“Don’t Tell Me to Keep Calm; I’m a Jewish Mother.”

The white letters are emblazoned on a red tote bag that I spot from across a busy lobby, and I let out a theatrical “ha!” It’s a reference, of course, to the 1939 English war slogan “keep calm and carry on.” It’s even in the same font. Helvetica, maybe?

It’s cute, and I love a good tote bag. But the truth is, it makes me just a little uneasy, and I have to put my finger on why.

I grew up in a place and time of unprecedented tranquility for our people. The decades after the Holocaust have been coined a “holiday from history,” when our relative safety allowed us to flourish in ways previously unimaginable.

Growing up, I wore all my Hebrew t-shirts everywhere (and I had a lot of them). I never thought twice about my Jewish star necklace, and I even wore a kippah to my public high school for a bit (so progressive!). I don’t remember ever being afraid. I don’t remember my parents ever being afraid, either. So as an adult, the caricature of the anxious Jewish mother never felt relatable to me. I admit I even rolled my eyes at the very suggestion of antisemitism.

Then Oct. 7 came in like a wave. The breaking of the fences and the storming of the land and the slaughter of our people was so inconceivable that when I first heard about it, it seemed like a mistake. It was like on Sept. 11, 2001, when I laughed and wondered — who is such a terrible pilot as to accidentally fly into a skyscraper?

The news trickled into this house at first, then swelled, rolling from the horizon until it was so vast you could not see the end of it — and it crashed into us with a breathless, drowning fear from which it felt there was no escape. And I know this sounds familiar, my friend.

Two-and-a-half years later, I do not feel suffocated by anxiety. I am largely who I was before: a mother who wants my children to walk (safely and responsibly and looking both ways) to school, who leaves the bedroom so they can learn to fall asleep on their own, who expects them to be prepared to explain the Jewish holiday for which they are missing school.

I don’t remember my parents ever being afraid — but of course they were. They were like I am now: as afraid of what could happen when my children cross the street as I am of what could happen because my children are Jewish children.

Today and every day since Oct. 7 has felt new to me, but the unease that is carried by the mother and father of Jewish children? There is nothing new about that. We wear our generational trauma — our cautiousness, protectiveness, neuroses — like a badge of honor.

Jewish motherhood is for the bold, and sometimes that boldness means laughing at ourselves: Don’t tell me to keep calm; I’m a Jewish mother.

But I would rather play that card a bit closer to my chest. Right now, at least, and at this age, I want my child to see that I trust first in the innate goodness of people. That I need not be afraid. That I can be calm. And second, that if we are, indeed, at the end of our “holiday from history,” we will be ready.

I don’t want a tote bag that says, “don’t tell me to keep calm; I’m a Jewish Mother.” I want that written on a quiet piece of paper and locked away on a dusty bookshelf.

Instead, I want one that says “V’ahavta l’reacha kamocha. Love your neighbor as yourself.”

And for dire moments — which don’t always feel so far away — I want ready at the back of my closet a sweatshirt with a quote from “Jojo Rabbit,” a film by Jewish director Taika Waititi. In huge letters it will read:

“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God.”

And it’ll be in Helvetica.