Less than 1%

My name is Erika F. Shore. I am an actress, a writer, a cosplayer, and more. One thing about me that is important is that I am Jewish. I am not the most religious Jew, I do not follow all my customs and traditions as well as I should be, but I am Jewish non the less. I am proud of who I am and my religion because it is more than just that. Being a Jew is not just a religion it's a culture, a whole life style.

And yet it is something I have taken for granted. Something I never had to fear for the most part, until October 27, 2018. I live in Pennsylvania and while I am on the eastern part of the state, the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre shooting may have happened in the middle of the state, but it is the first time in my life that I have been afraid to be a Jew here in America.

I have always felt lucky to be Jewish in America. I never had to fear for anything, I never had to worry about anything. My whole life I always had everything I could ever want and need. The worst I ever had was someone once said to me 'Hitler had the right idea about killing the Jews'. I was eight years old and the person who said it to me was a little boy about my age. Now granted he may have had no idea what he was talking about, but it didn't shock me any less and in fact I had no idea what he was talking about. I was a little girl and so I went to learn about what the Holocaust was and what Hitler had one to my people. I had no idea what I was in for.

Did you know that less than one percent of the world's population is Jewish?

How about that 1.7 percent of the United States population is Jewish and that 27 percent of those Jews do not consider themselves as Jewish?

Do you know what it is like to be Jewish in America?

Most of you have probably answered no to all of these questions. Since the massacre, I have been thinking more about who I am as Jew and more about how little and ignorant I really am about my own culture. In fact I am afraid, not only of my ignorance but of even being able to say I am proud to be a Jew.

Jews are celebrating the 5,779th year. We have a rich, vast culture, and yet I have never felt so alone as Jew. And I grew up in a very Christian area. When all my friends were going to see Santa Claus for Christmas photos, I was going to Sunday Hebrew School learning about the Macabees and the miracle of the oil lasting eight days in the menorah at the temple in Jerusalem. When my friends when to Sunday services for Easter, I was learning about the the slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt, the miracle of Moses surviving the rivers of the Nile, and growing up to free his people with G-D's gifts and miracles. I spent two to three days a week in at the synagogue learning Hebrew and studying for my Bat Mitzvah, never really knowing what it was and what it would mean.

Yes I still cared about the Holocaust, I read many books on it and being Jewish by the time I was twelve, even insisted on going to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. before my Bat Mitzvah because I had to see what I was fighting for, why it was so important for me to be proud of being Jewish and not wishing I was like my friends. And it worked.

I am normally always the only Jew among my friends and I've grown tired of correcting them when I tell them I do not celebrate Christmas. I have learned to accept it. But I hate not having anyone to share Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year with. It hurts knowing that I have no one to help me through the trials of Yom Kippur, the day of repentance. I wish I had someone to celebrate the miracles of Hanukkah and Passover with. Yes I have my family, but I have few friends who do celebrate and honor these holidays and traditions.

And yet I live in a country of Neo Nazis. The shooting at a synagogue, well... it was the first time I understood how my friends felt. I never knew the fear my LGBTQA+ friends felt after the bar shooting in Florida. I never knew the anger my black friends felt after Trayvon Martin's death. I empathized with them because I knew that these monsters who killed innocents were wrong, but I never knew the severity of it. Not until my own people in the country I was born in were slaughtered once more like animals.

We weren't on the streets, we weren't in a public bar. We were in a house of worship, a place where we should always be safe. And what does our president say? He believes that there should have been armed guards at the synagogue. That "If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. If they had some kind of protection within the temple it could have been a much better situation. They didn’t." Yes this is a direct quote of his. No one should be afraid to walk out of their home in fear of getting shot at. I shouldn't have to wear a bullet proof vest inside my house of worship and should not expect my rabbi to have a gun hidden away.

No one should. I am not political, but I will not stay silent anymore about how upset and angry I am by this.