[ LET’S GET MARRIED ! ] — lhs <3
PAIRING. lee heeseung!student X femreader!student !
SYN. the uni is giving away free dorms! under one condition, in order to save your desperate broke ass student’s life, you’d have to get married. and who’d be the lucky person to marry you if not your childhood friend? no feelings involved of course!…..right?
GENRE. he fell first but she fell harder, basically being in denial for feelings at first, childhood friends to a married couple, fluff fluff fluff !
WARNINGS. mentions of getting married(obv), rest of enha and lesserafim’s yunjin & chaewon are in it too, mentions on having kids(no, there will be no kids here its nothing serious!!), mentions of food, being broke because of uni student life. (pls do lmk if i missed something!) || NOT PROOFREAD AND VERY POORLY WRITTEN!!
WORD-COUNT. 5.1k+ (damn!)
NOTE. this is me being extremely sorry for not continuing my heeseung smau by releasing a heeseung oneshot yay!! i actually got the inspiration from HAPPINESS (one of my fav kdramas!) please leave some feedbacks!! i really wanna know what you thought about it<3
when you were younger, you’ve made a wishing list to you in the future, as soon as you turn an adult.
three important wishes were ;
first, never go broke while being a uni student.
second, never get married before the age of 25.
third, never ever fall in love with your best friend since childhood, aka lee heeseung.
first one is already being a huge failure. younger you would be definitely disappointed in uni student you, not that you care that much, but being a broke student sucks.
“my parents are literally about to kick me out, i get that, i’m a 22 years old uni student who’s still living up their asses, they probably want some peaceful and quiet life” you smacked your head over the lunch table, both of your friends looking at you concerned.
“maybe it’s time for you to pay for the dor-“
“never! yunjin, tell her how broke i am”
“she has like 1 dollar in her bank account, she’s still taking loans from her parents” yunjin nodded and you rolled your eyes.
“you didn’t have to go that far”
“oh i did”
“oh i know! what if you just start working?” chaewon raised her voice a bit.
“i have no time!”
“excuses excuses blah blah blah” she mocked you.
“look at heeseung for example, he works in a part time job at the convenience store right next to uni” yunjin pointed out.
you searched through the lunch hall and found the one person you’ve been looking for, lee heeseung.
you’ve been stuck to him ever since childhood, with your mothers being the biggest best friends you’ve ever seen, it was pretty hard to not see him every day in your young days.
both of your mothers even got pregnant at the same time, and gave birth around the same time, you’re two days younger than him.
your photo album is full with pictures of you and him, and so are the hanged photos on your house wall.
your mother and his mother were your biggest shippers, forcing you both to hug each other and even wear matching clothes.
your elementary school memories are filled with heeseung next to you and the whole class shipping you two.
highschool days weren’t better either, guys who wanted to try a move on you were always so scared of heeseung, they were so sure you and him are dating, with the amount of glares they got from him it was really hard to think otherwise.
your highschool crushes rejected you, always giving the excuse of not wanting to be in a relationship, hiding the fact that heeseung warned them that if they’ll say yes he’ll make sure they never see a daylight again.
he was joking, really. he’s not the violent type, and he couldn’t really explain why was he feeling so jealous whenever he saw you confessing to a guy who isn’t him.
heeseung got used to watching you from afar and protecting you, and you got used to search him everywhere you go even in crowded places and having his company ever since childhood.
“hee!” you called and waved at him, he waved at you back with a smile on his face.
“i swear if i didn’t know both of you were childhood friends i would’ve think you’re a married couple or something” chaewon rolled her eyes and you scoffed.
heeseung continued his way to his usual table with his friends.
“thinking about ways to confess your love to her?” jake smirked and heeseung shook away his thoughts.
“hm? who?” he asked.
“it’s obvious who! don’t play dumb come on!” sunghoon playfully pushed the older one.
“we’re talking about Y/N! everyone in uni are talking about you, even those who know nothing about the two of you” jay remarked.
“there’s nothing between us, we’re just friends” heeseung shrugged.
“and i’m queen elizabeth” sunoo tsked.
heeseung rolled his eyes and began to eat, “you know, even if i did have a crush on her, why would she even accept my confession?”
