How My Nine-Year-Old Daughter Learned That People Hate Her

Imagine being nine years old and seeing “Kidnapped” plastered all over the neighborhood in New York.

Imagine walking by the face of five-year-old Emilia Aloni every day on the way to school and wondering, aloud, who is checking on her, if she has food, toys, bedtime stories and if her mom, Danielle, is with her for hugs and kisses.

Imagine inquiring, on a daily basis, who is working to get Emilia home, what the kidnappers want in exchange for her freedom, why they would take kids, and “who’s in charge” of these kids while they are in the dark and terrifying tunnels.

Now, imagine, after weeks of “checking” on Emilia, seeing her face ripped off the sign. Just the face. “Where did it go?” my daughter asked nervously. With no energy, or proper words, I muttered a pathetic, “maybe the rain ripped it off.” But she was too smart: “The rest of the sign is still there, that makes no sense. Someone doesn’t like her face. What’s the problem?”

The problem was something that I had not yet articulated to this child who is so self-assured, confident and curious beyond her years. I had avoided the real point of the story for eight months: People hate Jews and it’s the oldest hatred in the world.

Now it’s summer 2024. We were on our way to Italy with a layover in Munich. I realized, belatedly, that Taylor Swift would be playing the day we arrive in Munich. Without thinking twice, we exited the Munich airport and started hunting for tickets to the concert. Italy could wait 24 hours for a Swiftie pitstop, and a crash course in World War II history and the Holocaust.

On the way to the Jewish Museum, I explained rapidly, “so Hitler took a part of Czechoslovakia. It was not his to take. And you know you can’t take what’s not yours.” She replied: “So he’s like Putin. Maybe they are friends.” I continued: “But in 1938, the friendly countries believed that if you let Hitler keep a small part of this country, he’d stop there and be satisfied. And so, they let him. The idea is called appeasement. Now, at least, we are helping Ukraine to kick Russia out.”

Without skipping a beat she asked: “But, are we helping enough?” “No,” I said. And then there was silence.

When we entered the museum we saw an exhibition of portraits and busts of Munich’s Jews through the centuries. Confronted with story after story, all firmly embedded in her head, my daughter began to imagine the scenarios. A young man whose parents had to give up their department store, another child sewed a Jewish star onto her clothes, no more after school activities for others. Children taking trains to safer places where parents promised to join later. Trains, boats and escape plans. Some left; some stayed. Why would they stay? Because it seemed unfathomable that that much evil could exist. And those who stayed, what happened? They were sent to live in camps all together. And then? Still, I lose my words.

Downstairs, we moved on to artifacts from Torah covers to prayerbooks, seder plates and more. She drifted toward a 1935 board game, Das Alijah-Spiel, produced for the Berlin organization Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, by the printing firm Siegfried Sholem.

With her little finger, she traced the stops on the game. “So, the Jews started in Munich, headed to Venice (where we go tomorrow), then to visit Athens, onto Cyprus and then arrived in Jerusalem, 100 stops (on the game) later? Israel is the home base?”

Yes, she got it. Israel was a home base for the Jews of Munich, for the Jews that came before them, and alas, for the Jews today and tomorrow.

Israel was a home base for the Jews of Munich, for the Jews that came before them, and alas, for the Jews today and tomorrow.

Flash forward to the next morning. She read over my shoulder as I scrolled through Twitter and saw that the Olympic judo competitor from Tajikistan, Nurali Emomali, refused to shake the hand of Israel’s Baruch Shmailov, only to have his shoulder dislocated by Japan’s Hifumi Abe and depart in tears. Again, the questions: “He put in so much work to get to the Olympics. What’s the big deal about a handshake? And, what did Baruch do wrong?” “Nothing, the problem stems from that same hate we discussed earlier.” “Well, that’s ridiculous, Nurali should have listened to Taylor Swift’s song, Karma.”

We moved on to Venice with the imprint of our day in Munich engraved in our minds. Questions and thoughts lingered, and she did a recap of our experience: The kidnapped kids and adults need to come back, and someone should be able to bring them home. You can’t take what’s not yours or give into bullies (Hitler and Putin) as they’ll only take more. Antisemitism is absurd and for stupid people. And when things get tough for the Jews, Israel has always been and will be home base.

Before we turned the Taylor Swift music back on, she concluded: “One more question. Hitler and Putin were nine years old once. Were they like me, or were they already monsters? If they were like me, what happened?”

Emily Hamilton is the Executive Director of Justice for Kurds and producer of three documentary films: “Why Ukraine,” “Slava Ukraini” and “Glory to the Heroes” by Bernard-Henri Lévy on the extraordinary resistance of Ukraine against the full-scale Russian invasion.