Invisible minorities

Jet lag is a funny old thing, isn’t it? Here I am at 3.40am, wide awake, wondering whether to try to sleep or just acknowledge that sleep isn’t meant to happen tonight. I’ve just taken a melatonin. Do they work? 

I notice that Felix Klein, Germany’s antisemitism chief, is now advising Jewish people in the country not to wear their kippot in public. The remark reflects the sad fact that antisemitism is, yet again, on the rise, right across the world. 

I suspect that Klein, through his comments, was actually trying to make it clear that there’s a very large problem in Germany which hasn’t yet been resolved. The sad fact is that, in certain communities, Jewish people are not safe. The sadder fact is that all of this is happening in Germany. 

Here’s the rub: Jewish people, like members of the LGBT people, are a largely invisible minority. Unless a Jewish person “presents” as Jewish, by wearing a kippah, a sheital or a mogen David, or emerging from a synagogue on an early Saturday afternoon, he or she has the ability to blend into society, or to use a term which irritates me beyond anything, “pass.” An LGBT person, similarly, is only largely recognisable to others if he rubs society’s nose in his particular affliction by holding hands with another man in public, or dressing and speaking in a stereotypical manner. 

It is, thankfully, becoming more and more unacceptable to tell a gay man that if he presents as gay then he only has himself to blame if he gets beaten up. I used to be told this all the time, to the level that I was sickened by my own innate campiness and even changed the pitch I spoke at to hide my sexuality. I think back to childhood teachers telling me to “try not to lisp” or hauling me up in front of an older group of students and telling me I ran like a fairy. I was banned several times from playing with girls at school and, on one occasion, my mum was told that if I didn’t stop playing with girls I’d end up gay. I have always been proud of my Mum’s response to this little nugget of hideousness. At the time she was a CND activist and said, “I’d rather he were gay than a nuclear scientist!” My favourite part of that particular story, in retrospect, is the fact that, I’m her eyes, the opposite of gay was a nuclear scientist! 

Anyway, the roundabout statement I’m making here is that, time and time again, statistics have proved that people are more likely to show prejudice about minority groups if they don’t actually know anyone from the community that they fear. The people who complain most vociferously about immigration are often those who don’t actually know immigrants. People who routinely post online bile about women wearing the hijab, are less likely to know a Muslim woman. And so it goes on... 

In the fight against prejudice, visibility is crucial, and that becomes a great deal more important if the minority group is essentially invisible. If we don’t demonstrate the breadth of a community, the belief in stereotypes will continue to prosper. People only started to accept gay men when they saw us as more than mini-John Inmans and realised there were as many different types of gay men as there are human beings. 

In my view, the same is true of Jewish people. It became a personal policy, some time ago, to put my kippa proudlyon my head every time I left the house to sing in synagogue. I opt not take it off again until I get back home - or Shabbat comes down (whichever happens first.) As a result of this rule, I’ve been to my god daughter’s birthday party wearing a kippah, I’ve started quizzes, I’ve even walked into a church in Northampton to rehearse Rutter’s Gloria. I do this, not just because if someone’s in the market for having a pop at a Jewish person, I’d much rather they tried it on with me than a young lad who might be frightened, but because it means that people will see me in the kippah, going about my ordinary business, not looking overly religious, and realise that there are all sorts of different types of Jewish people. Religious ones. Atheists. Zionists. Anti-Zionists. Women who like to sit up in the balcony. Others that would rather be rabbis. Left wing Jews. Right wing Jews. LGBT Jewish people. Black, Chinese and Indian Jewish people. Rich ones. Poor ones. Frum ones. Disabled ones. I could go on and on... 

So, in summing up, yes, it may be sensible advice to protect yourself from the ghastly people in society by not wearing the kippah, or the hijab or an AIDS ribbon, but unless people are brave enough to be visible, then society will never change.

So, when you’re wondering why comedian Tom Allen cracks so many jokes about his sexuality, wondering why my husband talks so much about his HIV status, or are tempted to think that Jewish people are rubbing our noses in it by wearing kippot, remember this blog. And remember that open-mindedness can only come if people are brave enough to step out of the shadows.