h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"It's hard," I said to my friend Stacey, "being the only Jew in the school."

She looks at me contemplatively. I think she's about to utter some profound words of support.

"What about Joel?" she says.

"Joel is a Jehova's Witness, Stace," I reply.

The same expression appears on her face.

"But..." she pasues..."but...they're the same thing...aren't they?"

Now, dear Stacey isn't exactly affluent in the old brains department, but the ignorance which exists towards my religion and organised religion as a whole within the majority of teenage society is worrying.

It is almost impossible for me to be Jewish. I am convinced that I am the butt of some gigantic cosmic joke, whereby G-d has placed me in my current locale and amongst this peer group as some kind of 'test of character.'

The order of the day for my peers is very, very clearly defined: Apathy.

I am vulnerable not only because I hold extreme political views (you're not meant to hold any political views at all, says the adolescent code, you'r not meant to care) but also because I'm a practising Jew. (Jew? Jew? Something to do with religion, aint it? Sorry, no way.)

Apathy is a terrible, terrible evil. From apathy springs ignorance, from ignorance fear, and from fear springs hatred.

I do not want everyone to become learned scholars of Judaic law, but knowing the difference between a Jew and Jehovas Witness would make it just a little bit easier for me to live a Jewish life in a totally secular community.

Of course, there are exceptions. My best friends, my real friends, know not to ask me out on a Friday night, because I'm celebrating the Jewish ceremony of Shabbat. They don't even have to know that much detail. Just know and accept that my social calendar cannot be totally complicit with everyone else's - I have other commitments.

I suppose it is some kind of perverse credit to my tenacity that I have managed to retain my Jewish identity in the face of the crushing apathy (and sometimes disdain) of my peers. I think it fair to say that my Jewish identity has actually been strengthened living where I do - I've had to fight to retain it, somethig I would not have had to do had I grown up in Edgware, Manchester or Glasgow.

Anyway, the points I'm trying to drag out here is this; No-one should ever be victimised for having conviction, be it religious, political or of any other nature.

Dispelling apathy and ignorance of all sorts is something I place very high on my 'Things To Do When I Rule The World List.'

When mankind has conquered apathy, he can begin to conquer ignorance. And when ignorance is eradicated, then, and only then, will man be able to live in something resembling harmony with his fellow man.

'Keyn Y'hi Ratzon.'

May this be G-d's will.

(You can read more about the neccessity of eradicating ignorance in my next essay.)