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Well, in high school the most significant event was when I had to leave Egypt.
It brought to mind that no Jew belongs in any place where he is born with the exception of Israel. I know that from when I was back in Egypt.
In a sense it confirmed every sneaking suspicion I had about the fact that a Jew does not belong. He is always dispersed and in my case dispossessed.
You live with the thought that everything you own is going to be taken away from you. This makes you resign to a kind of fatalistic view of Jewish life, or it can make you angry for being Jewish.
That predicates the fact that you are always going to lose and that you will always be expelled. Loss inevitably comes up with a feeling of being Jewish. The easiest way of getting rid of that sense of impending loss is to deny your Jewishness. That is one of the ways that you can probably trick fate out of the script that is already given you.
Of course that doesn't work either. You are always wondering how to short circuit this script and I am still working on it.
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