Raise Your Hand If You're Jewish

I'm Jewish.

And, damn it, I'm proud of it. I've never seen any reason to hide who I am on this front, which is probably why the door to my room is covered in David shield garland with my name in Hebrew and a hamsa as the focal point, which is nicely complimented by the golden mezuzah that is affixed to my door frame.

So I don't quite understand why the following incident upset me so thoroughly.

There is a quote board in our corridor, right next to our RA's resident. Throughout the semester, all of the girls on our floor add to it, scrawling the various funny and, at times, ridiculous/stupid things that come out of our mouths in magic marker on the purple piece of butcher's paper.

Thus far, I have already made the quote board and one morning a few days ago, walking past it on the way to the bathroom, I couldn't help but notice the text written in a couple of places in black ink, darkened out by the same marker, with arrows pointing to my name.

It didn't concern me at first. I just figured one of my friends had written a prophane joke and our RA had scribbled it out for propriety issues, as both are known to do. So, over the course of the next few days, I casually brought it up to all of my friends, asking if they were the culprit. All denied responsibility, and shared my growing curiosity as to what was written there.

Finally, I went to our RA and asked her if she was the one who had "blacked" out the writing. She said she wasn't. That was it. Now painfully curious, my friends and I all decided to pull the paper off of the wall and hold it up to the light to see if we could make out what the person just had to say.

After squinting at the text for a couple of seconds, I was shocked at what I deciphered:

"Fuck Jews." "Dirty Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew."

Who would write this? Was it a visitor to our dorm, or had it been one of the girls on our floor whom I am less acquainted with? All possibilities were equally disturbing.

My friends, who had all gathered in a semicircle around me, each took about two steps back, wide-eyed and gasping. I dismissed the whole thing in the best way I could think of.

"Well, that's petty." I chuckled half-heartedly before retreating to my room where I could sit and think in silent disappointment. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand this kind of hatred; Something tells me it's not something understandable at all.

Every once in a while, I find myself losing faith in humanity, little by little.