"I don’t like Jewish people."
The girl, who is only 8, recently spoke these words to my girlfriend's 12-year-old daughter. She spoke them twice, actually – once during her sport practice and once at a competition.
"I don't like Jewish people."
Unsurprisingly, my friend and her daughter were rattled. The daughter didn’t know how to respond to the girl. Because in her world, as in mine, experiences with anti-Semitism are uncommon.
In fact, I can remember only one time that someone said something anti-Semitic to me, when I was a waitress in Washington, D.C., in 1992. After delivering beers to two girls, one said to the other, "Don't be a Jew. Tip her!"
To which I replied, "I'm a Jew, and I don't want your tip."
And that was that. No one has vandalized my home or my synagogue or the gravestones of my relatives with phrases like "Do good to the country, kill a Jew," or "Death to the Jews, they are human waste." No one boarded a school bus I was riding shouting, "Heil Hitler! Kill the Jews!" No doctors have refused to treat me, telling me I should go to Gaza for a few hours to get rid of the pain. I have not been raped or beaten up by 15 individuals because I was Jewish. No one has spray painted swastikas on my car or my front door. I have not been held hostage or murdered while food shopping on Friday afternoon.
But too many other Jews have. All the above incidents occurred within the last year in Argentina, Australia, France, Britain, Belgium and Brazil. Violent anti-Semitic events have been happening all over the world with more ease, more ferocity and more regularity.
And it's terrifying.
I have close relatives who live in Paris and London and they are all feeling the anti-Semitism much more acutely, in Paris especially. Since the attack at the HyperCacher market, my cousin tells me that the "Je Suis Charlie" solidarity uniting all groups in France in mourning has splintered, and the anti-Semitism has gotten much worse.
"It's very bad here. It's like it's fashionable to hate Jews," she says.
The military are now guarding Jewish schools and synagogues, and she hears an incident on the news regularly.
"Every Jewish friend I have has a plan B," she says. "When I walk down the street I keep thinking, do I look Jewish? Are people looking at me? It feels backwards. It's unbelievable."
In the United States, I have only lived in large urban areas with healthy Jewish communities. I went to schools with decent Jewish populations. Our boys have been fortunate to live in this Jew-friendly bubble as well, with no armed guards greeting them as they walk into Rodeph Shalom every Sunday.
Even so, I think the boys should be prepared, should they have an encounter like my girlfriend's daughter. When I told them about what happened, they were surprised.
"A little girl said that?" 10-year-old Maxon asked, wide-eyed.
They didn't know children could think such things. I explained that often prejudices start very young, and they are learned from parents. Then I asked how they would respond to an anti-Semitic comment.
"I would be so dumbfounded I wouldn't know what to say," said Maxon.
"If the kid was my friend I would say, 'I'm Jewish so I guess you can't be friends with me,' " said Ezra, my 8-year-old.
I told him that was a good response. Maxon then offered a string of insults to hurl back at the person. I said that instead of being mean, he could ask why they think that way.
"You could say, 'I'm Jewish and that's a very unkind thing to say.'"
I hope they never have to use any of those responses, but the reality is they probably will. I am starting to question my sense of security about being openly Jewish – even here – because this 8-year-old girl has no problem letting her friends know how she feels about Jews. I can only assume her parents have the same comfort in their ignorance and hatred.
And they live much too close to us.