My corporate story of being Jewish
October 7th changed my life but what I wasn't prepared for was how it would impact me at work.
I am a Jewish HR executive at a tech company. I've sat around our HR leadership team discussing every other social crisis from the George Floyd murder to Asian hate to LGBTQ2+ rights. I saw how our company reacted to the BLM movement, how we rallied around our Black employees, held townhalls to understand their experience. Our CEO even adopted a reverse mentorship relationship with a black employee so he could learn more about the black experience and support our black employees. Our mantra has always been that belonging is central to our culture, that diversity isn't about color but about what makes all of us unique, that we advocate for allyship and we encourage everyone to bring their authentic selves to work. And then October 7th happened...
It started 5 days later when our company couldn't condemn terrorism, but could only send out a company note with mental health resources available (yet we had no problem condemning all other social atrocities). After our Jewish ERG spoke up, we sent an apology and I thought OK, we'll learn and make this right. But then it got worse...When my boss asked me how I was doing a few months after, I said I'm not OK. She told me all about her Jewish friend who was doing just fine and that my experience isn't like the experience of all Jewish people and that I should go seek therapy. I wonder if I was black and during BLM I told my boss that I wasn't ok, she would compare my experience to other Black people and tell me to go seek therapy?
When I went to a prestigious university in November to give a speech on behalf of our company, I found myself in the middle of the Free Palestine protest with "Die Zionists" writing on the sidewalk. When I shared that experience at work when I returned, I was met with "Well, there are so few people who are protesting don't worry about it, it's not the majority and so don't let a few angry people make you upset." Once again, my experience was minimized and these comments were coming from fellow HR executives.
When I supported our Jewish ERG employees by posting in the slack channel with words of support and the importance of taking care of mental health, our muslim employees filed anonymous complaints against me stating that they were offended that someone so senior would be pro-Israel. In response to this I was told that while we ask our employees to bring their whole selves to work, as an executive, I can't possibly do that and I have to decide "what I should do with the fact that our Muslim employees are offended".
I could go on and on, but the fact is, it's lonely and terrifying to be Jewish at work. My experience continues to be minimized and the worst part about this is the hypocrisy with which we decide how to handle one social conflict from another. Being Jewish doesn't seem to matter because "how could Jews possibly feel opressed when they're so successful and make so much money" (another comment that was made to me.)
We have a lot of work to do in not only supporting each other but teaching business leaders, D&I leaders and HR leaders what it's like to be Jewish. With antisemitism on the rise, it's clear that the corporate world needs a better understanding of how to help Jewish employees feel like they belong...sharing our stories here can be the start of a powerful movement.