First things first, you're going to want to read this. I'll give you one guess who's at the center of this particular vortex of controversy. I especially like the Joe/Mary connection. Little baby Jesus even got some indirect mention! Fantastic. I wonder what would happen if I wrote a fictious story about Christian bashers with the two main characters named Moses and Yitzhak?

I'll comment on it later.

They seem to have just this minute required registration for the link. So, here it is:
I am not supposed to admit this, but when I am sitting in front of the computer and no one is watching, I Google myself. I get a high from typing in "H***** I****," finding my byline and reading my words. Last week, though, the clandestine Google search revealed something about my childhood – and my Goshen community – that I never wanted to find.
I saw my name mentioned on the blog of another kid, now 23, from Goshen schools. Let's call him Joe. In a posting from last October, Joe advised a friend coming to Goshen to visit the Hall of Fame of the Trotter, where H***** I**** had her Bat Mitzvah. Another blogger – a Goshen alum two years older than us – responded: "Yes, I believe that the Hall o' Fame o' the Trotter was the designated Bar/Bat Mitzvah venue for all five of the Jewish kids in Goshen. I think it helped that their parents collectively owned/ran the town …. I would like to see a showdown between either of the I**** gals and – (nickname for another Jewish alum)."
And then, like nothing abnormal had been uttered, the bloggers shifted the conversation. My mind, though, did not distract as easily. I read the young woman's line over and over: "I think it helped that their parents collectively owned/ran the town."
I always thought I was one of the "Goshen kids." To many, though, was I one of the "Jewish kids?"
I called the other "I**** gal" – my sister – and my mother. We asked each other, "Is this stupidity, or something much worse?" I reminded them that I did not just go to school with Joe. I grew up with him. Joe and I shared the majority of classes from kindergarten through senior year. In my memory, I was the contentious liberal and he was the contentious conservative. We argued and debated and gave each other dirty looks every chance we got. But by senior year, we had developed a mutual respect for each other. Or so I thought.
I wrote back to the blog a simple two-liner. I wanted to be witty and pointed, but not emotionally invested.
Joe and the girl – let's call her Mary – responded with some sarcastic remarks. They in no way acknowledged that Mary's comment was anti-Semitic or expressed any sense of discomfort. Joe wrote to me: "Oh, how I've missed your luxuriantly thin skin."
I remembered my sister's advice: "Don't let them get to you." I dropped the issue. My mother, a Google master, began searching the bloggers' names with the word "Jew." Over the next 24 hours, she found reference after reference, comment after comment, fictionalized story after political commentary. These kids – Joe, who I grew up with; Mary, who msister grew up with; and their Web friends – had left a trail on the Web of references to Jews.
In one, Joe jokes about a "Jew Fest" he is planning. In another he tells a story that ends: "There's nothing better than putting a Santa on a Jewish guy's lawn." In Mary's article, she describes having "Post Traumatic Jew Disorder" after encountering a man she does not know but labels Jewish because he wears "shiny black loafers" and has other "Jewier characteristics than the refusal to accept Jesus as the son of God."
We learned that Joe was part of the leadership committee of his college's Federation of Christian Athletes. The organization's Web page contains an array of translations of Biblical passages that reprimand the Jews, such as: "What outward symbols or acts can we hide behind, in the same fashion that the Jews hid behind their circumcision?"
As my mother e-mailed me and my sister the Web pages as she found them, my hurt intensified. I felt sick to my stomach. My sister had been very fond of Mary. I did not know Mary well, but her father was one of my favorite teachers. I felt disappointed. Growing up, I had respected Joe's intelligence, and in the past few years I had wondered if we could now be friends.
Now I wonder if he had always looked at me and thought "Jew."
"What about all that stuff going on that we don't have access to?" my sister replied. "If this much has made it to the Web, in public postings, what is being said behind closed doors?"
We discussed where they learned such hate. I imagined Joe and Mary as children in Goshen, hearing their parents make anti-Semitic comments at the dinner table.
I also thought about all the other kids I grew up with. How prevalent is anti-Semitism in Goshen? How many of the kids who I sat next to in class went home and listened to their parents talking about the Jews of Goshen owning/running the town? Did other students, who I thought of as friends, pigeonhole me because of my religion? When a friend's mother showed disdain for me, ostensibly about my animal-rights activism, was it really because I am Jewish?
Now that I have this information about Joe and Mary, what should I do about it? Keep silent? I almost did. I worried about them laughing at me for being hypersensitive. As Joe's "thin skin" comment demonstrated, they probably think I just can't take a joke. I doubt anything I say will change that. Furthermore, expressing my feelings of hurt and disappointment at Joe and Mary's slurs will not change how they view Jews in general.
What has changed, though, is how I view my childhood community. I had always felt a sense of trust and security living in Goshen. I liked returning home on holiday and seeing the same faces at the Goshen Diner. Now I will look at those faces and wonder who they see. Do they view me as the girl who played soccer at the Craigville Park and loved to teach her friends the story of Chanukah, the teenager who advocated for animal rights and helped organize Homecoming parades? Or do they just see a Jew?