It might just be something getting lost in translation between Sweden and here, but I’m not a fan of the term “refusenik” to describe people who won’t take the vaccine. The word has a very specific meaning for me, describing the Soviet Jews who were denied permission to emigrate in the 1970s and 1980s.

I spent a lot of my time in synagogue youth group involved in advocacy for those refuseniks (and a lot more time in youth group chasing girls who had no interest in me, but that’s another story), and some of the advocacy actually worked.

(Also I found out later on that my college girlfriend, now spouse of 25 years, had been at the same big rally for Soviet Jews in DC in 1987 that I attended.)

Anyway, I see “refusenik” and I think of the Soviet Jews fighting a good fight, not the anti-vaxx morons fighting against reality and science and health.