Why do you hate my people? Reflections on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre | Zero Gravity Lab, Igor Golyak, shares his thoughts on antisemitism. His latest show, WITNESS, is a profound documentary piece about the migratory experience of Jewish people.
With International Holocaust Day having passed but the issue of antisemitism ever-present in the latest news, we are reminded that it is not so much the day, but perhaps our entire worldview that should be filled with awareness of the situation.
.ART feels compelled to share a piece written by Igor Golyak of zerogravity.art – Why do you hate my people? – originally written as an op-ed.
As a Ukrainian Jewish refugee, I thought I understood antisemitism. I arrived in the United States in 1990 with my sister, parents, and grandparents. I was 11 years old. My parents left everything behind but like generations of Jews before us, we believed we would find freedom in America. I knew about the Holocaust, pogroms, the hardships my parents and grandparents had faced, but I always thought about those as just isolated moments in history. I saw America as a safe haven from antisemitism. Working on WITNESS my perspective has changed. America could be a temporary place of residence for me; I could be forced to flee again.
