It's kind of worse because the actual fear her mind cooked up for her in the moment was "an angry 'Palestine' rant and thrust pamphlet material at me".

The fantasy that kept bothering her for days afterward was of an intellectual confrontation with 2 children.

This story could really have been punched up for better effect. Like maybe the candles could have looked to be a physically menacing object, even if only for a second. Knife, chib, pepper spray.. really anything other than ideas. She could have misheard something, or misread body language to make the girls seem hostile, again if only for a moment. Or maybe there could be other people nearby who she thought were all part of a big group ganging up on her but in reality they were unrelated random people.

As it is, the story is diminishing of the concept of a hate crime. Mostly demonstrates the author as someone who isn't really able to imagine street violence against an oppressed group, or the way minority stress could cause you to mis-read a situation.

I also wonder what's the perspective of the girls. I bet they could tell how freaked out she was, and why. Hopefully that is a bit of fun for them. Although it could be very demoralizing to see the horror on someone's face when they realize someone has mis-read them to be like yourself.

She doesn't even feel bad for having reacted to these kids so weirdly. Even while showing off her little lesson in empathy about how hard it is to be jewish, she doesn't manage to consider how rudely she treated the 2 jewish children in front of her. Their reactions to her aren't included or of any interest.