“ohhhh~” his friends teased.
“it’s kind of obvious she likes you, we’ve watched her ever since we became friends with you, and the way she looks at you is just different” jungwon shrugged and ni-ki nodded.
“she’s always searching you in a crowded room, as if you’re her guardian angel and she only needs you in her life in order for it to be perfect” ni-ki then stole a few bites of heeseung’s meal.
“hey! not cool” heeseung scoffed and ni-ki giggled.
“it’s not bad to have a crush on your childhood friend, you know?” jake smiled, “sometimes all you need is a miracle” jay added.
“hey, let’s go on a work search for yo-“
“no no no yunjin not you too!!” you sobbed, “i have no time to work and i need to search for the cheapest dorm, a one i can actually afford as soon as possible”
“why don’t you just go and ask heeseung for help” chaewon shrugged.
“it’s not that easy, i don’t want him to worry about it too much, he works hard for his money too” you pout and they nodded.
“by the way! how’s the money for the uni dorms is going?” jake asked heeseung who was busy fighting with ni-ki over his food.
“i’m just a few shifts away from getting enough money, i’ll ask y/n to become my roommate as soon as— what?” he noticed his friends looking at him.
“y/n and you? being roommates?” sunoo teased.
“hey, me and y/n spent all our childhood together, my house is her house and her house is mine, it has been like that for a while” heeseung sighed and they all nodded hesitatly.
“still, you said y/n’s parents told you about her not being able to pay for the uni dorms, are you really willing to pay it all?” jungwon asked.
heeseung shrugged and took a bite from his food again, “it’s either that or she’ll get kicked out by her parents”
“you really are her guardian angel” ni-ki whispered.
“good morning! you have afternoon classes today right?” your mother woke you up with a smile smeared all over her face.
“mhhm” you hummed, still trying to adjust the bright sunlight that hit your face.
“i need you to bring some medicine for ms lee! she’s been sick and i bought her some things” your mother helped you to get up and shoved you a bag, “here”
“can you please just let me get—“
“you can get ready at theirs! quickly quickly go!” she pushed you outside of your house. damn, she really does hope you’d get out as soon as possible.
she was right though, heeseung’s house is your house, and your house is his. you have a few clothes and even a toothbrush at his house and he has the same at yours, getting ready there was never a problem to you.
a walk to their house is even less than 5 minutes so you weren’t worried about someone from your neighborhood getting a jumpscare and thinking you’re some kind of a zombie.
you took out the keys and opened the door, heeseung was sitting in the kitchen and eating his breakfast.
“don’t ask, been a rough morning, where’s mom by the way?” you asked him and he pointed at her room. you got used to call his mom your mom too.
you saw her sleeping so you left the bag and the medicine next to her, leaving a note saying good morning and instructions of how to take the medicine, as if she doesn’t know all of that.
“you have afternoon classes too?” you asked heeseung while getting ready. he was in his room, lying on his bed while playing some games on his phone.
“not really, i don’t have any class today” he chuckled.
“since when don’t you have any classes today?”
“ever since i decided that im too tired to go to uni”
you rolled your eyes and threw one of the pillows at him, “don’t be stupid! get up and get ready to go!”
he giggled and shook his head, “i’m joking, i took evening classes for today”
you pressed your lips together and nodded, you don’t know why but hearing him giggling always made your heart skip a beat, but you don’t have any feelings for him, like, at all. right?
afternoon classes started and before you knew it, it was already lunch time.
“y/n! you won’t believe it!!” chaewon shout.
“what is it?” you shout at her back even though you were sitting right in front of her.
“i found you a solution! you can get a free dorm!” she shout back.
“what!” you shout.
“can you stop shouting! for god’s sake you’re literally a 1 cm away from each other” yunjin, who was covering her ears yelled.
you and chaewon shared an eye contact and froze. yunjin is so scary when she’s angry.
“continue please” she coughed and let chaewon continue what she had to say.
“it might seem crazy what i’m about to say,” chaewon sighed, “the uni is giving away free dorms—“
“no way omg omg omg please tell me i’m dreaming this is not happening right now right this is not real righ—“
“under one condition!” she cut you off and took her phone out of her pocket to read the terms.
