“If You’re Not Comfortable…”

A sentence I heard last week that I haven’t been able to shake.

This week’s blog isn’t funny.
It’s not tied up with a bow.
And it’s not meant to make you comfortable.

It’s about Yom HaShoah.
And it’s about right now.

Last week, I was on a cruise. One of those environments where the world feels… blended. Different countries, languages, cultures—all coexisting in this floating bubble where everything is supposed to feel easy.

There was a jewelry store on board. Beautiful pieces, diamonds, the kind of place you wander into just to look.

And then I heard something that made me stop in my tracks.

A salesperson was showing a customer a necklace—a Star of David.

And she said, very casually:

“If you’re not comfortable wearing it as a Jewish star, it can actually be turned into more of a butterfly shape.”

Just like that.

No hesitation.
No awareness that anything about that statement might be off.
Just… normal.

I stood there, trying to process what I had just heard.

Because think about that for a second.

Can you imagine someone saying that about a cross?

“If you’re not comfortable wearing it as a cross, we can reshape it into something else.”

Of course not. That would be absurd. Offensive, even.

And yet—this was said about a Jewish symbol. Casually. As a selling point.

As if discomfort with being visibly Jewish is something to be expected.
Accommodated.
Built into the product design.

This is where we are.

And it didn’t stop there.

When I looked into the piece later, I learned that this “convertible” design isn’t new. It actually traces back to the Spanish Inquisition—when Jews were forced to convert, and symbols had to be disguised for survival.

Let that sink in.

A design born out of fear, persecution, and forced assimilation… is now being sold again. In 2026. On a cruise ship. As a feature.

Not as history.
Not as a lesson.
As an option.

“If you’re not comfortable…”

Yom HaShoah is about remembrance. About honoring the lives lost, the families destroyed, the resilience of a people who were told—systematically—that they should not exist.

But remembrance isn’t just about looking back.

It’s about recognizing what echoes forward.

And this—this quiet normalization of hiding, of reshaping identity to feel safer, of assuming that being visibly Jewish might be “too much”—this is an echo.

Not the same.
But not unrelated.

For those of you who are Jewish reading this—you probably don’t need me to explain why this hit the way it did.

For those of you who aren’t—this is what I want you to understand:

This isn’t about a necklace.

It’s about the fact that somewhere along the way, it became reasonable—normal even—to suggest that a Jewish person might want to disguise a symbol of who they are.

Not in history books.
Not in a museum.

But in everyday life.

Right now.

I’m not writing this to call out a brand or a cruise line. That’s not the point.

I’m writing this because I want to break my own echo chamber.

Because if you’re not Jewish, there’s a good chance you’re not seeing moments like this. You’re not hearing these comments. You’re not feeling the subtle shifts that make something like that sentence possible.

“If you’re not comfortable…”

We should all be asking—why wouldn’t someone be?

And what does it say about the world we’re living in if that question doesn’t even get asked?

This Yom HaShoah, I’m not just remembering the past.

I’m paying attention to the present.

Because history doesn’t always repeat itself loudly.

Sometimes it shows up quietly.
In a jewelry store.
In a sales pitch.
In a sentence that no one else in the room even notices.

But I did.

And I can’t unhear it.