"Why do they hate us so much?"

I was asked this question by a friend.  She was not crying but she was close to it. She looked pale.
The Senior Cat was not around and would not have known what had happened anyway. He would sympathise but it is the sort of thing which worries him too much these days. He wouldn't be back for a while so I said firmly,
     "You need a cup of tea."
I made one.
She's Jewish. The latest shooting atrocity in America had completely shattered her. She knows people there - not well but she had visited the synagogue some years ago when on a business trip with her husband.  He's away right now and she needed to talk to someone. Her neighbours are "lovely but they don't understand". 
No, they probably don't.  
She didn't want to talk to people in her congregation either. I could understand that too.
All she wanted then was a bit of company. We talked. We talked about other things...her garden, her son - currently at a conference in Israel, her mother in South Africa. 
Her husband is a doctor. They came here many years ago. They had to leave South Africa in a hurry because her husband broke the law with respect to apartheid - and saved someone's life in the process. As a nurse she helped. It isn't something they regret having done and they have both said they would do it again despite the consequences. 
They live quietly for no other reason than that is the way they prefer life. She volunteers in a charity shop run by a Christian organisation. Her husband plays in an amateur orchestra that often performs in churches.
But they still get excluded from things.
      "I don't know how to cook their sort of food,"someone in the orchestra told someone else I know. It meant they were not invited to a barbecue along with the rest of the orchestra. Was it just an excuse? I have no idea.
For years her husband was not invited by colleagues to do anything on Fridays. They assumed he would be going to synagogue.
Their short street has organised a Christmas party for everyone for many years. They have never been invited. 
I know the people responsible for organising this year's party. H... was in the "cheap" shop buying supplies for it the other day - while they were half price. She said she felt badly that this couple always had to miss out. I managed to keep calm and suggest that they be issued an invitation.
    "It might surprise you," I told her, "They don't have to accept but remember you are celebrating the birth of a Jew."