“in order to get a free dorm, you have to have at least one option applied ;
one, you’re younger than 18. two, you’ve been scoring A+ on ALL of your exams and three, you’re between the ages 18-25 and got married, or engaged” she finished reading and turned off her phone.
“but chaewon, i’m not younger than eighteen” you complained and rest your head on your arm who was lying on the table.
“nor scoring A+ on ALL of your exams” yunjin added.
“thanks yunjin, i needed that”
“always here to help”
“then you know what’s left” chaewon smirked and you sat up, looking at her with innocent eyes.
“no” you let out.
“oh yes”
“i have no one to marry to” you argued.
“yes you do!” yunjin replied.
“i do not!”
chaewon and yunjin raised a brow and crossed their arms, “you don’t?”
as heeseung entered the uni entrance, you ran towards his direction and stopped in front of him.
“y/n why are you still here—“
“let’s get married” you said it out loud in front of everyone who was around.
your surroundings suddenly became quiet and everyone was staring at you two, starting to whisper and waiting for heeseung’s answer.
instead of answering he grabbed your wrist and dragged you out of the entrance into a place in the garden next to the uni.
the walk there was making you so nervous and anxious, what if you were a bit too much? asking your childhood friend to marry you just to get a free dorm? are you that desperate?
when he finally stopped, he let go of your wrist and cupped your cheeks, looking straight into your eyes.
“what did you say?” he asked, his eyes looking for any sign or answer from you.
“i said, let’s get married”
heeseung could’ve swore his heart skipped a beat because he for real felt like he died at that spot.
“let me explain!” you said before he could respond.
“the uni are giving out free dorms to anyone who’s between the ages of 18-25 and is married or engaged” you sighed.
heeseung let go of his hold and sighed, looking down and closing his eyes.
you really didn’t mean that genuinely, did you? something in him really hoped you did.
“hee?” you asked, biting your lower lips, suddenly feeling more anxious than before
“sure, let’s get married” he chuckled.
you broke your second main wish on your list.
heeseung was just a few shifts away from getting enough money to get the both of you a place to live in, he could have told you that too, but he chose not to.
only crazy people would agree to this idea, you were so desperate that you actually just asked him to marry you, and he guessed he was one of those crazy people, because he had no idea why he said yes.
he had other way, without marrying you, but something about the idea of marrying you made him feel excited.
“i knew it i knew it! only crazy people would agr— wait what” you blinked a few times after you realized his answer.
“i said sure, let’s get married” he smiled softly and you were about to faint.
“no feelings are involved….right?” you hesitantly asked him, hoping he wouldn’t agree with you.
instead, he nodded slowly and hesitantly, “no feelings involved”
you regretted that sentence so bad because the day after, when he kneeled on one knee and held a ring out for you in front of everyone and proposed to you, your couldn’t lie to yourself anymore, you actually broke your third wish on your list a few years ago, you were in love with lee heeseung for years.
“y/l/n y/n, i have loved you ever since i can remember, i watched you grow up and grew up with you as well, i got used to being with you 24/7, i can’t see the rest of my life without you in it, will you make me the happiest man alive and agree to marry me?”
even though it was an act(according to you), it felt so real to the point where you cried and sobbed so badly, while putting on the ring he bought for you less than 24 hours ago.
it wasnt planned. the proposal wasn’t planned at all.
the plan was that you and heeseung will go to the uni secretariat and request an application for the free dorm since both of you are engaged now.
heeseung had no reason to put on this whole show and show everyone that you’re now engaged. you have no idea why he did it, and instead of getting angry at him, you fell in love with him even more.
it felt wrong, it felt not right.
but you didn’t care, you always knew your feelings for heeseung were somewhere deep inside your heart. you tried to push them away all the time, because there was no way your childhood friend, the popular boy in your highschool, the kid who grew up with you, had feelings for you.
you tried to deny your feelings but now you realized thrre was no use anymore, so you let yourself love him as much as you can.
it wasn’t the desperation that lead you to ask him to marry you, because then you’d ask literally any other guy, it was your pure love to him, to the guy who was always there for you when you needed him.
