Denial

I spent most of Sunday afternoon working on the 1938-1950 segment of my 'after hours' project, after a morning pulled down by n undertow of anti-Semitic trolling around the Mapping Jewish London project I've been part of for the last 18-months. I don't often talk publicly (unless asked to) about the specific work I do outside of my regular gig. I love my work (I better; it will be 30 years next year that I began in the Museum/Libraries/Archives world).  But this project - with all of its idiosyncrasies - is one that I am quite proud of and in point in time where no one could do a symposium in person, I thought we did a decent (not amazing but decent) job of community engagement. 

I keep thinking I'll get immune to the hate, at the very least not take it personally. I mean, I am both 'Jewish' and an 'Archivist,' so why take umbrege? And yet...no. That skittering of apprehension, that sense of never being quite safe or welcome at the dinner table that Laurie Colwin wrote so beautifully about in Happy All the Time, that feeling is real. 

The juxtaposition of Holocaust denial whilst sorting through passports with 'Juden' stamps, well let's just say, it made me spikey to be near. Add to that the inch and a half gash across my forehead, well, yeah. Such is life, I suppose.