Tag Archives: Jewish identity

July 12, 2010 · 6:01 am

“Man is a Wolf”

by Lev Raphael (Okemos, MI)

My demanding and charismatic mother has been dead for eleven years but I
still often think about her, wishing she were alive.  There’ll be a question I want to ask her about her past, or an event in my current life I’d love to be sharing with her, and sometimes a regret for something I did or said as a child will crop up.  I know she would probably dismiss bringing up the past like that as “Quatsch,” the German word that’s so much more dismissive than “Nonsense.”  She loved to use it as magisterially as if she were in fact a judge pounding her gavel and rendering a verdict. But it doesn’t stop me from imagining the scene anyway.

There are times, though, that I’m glad she’s not alive.  As whenever I read about the conditions at Gitmo, or the Orwellian-named policy of “extraordinary rendition,” or the American use of waterboarding, which has been re-branded in the American media to cover up its illegality.  I feel sure she would be outraged and even sick to her stomach.  I certainly am.

In the late 1940s, not long after she was liberated from her slave labor camp in Germany and met my father, she spent a few weeks in London and among the souvenirs I still have from that trip are tiny photos she took at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.  As a child, she said that the medieval tortures–like a witch in the Chamber of Horrors having water poured through a funnel down her throat–reminded her of things she had seen during the Holocaust.  I didn’t ask what those “things” were, I was stunned enough by descriptions of the waxworks cruelty, and by her oft-repeated “Homo homini lupus est”: Man is a wolf to other men.  This was the voice of dark experience speaking, the voice of history, though I think she took some comfort in summing it all up with the Latin she had learned to read and declaim in school in Poland, situating herself in her own pre-war past and that of Ancient Rome.  My mother liked to take the long view when she could, and I’m sure the museum helped her by siting cruelty many hundreds of years ago.

But I’ve always known that torture for her was no mere exhibit, it was a reality, however hazily defined it might be for me.  It became disturbingly clearer when photos from Abu Ghraib were released on the Internet, and when accounts of torture there and elsewhere in the American gulag were published in magazines like The New Yorker.  Yet it was still always at arm’s length–until I had an hour and a half of it myself, not as a media stunt like some reporter on CNN having himself tasered, but, unexpectedly, while undergoing a medical procedure.

Trying to track down a persistent throat problem I’d been having, an otolaryngologyst had referred me to a neurologist so as to start ruling various possibilities out.  The cheerful neurologist found I had no signs of Parkinson’s whatsoever, but wanted to be sure there wasn’t some neuropathy she was missing in her personal exam.  She described the procedure she wanted me to have as “they’ll stick some needles into you.”  “You mean like acupuncture? Will it hurt?”  Her reply:   “There’ll be some discomfort.”  That didn’t sound so bad to me, and because I was so busy, I didn’t bother to explore on my own exactly what the test, an electromyogram, would entail. I wish I had.

A few weeks later I lay in a hospital gown in a cramped, overly bright, featureless little room waiting for the test after some small talk and a brief physical examination.  The doctor was assisted by an Austrian intern and because I’m studying German, this gave the whole experience a surprisingly relaxed feel.  She and I chatted a bit in German, but pretty soon, after an initial examination, the human side of the interaction was completely over, and I was reduced to an object.

What exactly is an electromyogram?  By inserting electrodes into muscle tissue, doctors can test  the electrical activity of muscles at rest and during contraction to see if there’s nerve or muscle damage. So for about an hour, I had needle electrodes stuck into various places on my legs while a nurse or I moved my limbs as instructed.  Information was gathered and the machine that I never got a good look at crackled like a Geiger counter. At first I felt almost nothing, then it was like a nasty pin prick, then each successive jolt was more and more painful, sometimes so much so that I gasped or groaned “Jesus!” or “Wow!”  At more than one point my leg shot in the air because the current was so strong.

This went on and on in a kind of nightmarish rhythm: first fear, then pain, then relief the pain was over, then fear of more pain coming, then the pain which kept getting worse.  As the cycle continued,  my consciousness shriveled until the world was reduced to a series of sensations and noises, both those that came out of my mouth and those being made by the machine.  When the doctor finally told me that the next part of the test didn’t involve electric current, I thought I was over the agony, but it actually got worse.  He stuck needles of some kind in my hand at the joint of my index finger and thumb, in my arm, in my shoulder, and each time I had to move my hand or arm in certain ways to to provide the information they were looking for.  Not only did this part of the test hurt more, I had soreness in my hand and arm for weeks afterward, and large bruises.

I don’t remember well the short consultation that followed, but I do remember feeling exhausted and humiliated when everyone filed out: neurologist, test administrator, Austrian resident, nurse.  I was so stunned by what had happened to me that I didn’t even check out, just wandered the halls till a nurse pointed me to an exit. I managed to drive myself home, glad that I hadn’t started crying during the test, even though the pain had been so intense I almost did so twice.