“heeseung! explain what was that!” his six other friends gathered in a circle, surrounding him and not letting him go.
“what was wha—“
“you and y/n? married?” jungwon shout.
“have you gone crazy?” jake added.
“and she said yes! something is not right” jay joined.
“yesterday you told us you have no feelings for her!” sunoo remarked.
“you didn’t even believe us when we told you she’s obviously in love with you” sunghoon tsked.
“something isn’t sitting right to me” ni-ki gasped.
“explain now!” they all said at the same time.
“calm down!” heeseung coughed, “i’ll explain to you everything later”
by later he meant after classes, at his house, together with you and your friends yunjin and chaewon.
“yunjin, chaewon” heeseung nodded at your friends.
“lee heeseung” they glared at him.
“come on! both of you knew about it even before” you pleaded.
“doesn’t change the fact that he’ll be stealing you from us now” they rolled their eyes.
“i’m still so confused” ni-ki tried to quicken everyone and get to the point.
“me and y/n are getting married—“
“yeah no shit sherlock” sunghoon cute him off and heeseung glared at him.
“anyway, y/n would you like the explain why?” he turned to you and smiled.
“the uni is giving away free dorms to married couples between 18-25 so—“
“you decided to get married to get a free dorm” jay finished your sentence.
“have you gone mad? heeseung worked his ass to get enough money to get the dorms for the bo— mhhhhmmm!!!” sunoo roamed but jake covered his mouth before he could continue.
“sunoo!!” jake coughed and turned to you with a smile, “don’t mind him he’s been stressed from work and uni lately”
the rest of you giggled awkwardly and tried to ease the atmosphere.
after you yunjin and chaewon left, the boys stayed with heeseung, looking at him with concern.
“what?” heeseung looked at them back with his bambi eyes.
“i don’t know hee, it feels like….she’s kind of using you” sunghoon spoke, jay slapped his arm and he whined.
“he’s right though, marrying you only to get a dorm is quite crazy” jungwon nodded.
“he’s even crazier for actually agreeing to all of this” ni-ki said and jake shushed him.
“ni-ki is right, i am crazy, i have no idea why i said yes but she wasn’t forcing anything on me” heeseung shrugged, “besides, i’ve liked her for so many years so—“
“ah ha!! we knew it!” they all said at the same time and heeseung sighed. what have he got himself into?
after everyone left, heeseung texted you, asking you to meet him in your usual spot.
you got ready and for the first time, you took a while to do so.
you stared at yourself in the mirror a few times and even checked different outfits. this has never happened to you ever before, especially not when you knew that you’re going to see heeseung.
heeseung saw you at your worst, why are you dressing up for him now then?
“i must be crazy, crazy crazy!” you shook away your thoughts and got out to meet your soon-to-be-husband.
“hee!” you saw his back facing you and as soon as he turned around you froze.
did he dress up for you too? why does he look so breathtaking suddenly? his bambi eyes match the rest of his beautiful features on his face so much, you’ve seen this man grow up, you know every detail about his face and you couldn’t explain why it was so sudden that you got caught by surprise because of his beauties.
shaking away your thoughts, you walked closer to him and smiled.
“hey hubby” you grinned.
“hubby?” he asked.
“a new nickname for my soon-to-be-husband” you chuckled and he nodded.
“i actually thought about something,” he turned to you, “our parents will figure it out sooner or later, should we tell them the truth or—“
“no, let them believe we’re getting married without any reason other than being in love”
you have no idea why you just said that. but you hid your face as soon as you realized what just came out of your mouth.
heeseung felt too flattered and suddenly didn’t know what to say. you keep on making him speechless.
“ahem,” he cleared his throat, “you do know that they’ll probably rush out things and even take the wedding plan to their own hands“
i don’t care, i’d like to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you as soon as i can. is what you wanted to say, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do so.
“y/n?” he asked. he noticed you were too deep in thoughts and waited for you to come back to sense.
“i’m aware” you nodded, “i’ve also got a text from the uni, we’ll be getting our dorm in the next week, so we should start preparing”
heeseung nodded and looked at you. you were suddenly feeling so nervous and shy to share an eye contact with him, so you broke it as he just kept staring at you and taking in your beauty.
