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It started with graffiti on road signs and ended with a ten-year-old walking through a protest line like it was just another Wednesday. But beneath that surface was something deeper—something that’s been creeping into our lives more and more: a sense that being visibly Jewish comes with risk, that we have to weigh our identity against our safety, and that even something as simple as a concert might come with a warning label.
So the question is: when did that start to feel normal?
Matisyahu—the beatboxing Hasidic reggae musician who once looked like he’d walked straight out of a Brooklyn yeshiva—was coming to Cincinnati. I didn’t think twice. “Get tickets,” I told myself. For millennials like me, he was practically part of the soundtrack of Jewish identity. I mean, did you even go on Birthright if you didn’t blast Jerusalem on the bus? We made dinner plans with friends beforehand. Just a casual date night. Nothing more.
So I wasn’t exactly prepared when the night started feeling less like a concert and more like a crash course in geopolitical conflict.
Exit 3 off the 71 didn’t look like it usually does. Days earlier, road signs had been defaced with phrases like “Free Gaza” and “From the River to the Sea.”
A friend of mine had seen the signs earlier and taken some down—Midwestern initiative at its finest. “It’s the Matisyahu concert tonight,” I told him. “Maybe it’s connected.” That’s when I realized, hours before showtime, that a protest was planned.
My first thought wasn’t about myself, but about my friend who was bringing her ten-year-old son.
Ten years old. I don’t think I’d even seen a protest at that age. I imagined trying to explain to a kid why people would be yelling at concert-goers on their way to hear a reggae song.

protestors outside the Ludlow Garage (photo: Anna Selman)
To her credit, my friend brought him anyway. He walked straight through that protest line like it was time for the school assembly—mildly annoyed, but not worth a fuss. Honestly, he had more composure than I did.
As we parked near the theater, I noticed the chalk—“Free Gaza” scrawled across the stairs, the walls, the buildings, and the pavement. It was everywhere. Without really thinking, I started trying to rub one of the words out with the edge of my shoe. As if I could smudge a few letters, it would all feel less confrontational.
On our way to dinner, we heard the protestors shouting, “Auf Wiedersehen, Matisyahu.” I’m not sure what point they were trying to make, but yelling in German at a group of Jews probably wasn’t it.
After we finished eating, we started preparing for “the walk.” The protest itself had all the usual accessories: signs, chanting, and at least one cosplay-Keffiyeh-wearing white guy who definitely hasn’t been to Palestine but had very strong opinions anyway. He approached one of our friends, who was wearing a chai necklace, and with this unsettling, almost gleeful grin, said, “I just don’t like you killing children.”
It wasn’t a conversation—it was a performance. Like something a villain might say just before a commercial break in a mediocre political drama.
There was an altercation, too, of course—because what’s a protest without at least one person wielding a megaphone like it’s a medieval weapon? A woman swatted it away after a protester got in her face. The police, clearly exhausted, herded her inside and tried to contain the crowd to the sidewalk, which they were about as successful at as a parent asking toddlers not to touch anything in a candy store.
The yelling was constant and mostly incoherent. I tried to make sense of the slogans, but it was all a jumbled mess—like someone handed a megaphone to a bunch of kids and told them to yell their feelings without knowing what those feelings meant.
Once we were inside, everything calmed down. The concert went smoothly. Matisyahu played some of his new stuff, but let’s be honest—we were all waiting for Jerusalem and One Day. Inside, it felt like just any other concert.
But when we left, the protestors were gone.
The truth is, I didn’t just feel uneasy walking into that concert—I felt unsafe.
If this were happening to any other group, it would be called what it is: harassment, intimidation, and terror. But when it’s us—the Jewish community—we just walk through it. The chalk on the sidewalk, the chants in the air—we keep going, as if it’s just something we have to endure.
What I realized as I passed the protest line was that their goal wasn’t just to voice an opinion. Their goal was to terrorize us. And they do it with a twinkle in their eye.
There’s this notion that we’re being overdramatic, or that these are just “dumb kids” who don’t know any better. But the reality is, some people aren’t just ignorant—they’re dangerous. And not everyone is good.
We’ve gotten so used to minimizing the threats, brushing them off as just another protest, just another inconvenience, just another thing to get past. But the truth is, we’re allowing it. We’re letting this happen to us. We’ve grown too comfortable, too silent—and we’re paying the price.
The question we need to ask is: When will we stop letting it happen?
My last thoughts were of the ten-year-old who attended the concert with his mother. She knew how dangerous it could be, yet she taught her son to face it head-on. And then I wondered—how many parents would make that decision? How many would decide it’s not worth the risk?
How many times have we told our kids to hide their Magen Davids or chai necklaces? How many times have we told our college students not to engage with protestors? That they’re safe at official Jewish events, but outside, don’t let anyone know you’re Jewish. And definitely don’t fight for your right to be proudly Jewish.
I think that’s the part that worries me the most.