antisemitic persecution¶

After centuries of antisemitic persecution, my great-grandparents, scattered across eastern and central Europe, all fled west. The last of them to arrive in the US did so just a few years before the Bolshevik revolution. I often wonder about the other way things could have gone. I obviously don't blame them for wanting to get out and build a better life. Generations of oppression are no small trauma: raids, murder, theft, rape, restricted movement, exclusion from social life, and utter economic despondency were their lot in life. And yet... there will always be a part of me that thinks "If only they had been a bit more brave, they could have been revolutionaries." They could have been the first generation of a new era, ushering in the world's first socialist state. I could have a proud Soviet heritage. Or they could have been slaughtered in the white terror. Or the Nazi invasion.

Either way, I would have been born during Shock Therapy, and my lot in life would have been a lot worse. It's no use thinking about alternate history. But it does still guide my priorities. I don't think I could ever make that same choice for myself. I couldn't just pack up and flee to greener pastures, literally or metaphorically. I have to stay and fight -- because the fight will happen with or without me. And I don't want to be the chump who abandoned the cause.