“hey y/n” he said, “hm?”
“i don’t mind marrying you and spending the rest of my life being married to you”
you looked over him and he had the genuinest smile you’ve ever seen.
it felt like the world had froze, and the snow that was falling suddenly stopped, it felt like it was just the two of you in this whole world.
“YOU’RE GETTING WHAT?” your mother yelled.
you and heeseung planned a dinner with both of your parents, to announce the big news.
things became quite awkward between the two of you, ever since your last encounter with him you could barely face him.
his sudden confession freaked you out and the only thing that came out of your mouth was “oh, okay” in the most dry way ever.
you wanted to tell him you feel the same, you wanted to tell him that you’ve been in love with him ever since forever. but one moment that caught you off guard ruined your chance.
you were stupid, stupid and idiot. heeseung probably thinks you hate his guts now.
heeseung in the meantime felt like he was breaking apart slowly. oh, okay?? that’s all you had to answer?
he felt dumb, he felt hopeless. the confession was completely out of the blue and unplanned, your beauty hypnotized him and he was so mesmerized by you that the words just came out of his mouth naturally.
what if you hate his guts now? what if he made you uncomfortable? what if you’ll regret it the last minute because you weren’t feeling the same about him?
all of those questions were eating him alive, and you didn’t help either. each time he came up to you, you were suddenly in rush and told him you have to go, it was breaking him inside slowly.
the dinner was one chance to finally talk with you again.
“married, mom. we’re getting married” you repeat what you already said a few seconds ago.
“when? where? how?” heeseung’s mother asked.
heeseung looked at you and smiled warmly, “it just happened, we’ve been together ever since childhood, it already felt like being in a relationship for so long, so we decided to marry each other” he chuckled and held your hand tightly, “to belong to each other until the day we die”
your parents looked at the both of you. you were sharing eye contact for so long, with heeseung smiling at you, looking deep into your eyes, and with you looking at him with nothing but pure love in your eyes that was making everyone in the room feel so jealous of you two.
“now kiss!” your mother said.
you and heeseung broke the eye contact and blinked a few times.
“what?” you asked.
“kiss then! i want to picture it and keep it in my photo gallery forever!” his mother added.
you were about to speak up until heeseung held your cheek to turn you to face him and it was only a matter of seconds until you felt his lips on yours.
it was your first kiss ever, your first time kissing someone, and it was his as well, but he lead you on so good that it made it look less awkward.
you were his first kiss. you, his childhood friend, stole his first kiss.
“we knew that it’ll happen one day!!” your mothers cheered, “we even have a whole wedding plan ready!!”
you and heeseung broke the kiss and shared an eye contact again.
you didn’t need to hear him say to know how much love he holds for you, and how he cherishes you so much.
and your eyes told him everything, they held the answers to all of the questions that bothered him. you love him as much as he loves you.
“i can’t believe you’re getting married, my little angels” your parents cried altogether which made heeseung let go of his hold on you and grab some tissues to wipe their tears.
“i love that ring by the way! heeseung you did a great job” your mother gave him thumbs up and he chuckled.
if only she knew that it was a ring he bought you in less than 24 hours and even rushed your friends to come with him and help him pick it only because he wanted his whole life to properly propose you.
it was a moving day already and your parents helped you pack every last thing, they even cried through the way, how could their princess leave them so fast?
“you can visit our house anytime!” you tried to comfort them.
“we’ll update you before that, we don’t want to catch you while doing the thing you know” your mother winked and you rolled your eyes, “mom!”
“i see you’re all packed and ready” heeseung came in to check on you.
“she is! take her away already!” your mother complained.
“not before you take this with you!” she went away for a few seconds and came back with a huge wrapped photo frame.
“don’t open it yet!! only when you get into your new house and get everything in place!!” she excitedly hugged the both of you and you nodded.
moving in was quite rough, you had a lot of boxes to unpack and organized, and you and heeseung never felt more awkward after the first kiss you shared.
you’ve barely spoke with each other and your friends were starting to get concerned.
“he told me he doesn’t mind marrying me and spending the rest of his life with me” you pout.
yunjin and chaewon shout and giggled, “girl! he’s more than in love with you!! he’s lovesick!!” they both said.