What seemed like the greatest violation of my dignity, of my selfhood, was that I had come to this hospital for healing, or at least a diagnostic exam that would lead to healing, but had found something very different instead.  The people administering the test didn’t intend to torture me, they weren’t evil, they weren’t remotely like my mother’s tormentors, but they had left me feeling crushed and shattered just the same.  I’d been mugged once in New York, but that was a pat on the back compared to this assault, to suddenly no longer feeling safe in the world, as if my personal boundaries were meaningless and anything could happen to me.

I told a dancer friend of mine about the test and she said she had walked out of a similar one.  “You can’t do this to me,” she said to the doctor, “I’m not a criminal.”  And when she described the scene, I felt like an idiot.  Why hadn’t I stopped the test?  Why hadn’t I told the doctor to turn the fucking machine off and let me go?

I couldn’t.  I was paralyzed and not thinking straight, barely thinking at all.

The morning after the test, I woke up at 4:30 AM, shaking.  My bed had turned into that hospital table and though the room was dark, I felt bright lights beating down on me.  I knew I had to flee that scene somehow.  I got up quietly so as not to wake my partner or the dogs, grabbed a Valium in the bathroom, and headed to my study to escape into the morning’s news.  Over the following days, whenever I answered somebody’s email about how I was feeling and the test flitted through my mind, or if I even mentioned it, I could feel the terror and pain coming back.  Anyone who’s been in a violent accident, or victim of a gross physical assault, will probably know what I mean.

After talking about the test with my therapist, I knew that writing about what happened was essential to getting over it.  He made the connection for me between my experience and my mother’s in the war, something that amazingly hadn’t crossed my mind until he said it.  Yes, it was only an hour and a half of agony, not years, months, or even days–but it linked us in the most unexpected way.  I had entered a prolonged situation of helplessness — or that’s how it felt to me.

I realized that I had to write to the neurologist who was in charge and share my experience, not to apportion blame, but so he could help future patients.  I had never had a test like this before; it had never occurred to me that I could stop it.  But the administering physician should have offered me the choice before the test even started. What added to the nightmare was the wall that suddenly shot up between me and everyone in the room as soon as the test began.  I was a source of data and they weren’t people, either: just soulless technicians who never responded to my obvious distress.

It’s not melodramatic to realize that if the test had gone on longer without hope of release, and had they been after any secrets I held, I would have told them anything to make it stop.  Now I understand something of what happens in places like Abu Ghraib, and I was only tortured for an hour and a half.  But at least it ended, and I’m free.

I’ve been able to seek relief in writing.  Once, decades ago, I suggested  that my mother write about her past because the world needed to know what happened to her, but that made her furious, “I don’t owe the world anything!”  How could I argue with that?  But writing about her is something I have to do, and each year I discover new ways.

I’m on a Second Generation listserv and recently we’ve all been discussing our middle-aged health issues, and after I described what happened to me, one member told me that this same test was being recommended for her 89-year old father.  Hopefully my story will spare him pain, or at least inform him that he can make the pain stop.  I’m not remotely happy to have had this ordeal, but it gave me a strange gift: brief, visceral understanding of what my mother experienced during the war, being trapped and victimized.  It made me marvel at her courage to go on, to rebuild her life, even while it fills me with sorrow to know that her story can never be fully told.

Lev Raphael, a prize-winning pioneer in American-Jewish literature, has been publishing fiction and nonfiction about the Second Generation since 1978. The author of nineteen books which have been translated into almost a dozen languages, he has spoken about his work in hundreds of venues on three continents. His fiction and creative non-fiction are widely taught at American colleges and universities. A former public radio book show host, academic, and columnist, he can be found on the web at http://www.levraphael.com.

You can check out his latest book, the memoir, My Germany: A Jewish Writer Returns to the World His Parents Escaped, at http://www.levraphael.com/mygermany.html.

And you can view a YouTube excerpt from one of his talks at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFhrajH-6AE

10 Comments

Filed under American Jewry, Family history

Tagged as , ,

December 21, 2009 · 9:35 am

Jerusalem: December 24

by Cherryl Smith (El Cerrito, CA)

I’m wheeling my new rolling cart out of the supermarket on HaPalmach on Christmas Eve, strolling past Bank Hapoalim, which looks pretty crowded, and congratulating myself on the purchase of the brown and white checkered shopping cart that makes the seven block trek back to our apartment on Rechov Alkalai an easy errand, no awkward maneuvering of heavy grocery-filled plastic bags or hands red from the drawstrings. There’s a new bookstore on the corner and tonight I decide to go in. It’s a small, inviting place with a good English selection and an electric kettle for tea or instant coffee. I browse for a few minutes and though I’m feeling carefree and happy, I resist buying more books, say l’hitraot to the young clerk and go back outside where the air is cold, and the streets, the open stores, the traffic — all are the same as on any other weekday evening.

How to describe this, the joy of Christmas in the Holy Land?

Tourists have arrived from around the globe and the hotels in Jerusalem, as well as in Bethlehem, are full. The municipality is distributing free evergreen trees at Jaffa Gate to anyone who wants one.  For the past few nights, a lime green floodlight has been projected onto the Old City walls. There is even a large inflated Santa Claus outside a shop on a side street in the Christian Quarter. Around 10 pm, we hear bells ringing from the Old City and we do not, immediately, remember that it’s Christmas Eve.

