how important it is to speak up. Everyone else was too scared to do so because the societal norm was to stay quiet. But my sister and I decided to ignore the norm and make a change for the better. After standing up, I felt a sense of inner peace, knowing that I had done the right thing. According to Emerson, an American transcendentalist who wrote the novel Self-Reliance, “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood” (Emerson 4). Emerson believed that all of the incredible people in this world began when they gave up on societal norms and did the unthinkable. People such as Jesus and Newton were individuals who weren’t afraid to be different, which is what made these individuals so special. Therefore, I hope that in my life, I choose to stand up instead of hiding in the shadows. Everyone thinks that being “misunderstood” is a bad thing, but I believe that being misunderstood is truly a beautiful thing. It means that you are a person who does stuff out of the ordinary. A person who is unique, special, and inspiring. A person who has the power to change the world. And the next time someone says something antisemitic, I won’t stay silent. I am proud to be Jewish, and I am proud to be misunderstood.