“what did you answer then?” yunjin asked.
“i told him okay” you smacked your head on the table.
“no way” chaewon gasped.
“yes way” you whined.
“you’re stupid!!” they both smacked you.
“then!!” you shout, “we had our first kiss on dinner in front of our parents” you whispered that part.
“what did you say? couldn’t hear you” chaewon said.
“oh she said that they shared their first kiss on dinner with their— YOU HAD YOUR FIRST KISS WITH HEESEUNG??” yunjin’s eyes widened.
“what happened after that?” chaewon asked curiously.
“we just finished dinner, and now we barely even talk” you sighed, “each time i see him i’m just blushing and running away, i can’t face him!”
“you have to!! you’re moving in soon!!” yunjin argued and chaewon nodded.
“it’ll be the death of me” you sobbed and they chuckled.
you were right at first, but slowly and surely heeseung made a joke and both of you got back to normal in no time, as if nothing happened between you two.
you even helped him organizing his closet and his room, and he did the same.
after a long day you and heeseung finally laid down on your now shared sofa.
“it’s been a rough day” you sighed.
“should we order something?” he suggested and you nodded immediately. you ended up ordering your favorite food.
“let’s open up the picture!!” you said and grabbed the picture your mom gave you earlier today.
you and heeseung both unwrapped it together and revealed an old picture of you and heeseung hugging each other with a huge smile on your faces.
“look at us then and look at us now” he giggled.
both of you hanged the picture right above your sofa and kept staring at it for a while.
“hey hee,” you spoke, “yeah?”
“i wouldn’t mind marrying you and spending the rest of my days with you too” you turned to him, “until the day i die”
“is that your way of telling me you love me too?” heeseung froze for a second. you caught him off guard for the countless time already.
although he understood very clearly your feelings after you shared your first kiss, hearing your words made his heart beat fast.
it was a confirmation for him that all of his feelings for you were actually mutual all this time.
instead of answering his questions you grabbed his shirt and kissed him.
he put his hands around your waist and pushed you closer to him, holding you tightly as if he’s too scared to let you go.
breaking off the kiss was hard, but the lack of oxygen was kicking in, you pressed your foreheads together, still with your eyes closed.
“does that answer your question?” you giggled and you felt him smiling.
“i don’t think so, i need a bit more of it to feel certain” he teased and you tsked.
“i don’t need to be in a relationship with you to feel certain about my feelings and my willingness to marry you, i want to spend my life with you, i love you” you said and pecked his lips.
“i love you too, y/n” he pecked your lips again and it suddenly got into a fight between you two about who pecks the other more, until it ended up in a long, deep kiss.
“so let me get this straight. you and heeseung had been in denial for many many years and manipulated yourself into thinking that you don’t like each other at all at all, then when y/n’s desperate and broke ass heard of a chance to get a free dorm by getting married, she went up to you, heeseung, and asked her to marry you, you agreed to the proposal because at one point you stopped lying to yourself and realized you’re actually lovesick, and the rest is history” ni-ki finally breathed out after almost rapping this whole story.
“by history i mean y/n waking up from her denial and realizing her feelings to you” he added.
“yes, exactly” heeseung nodded and you chuckled.
you were sitting together with your friends on one table, yunjin and chaewon who were already aware of the story added a few notes here and there as ni-ki summarized your whole story.
“this is a story to tell your children” jay smiled and the rest nodded.
“we’re not planning to get pregnant anytime soon, we didn’t even have a wedding yet” you sighed.
“you never know y/n, you never know!” sunoo slowly nodded.
“why did you say that as if you went through something familiar” jungwon teased.
“you never know y/n, you never know!” sunghoon mocked sunoo.
“that was a good one!” jake laughed with him.
“children, literal children who found themselves in uni somehow” you sighed.
“at this point we won’t even need to have any children when we have them” heeseung agreed with you.
“it doesn’t matter, as long as i’m with you” you smiled and pecked his lips.
“get a room you two will you!”
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Let’s put some numbers to Jewish fear right now.
In news that I’m sure will thrill all antisemites, it would take startlingly little effort to foment widespread violence against us and cause another genocide of the Jewish people.
