Take 2025: The Year My Workplace Became a Classroom for Jewish History

I never imagined that fighting antisemitism would weave itself into my work life. Yet somewhere between briefs and meetings, it did. I wasn’t prepared for it, and I wasn’t seeking it, but suddenly I was the person asked to explain a history I had always carried quietly.

It wasn’t the content of what I shared that felt difficult. It was the act of saying those stories out loud to people hearing them for the first time. There’s a particular vulnerability in offering something so heavy and hoping you’re doing it with care.

What made it bearable was how fully my agency supported me. Whenever I suggested a way to help people learn or unlearn about Jewish life, history, or anti-Jewish hate, they backed it without hesitation. They paid for tickets, made space in calendars, and treated it as collective learning rather than something I had to shoulder alone. That changed everything.

We attended a Simon Wiesenthal lecture, the ROM Auschwitz Exhibit, the Nova Exhibit, and later held a Jewish-culture lunch. These were small experiences, but meaningful ones that allowed people to step closer to a story they had never been asked to witness before.

Through those shared experiences, something became clearer to me. The early warning signs of antisemitism have always been quiet at first. They begin with language, with stereotypes left unchallenged, with people slowly being pushed to the margins. That pattern existed long before the Holocaust, and we can see shades of it in the world today. Recognising it early and having colleagues who were willing to engage, listen, and speak up reminded me why this mattered in the first place.

One moment at the Auschwitz exhibit stays with me. A pregnant co-worker paused in front of a little boy’s shoe and began to cry. It wasn’t planned; it was instinctive. Watching someone who isn’t Jewish connect so immediately and genuinely to this part of history was powerful. Facts can inform, but empathy often comes through something personal, something that makes the past feel suddenly real. Moments like that are how understanding begins to grow.

In the weeks that followed, I began noticing quiet shifts. The moments that meant the most were the private ones: a message at night, a pause in the hallway, someone admitting they’d been thinking or reading on their own. Small gestures, but sincere, and they mattered.

None of this was easy. Sharing painful history, even gently, takes something out of you. But my team’s willingness to sit with discomfort and show up with curiosity made it possible for me to keep going.

What I’m taking into next year is simple: the world may feel fractured, but repair begins in small, human moments. A sincere question. A shift in perspective. A moment of unexpected empathy. Those moments reminded me I don’t have to carry this alone, and that community can appear where you least expect it.