Victimhood is wonderful

if you can get people to side with you and tell you how awful it is that people "hate" you for being "A" or "X" or "something". It gets you so much attention. People feel sorry for you. They tell you that. You might even get some money for  your "hurt" feelings.

I had a good friend here yesterday. She was upset because someone had just said something very nasty to her. Yes, she was hurt but she is also a sensible person.

I know her well enough to leave her to make her own cup of tea while I went on line to see if the book she wanted was available on any second-hand site. I found the book. I asked if she was prepared to pay what the seller was asking and ordered the book. She wanted to pay me there and then. I told her no. 

"I trust you," I told her. I do trust her. She will pick up ten cents and look around to see if someone has dropped it. If there is nobody around she will put it in the charity box. She is that sort of person.

We sat at the table for a bit and talked. She has family in Israel and family in Ukraine. Her children were born here. They have never been to either place. They are not likely to go at present.

"I am not sure they will ever go," she told me sadly. "I would like for them to see but not to live. This is the best country for them."

And for her? It is so much harder. She will not see her home countries again. Her accent tells everyone she is an incomer. She and her late husband worked eighty hour weeks in the business her two sons now run. They never made themselves out to be "victims" when they came with no more than the clothes they were wearing. The problem is that she is Jewish and that is apparently some sort of sin. It is an even greater sin because they succeeded, through hard work, in owning a successful business. Her house is "nice". It is in a "good area". For anyone else this would be "success" but she is Jewish and it is somehow "wrong". Why? 

I know there is a stronger "antisemitism" movement here than many people want to recognise. There are people I know who have surprised me at their views. When I have tried to tell them that by no means all Jews, especially Jews here, support what the Israeli government is doing they just shrug and tell me "they are all the same" and "they feel entitled". Really? 

The person who came to see me yesterday is Jewish but she had just finished her regular time in a Christian charity shop which does a great deal to support Muslim refugees.  The person who berated her was of a different faith who sees themselves as a victim because they could not have something for nothing.  

Think about that.