I have had many fellow Jews express to me how overwhelming it is to see the rising antisemitism. I have seen many Jews express fear at being drowned out of public, online, and IRL spaces due to dangerously violent vitriol.
I have also seen people who claim to advocate for Palestine—especially western leftists—openly mock Jews who express this fear.
Finally, I and my fellow Jews have often expressed that, while we wholeheartedly support Palestinian freedom and self determination, it is exhausting to have to say so repeatedly, especially when we are trying to advocate for ourselves. This is not due to any latent or widespread hatred of Muslims, Arabs, or Palestinians. It is because we are an extremely maligned and marginalized minority that is fighting to be heard against strong, hostile forces that at best wish we’d shut up and at worst want us eradicated from the planet.
There is a disconnect about how much harm people can do to Jews by spreading antisemitism and refusing to dismantle their own internalized antisemitism—and everyone has internalized antisemitism. It is one of the oldest forms of prejudice in the world and is found in almost every single culture. It is as, if not more, pervasive than white privilege. Yes. You read that right. And if asked to elaborate, I will provide numbers on that to the best of my ability. For the purposes of this post, however, I want to focus on the global distribution of religious groups only.
Specifically, this disconnect is between Jews who are fully aware and feel the affects of this damage and goyim who simply do not comprehend our marginalization.
To help, let’s put some numbers to this. In this post, I’ll be using the Pew Research Center’s survey and findings on the Global Religious Landscape. This is the most recent data from a reputable source that I could find which surveyed every world religion at the same time. While the Jewish population has grown slightly in the intervening years, so have most (if not all) other religious populations around the globe. I wanted to use figures measured at the same time to avoid bias for or against any religious group.
For the purposes of this post, I will not be discussing folk religions or other religions. This is not because they are not important. This is because they are not a monolith and individual folk religions and other religions may have even fewer adherents per religion than Judaism. I am currently only focusing on religions and religious groups who have more adherents than Judaism.
In descending order of adherents, there number of people in the world belonging to these groups:
2,200,000,000 (2.2 Billion) Christians
1,600,000,000 (1.6 Billion) Muslims
1,100,000,000 (1.1 Billion) Religiously unaffiliated people
1,000,000,000 (1 Billion) Hindus
500,000,000 (500 Million) Buddhists
14,000,000 (14 Million) Jews
Reduced to the simplest fractions there are:
1100 Christians for every 7 Jews
800 Muslims for every 7 Jews
550 Religiously unaffiliated people for every 7 Jews
500 Hindus for every 7 Jews
250 Buddhists for every 7 Jews
Combined, there are 6,400,000,000 non-Jewish people in religions or religious groups (including religiously unaffiliated people).
This means that for every 7 Jews there are 3200 people in religious groups who outnumber us.
Jews are 0.2 % of the global population.
When we tell you that hate is dangerous, it is because…
It would only take 0.21% of 6.4 Billion people to hate us in order to completely overwhelm and outnumber every single Jewish person on the planet. In other words, only 67.2 out of every 3200 people.
And given how violent and aggressive people have become toward us in recent weeks, that doesn’t seem far off.
No, most Christians, Muslims, Atheists/Agnostics, Hindus, and Buddhists do NOT hate Jews.
But if even 0.21% of them do hate us, Jews are at a legitimate and terrifying risk of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
It is not possible for Jews alone to fight this rising tide of hate. There simply aren’t enough of us. And many of us are too scared to tell you the truth: if you don’t vocally and repeatedly stand up for Jews (and not just the ones you agree with) you will be complicit in the genocide that follows. Police your own communities.
Nobody acting in good faith is asking you to abandon Palestinians or their fight for self determination and equality in their homeland. All we are asking is for you to learn about antisemitism, deconstruct it in yourself, and loudly condemn it when it occurs in front of you. We are asking you to comfort us and not run away when we are scared or even angry at you. Because a lot of us are angry with you, because we are extremely scared right now and many of you are not helping us. Many of you are actively and carelessly spreading dogwhistles that further the global rise in hatred against us.
You can support Palestine AND avoid Islamophobia WITHOUT making antisemitism worse. But you can’t stop antisemitism by staying silent in the face of it. And if you don’t speak up, you will get us killed. Silence, in this case, is quite literally violence.
