To ask you to help with a cover story for my Jewish child

What do you mean, they don’t look British? Have you been to a school in London? And what does being British look like?

This.

I suppose it depends on where you live. One of the girls in my class had a typically Polish name and both she and her sister were olive-skinned. They didn't know Polish at all. (Only their dad was Polish - that was the same for all of the girls whose dads had been Displaced Persons: the mums were all local girls.)

Only one of the Polish girls I taught (as in born in Poland) had blonde hair - the rest either had brown or black hair.

We used to have a real mixture in our part of Scotland. We had some girls who were of Ukrainian and Brazilian heritage and a few children of mixed Filipino heritage: I recall that one boy was Filipino on his mum's side and Croatian on his dad's.

As I indicated earlier in this post, those of my age group tend to be the children of DPs; many of the younger generation have one parent who is a medical professional (Yugoslavs, Estonians, Russians).

I agree, highly unlikely your average school kid even in schools with greater diversity of heritage, would be able to discern that a peer was from a particular East European country.

No not at all. We are at:
”I’m cyriot”
“me too” <speaks in Cypriot>
“Sorry I can’t speak any of the language”

There are lots of Polish Catholics at my kids Catholic school. They are all blonde and blue eyed. I think a dark hsired/ skinned child who said they were Polish would indicate Polish Jew. I would say Romanian/ Armenian etc though. I wonder how those k7ds can identify different eastern European cultures though, unless they are Eastern European.

@SleepDeprivedbutDetermined

For years, my late husband was convinced that he was part Maori - his grandfather had worked in New Zealand for many years. DH had blue-black hair and took a very good tan. He had American visitors asking whether he had any Native American heritage - supposedly because of his cheekbones.

We finally found out that his granny was actually Irish.

ETA Sorry. Didn't mean to quote the whole post.

So we are essentially back to "I am from London" answer, aren't we?
Unless they are specifically asked "Ok, but where are your parents from", I don't see any need to overcomplicate things with cover stories.

I've reported your post for implying that I deal in antisemitic tropes. You have absolutely no right - or grounds - to impute such a disgusting motive to my posts.

Well that’s what she needs to challenge.

Why do you need to know? What difference does it make where my family originate from? That’s really racist. What’s wrong with you? Even if I knew that far back, on principle I wouldn’t discuss my ancestry with racists just because you want to make sure my great grandparents came from a list of places you approve of, that’s weird as fuck.

I get asked, all sorts of guesses, I'm mixed race, I'm not Jewish. Someone once had a big argument with my insisting I was Maori. (How dare I deny it!)

I have a child with SEN who will face similar possibly worse.

How about a selection from...' I'm mixed, my Grandparents were from all different places. Granny B might have been related to Queen Victoria apparently, no idea how...Great Granny D lived in Holland/Yugoslavia/Ceylon at some point I think. Parents definitely English though. I reckon I look like the Iceland lot.'

Find truthful deflections, obfuscate, misdirected and bore.

[The possible descent of Queen Victoria from King David was first entered upon in the present day by Rev. F. R A. Glover, MA.]

For me it's true to say my grandparents were from 'all different places' and that X ancestor lived in Ceylon. And I could say truthfully that apparently to some people I look Maori.

And any of us could say 'who knows what we'd find if we could get on 'long lost family'.

Find a nugget of truth somewhere. Good luck.

Why would they need to speak the language though? I know loads of people who don’t speak their parents mother tongue, let alone their grandparents. They’re not pretending to be first generation!

Until there is a Cypriot child in school who tries to chat to them in their "shared" language. That is not going to cause any problems at all...

Obviously it's awful to need a cover story, but for making your child's life easier I get the point. How about Bulgaria, I know a few dark haired, dark skinned people from there, and it's less likely to invite questions than Greece. Could try Albania too perhaps, or Macedonia.

It's a scary time for us. I definitely keep our heritage on the down low. I don't put a mezuzah on our door for this reason. Thankfully we haven't experienced any antisemitism in our village primary school. DC has classmates from quite a few ethnic backgrounds and religions. The teachers have been interested to hear him discuss Jewish festivals. I would not keep my child at a school like you describe. Childhood bullying causes lifelong trauma. I would rather keep my child home.

I agree. It’s a gamble to lie because you’d have to be pretty sure of every other student’s ethnicities or risk getting caught out. Lying could potentially make the situation worse.

Heavens, this is an abysmal state of affairs when people need a cover story about where they are from. Lots of people "look Jewish" and are or aren't. It's no one's business, unless the person wants to share that. I am really horrified that teachers and students are dealing in tropes. Please call out these teachers to the school and local authority. "Money lender"? That is completely unacceptable. People need educating, not covering it up. I'd urge the school to address this ASAP. The whole school should watch a video of Mala Tribich speaking to students.

I do know many children of Eastern European heritage who do not speak a word of their ancestral language.

And that’s exactly my point^
You cant just say that you are from any country.
However Hungarian I might look two minutes conversation would make it obvious that I wasn’t Hungarian.

I don't like the idea of having to fib about the background, but if this helps any: I know many people who are of very mixed Slavic heritage because of the history of the Balkans - and it's well known that that particular group often neglects to teach their children their ancestral languages.

They also very often say that they're atheist though their ancestors will be a mixture of Montenegrin/Serbian Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim.

@Aislyn I'm deeply shocked by your DD's experience at this school. I know you've said you've complained but I think you should escalate it. Is this a state school in England? State schools are bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty. What you've described is really serious. Teachers making antisemitic comments, the school failing to act when children engage in antisemitic bullying.
This simply is not acceptable or lawful and you shouldn't have have to contemplate concocting a "cover story".

hah yes they are. I don't claim them though; I'm more of a 'Cher' Armenian, myself 😂

But yeah I get your point; I know some people have heard of it, mostly because of the Kardasians, but it's hardly the most well-known country in that region and people are often hard pressed to come up with many details about it.

Never knew that Jewish Europeans had a paticular look.
If you have olive skin, why wouldn't people assume you're Spanish, or Greek or Italian.
Anyway, not fair on the kids, definitely liase with school.

The half-Polish girls at my school all had Catholic heritage. Some of the other girls of Eastern European heritage had family who were of Christian Orthodox heritage. (The families just used to explain that they were members of the Greek Orthodox church to make it easier for people to understand.)

All the Polish kids at the school where I worked had a Catholic background. The Romanian kids were either Christian Orthodox or 7th Day Adventists.

The Kardashian’s are Armenian 😁 they make lots of jokes about being hairy Armenian beasts. so, incidentally is my blonde faired blue eyed Russian SIL