Io Sono Ebreo

As anyone from Northfield, Vermont can tell you, I am used to being the only Jew in town.  However, I am not used to Anti-Semitic and Anti-American graffiti staring back at me from every desk, every stairwell, inside each elevator, and on all of the walls of my dormitory at a major university, yet surprisingly, this is what I see every day here in Trieste.  

I am not sure exactly who writes this hate speech all over the place, and I won't speculate as I live in a very diverse student community.  However, I find it surprising that the school does nothing to clean the graffiti or distance themselves from it in any way.  I am all for free speech, but I think there is a line.  Written on the inside door of my elevator:

Bush=Hitler

Hitler fucked your mother

Death to Israel

Death to America

America is Darkness

Fuck Bush

Long-live Palestine

The one person who seems to agree with me that the graffiti has gotten out of hand is my Palestinian friend Mohammed, who is undoubtedly the nicest person I have ever met.  He will literally stop in the middle of a meal to walk across a crowded cafeteria and say hello or ask me how my day is going, and I don't think he has ever allowed himself to walk through a door or sit down before I have done so.  When I told him I had family in Israel, he didn't treat me any differently.  When I confirmed the fact that I was an American Jew, he only wanted to ask me questions.  

Mohammed and I had a long discussion the other night, and we agreed that people on both sides of the conflict need to talk to each other more. He explained that if more of his friends met real-live American Jews, they might find out that we're not all clever, rich, lobbyists, and that if more American Jews met real-live Palestinians who have seen atrocities that we could never imagine, we might be able to better understand each other.

The worst part is, I have never been to Israel, but if I wanted to, I could go there right now, even with my sorry excuse for a passport.  Mohammed is not allowed to enter his homeland.