Many of us have armed guards posted at our synagogues and schools and community centers because of this. I certainly had times where my synagogue and school had to have armed security for our safety.
The only reason more of us haven’t died already is because we have millennia of experience in confronting this kind of hatred and guarding against it.
But in pure numbers, if you don’t speak up for us now, we don’t have a chance at survival without support.
So, what can you do, specifically?:
* Make a stand or public statement about condemning antisemitism without mentioning another group. Acknowledge Jewish fear, pain, and current danger without contextualizing it in someone else’s. It could literally be something as simple as “Antisemitism is bad. There’s never a reason for it. I won’t tolerate it in presence in real life or online.” If you cannot bring yourself to publicly make this statement, you should have a serious look at yourself to understand why you can’t.
* Learn about the six universal features of antisemitism and the many, various dog whistles affecting the global Jewish community
* Do not welcome people who espouse rhetoric that includes any features from the above bullet point in your community unless you are able to educate them and eliminate that behavior.
* Check in on your Jewish friends, regularly and repeatedly. Do not wait for them to reach out to you. They are scared of you. Even if you don’t have the emotional space to have conversations about antisemitism. Just send a message once in a while, unprompted, “Jfyi, antisemitism still sucks. I support you.”
* Redirect conversations about which “side” is “right” to how to attain peace. Do this by saying that this line of argument is not conducive to peace, and link to a well-respected organization not widely accused of either antisemitism or Islamophobia that is devoted to achieving a peaceful resolution, increasing education, or providing humanitarian aid to relevant affected groups—including Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs. You can find over 160 such organizations at the Alliance for Middle East Peace https://www.allmep.org/
* Look to support experienced groups without widespread and verifiable claims of prejudice against either Jews or Muslims or Arabs or Palestinians. Many of these organizations can also be found at the AllMEP link above. Avoid groups on the shit list as well as unproductive and harmful movements.
* Do not default to western methods of political demonstration. Specifically, protests are not useful in attaining peace in western nations at this time. Israelis and Palestinians can and should protest to the best of their abilities in Israel and Palestine so as to pressure their own governments. However, protests in western nations have proven to be poorly regulated and to further the spread of bigoted rhetoric and violence against Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians. Furthermore, there are nearly as many Palestinians in the world as there are Jews. It is extremely easy and common for the voices of bad actors and bigots on all sides to completely drown out Jewish and Palestinian voices and concerns at these events.
* Spend more time listening and learning than speaking and acting. Anyone who tells you this conflict is simple is someone who is lying to you. Take the time to learn the ways in which your actions and words can get people hurt before joining the fray.
* Stop demonizing Zionism as a concept, even if you disagree with it. Understand that it is a philosophy with many different movements that often conflict with each other. The Zionism practiced by Netanyahu and the Likud party is NOT representative of most Zionists or interpretations of Zionism. It is an extremist form of Zionism known as Revisionist Zionism.
* Don’t deny Jewish indigeneity to the levant. It doesn’t help Palestine and hurts Jews by erasing our physical and cultural history as well as erasing the Jews who remained in Israel even through widespread diaspora.
* KEEP THE HOLOCAUST OUT OF YOUR MOUTH
Things That Are Always OK
* Denouncing Antisemitism loudly and publicly
* Denouncing Islamophobia loudly and publicly
* Telling your Jewish and Muslim and Arab friends you support them and won't abandon them
* Elevating the work of respected, widely accepted people and organizations devoted to attaining peace for all, rather than just one group of people.
* Develop media literacy
* Understand what aspects of the current western leftist movements Jews are criticizing, rather than assuming our criticisms are motivated by hatred for Palestine or Palestinians.
* Expressing sorrow for civilian deaths regardless of religion or nationality.
* When you are not Jewish and you share a post about antisemitism from a Jewish person, please say you’re a goy. This isn’t because you’re not welcome to share. This is because it is indescribably comforting to know we aren’t just talking amongst ourselves and screaming into the void. Let us know you are supportive of us. It doesn’t mean that you or we hate Palestine or Palestinians or that we oppose their full and equal rights in our shared homeland.
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