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So, there was a boy in my class, back in the 6th grade. I’ll call him Janthony to keep his identity a secret (wink wink). The thing about Janthony, is that he was new to the province and he didn’t take too kindly to Jewish people. And the thing about ME is that, we’ll, I’m Jewish. He didn’t know I was Jewish. He would often go around saying insensitive things… It wasn’t very fun. Then, one day, I came home from school, and noticed my neighbour (that I had never seen or met before, because they just moved in) was leaving. I looked closer and my heart dropped as I realized it was Janthony! I then sighed my life out. About a week later, I was sitting with my friend, across from Janthony, who was playing video games with his friend. His friend knew I was Jewish. So, they lost the game or got killed or something, and Janthony lets out a loud, angry “stupid Jew”. A couple of silent moments passed until his friend tapped his shoulder and whispered something while looking at me. Janthony furrowed his eyebrows and looked at me, then back at his friend, then back at me. Then, the colour drained completely out of his face. He slowly turned back to his game, throwing me glances. About three minutes later, he turns to me and says: “so, how does it feel being Jewish?”. The question jump scared me. I was so surprised that anyone would ask that question. I stuttered a bit before finally answering: “it feels fine.”. He nodded as if he was an interviewer. He then asked: “I heard you can’t eat certain things.”. To which I replied: “Yeah. I can’t eat dairy and meat at the same time, or pork.”. He gasped as if there was a scandal and said: “so you can’t have cheese?!?!”. I was appalled. Confused, I answered: “No no, I can have cheese…just not cheese and meat at the same time.”. To which he answered: “so you can’t have pizza?!?!”. I was now getting tired. I answered: “I can have pizza, just not pizza with meat.”. I could see that he finally understood a bit. He said: “so, you’ve had cheese before, right?”. I failed to see the relevance of the question, but I answered anyway. I said: “yes”. He nodded and said “Do you like cheese”. …. Once again, I failed to see the relevance of the question. I answered “yes” and he just nodded and went back to his game. I thanked god he wouldn’t talk to me again, but I was wrong. He turned back around and said: “hey, can I show you something?”. I nodded telling myself: “what’s the harm?”. But his friend stopped me and said: “No! He’s going to shows you something about concentration camps!!”. I didn’t know what to do, so I just said “okay” and went back to talking with my friend. Those strange questions continued throughout the 6th grade, though. Glad I got to share at least one of them!8964 copyright protection248ＰＥＮＡＮＡHJBhFVpKB0 維尼

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