This is my first visit to Israel in winter, the first time that I have experienced Christmas as just another day, all the weeks and months leading up to it invisible within the Jewish calendar of Haggim and Shabbatot that create the rhythm of life here. It’s the first winter that I have not wished to flee my surroundings, to mute the sensory barrage of piped in Christmas music, the glare of Christmas lights, the shopping countdown and the spending frenzy–the first time that Chanukah has not been swept into the holidays of “the season.”

There is Christmas in Israel and it is a religious observance, the reason for the December influx of tourism to the sites made famous by Christianity. Here, in the one Jewish country of the world, Christmas is not a national holiday. The day passes unnoticed in the Jewish and Arab-Muslim neighborhoods and for the first time in my life the weeks of December did not include finding a response to the question: “Are you ready for Christmas?”

The IBA English news even interviewed Christian tourists in a kind of human interest story you sometimes see given to Jewish holidays in the US.  The tourists, “some of whom refer to themselves as pilgrims,” notes Yochanan Elron, the anchor, have filled the hotels and are enjoying Israel for the holiday. IBA news’ Leah Stern speaks to visitors outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. One African-American woman traveling with a tour group is especially enthusiastic. What does she want to tell the folks back home? “Everybody” ought to come here, see the sites, spend time in Israel. It’s safer here than in the cities in the USA.  You’ve “just got to experience Christmas in Israel,” she says.  It is “the best Christmas” of her life.

The same for me, exactly.

Cherryl Smith is author of After Being Somewhere Else (poems) and Writing Your Way Through College, a student’s guide. She teaches writing at Sacramento State University where she is a Professor in Composition and Rhetoric.  During the fall and winter of 2007 she taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

This piece is reprinted with permission of the author.

Leave a comment

Filed under American Jewry

Tagged as , ,

December 7, 2009 · 7:51 am

Following the Lead of My Radical Foremothers

by Dina Ripsman Eylon (Thornhill, Ontario, Canada)

The idea to start an academic journal on Jewish women came to me while researching the lives of Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi, Mania Shochat and Netiva Ben Yehuda for an article on women in the military in pre-state Israel. I realized that despite the fact that these women were instrumental in military organizations prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, nothing about them was mentioned in history textbooks of the period. Growing up in Israel during the 1960s and 1970s, I was not aware of the contribution of any of these women, except for Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi, (the wife of the second president of Israel) even though during this time in North America, the Second Wave of the feminist movement flourished.

Confounded by personal reflections and undefined theories forming slowly in my mind, I devoured books in the fields of women’s history and feminism. I wanted to know more about complex issues like Jewish marriage and divorce, and the role women were expected to play in the family. I wanted to understand political and social structures that propagated discrimination and inequality.

Through this personal quest for enlightenment, I was introduced to the works and philosophy of the renowned novelist and author Virginia Woolf. In the late 1920s she explored the subjects of women’s history and writing. Woolf delivered two lectures on the topic of women and fiction at the Cambridge women’s colleges of Girton and Newnham. She examined women’s writing from all possible angles and famously concluded that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” and inevitably, if she is to write anything at all, or be written about. In A Room of One’s Own, her subsequent work, she articulated women’s inopportune historical exploits and boldly stated: “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.”

In Israel, the question “what does it mean to be Jewish?” does not surface except for the need to affiliate oneself with either the secular majority or the observant minority. When I arrived in Canada in 1980 to pursue my graduate studies, I learned that being a Jewish woman was not limited to being merely secular or religious. Jewish identity was not inherent but actually a product of one’s self-search or desire to belong socially. Assuming a Jewish identity was a choice that many women wanted to make.

As the eminent Jewish feminist Susan Weidman Schneider wrote in her seminal work Jewish and Female, “the tension for Jewish women today comes from the struggle to stay within the tradition yet not compromise one’s identity and integrity as a woman.” Weidman Schneider described a variety of ways in which these identities are sought: changing and feminizing known rituals, “rediscovering” new aspects of Judaism that may relate to women, studying sources and texts to discern women’s input, and moreover, “transforming traditional Judaism and Jewish institutions so that they include women…”

Schneider’s book was another milestone in shaping a more defined view on the life of Jewish women in North America and helped to crystallize my feminist ideology. It was an ideology based on a determination to empower women by the only weapon I had – education.

As the founder and editor-in-chief of Women in Judaism in 1997, I wanted to help create ‘a paradigm shift’ within the field of Jewish Studies and build a new one reintroducing the findings to what is considered now the ‘mainstream’ or “malestream” study of Judaism. Since its inception, the journal has gained international readership and is listed in dozens of directories and indexes. In addition to publishing prominent scholars, the journal promotes young and emerging scholars and makes it a priority to give a voice to materials that most likely would have never been published by “malestream” Jewish periodicals. The journal welcomes a diversity of points of view, conflicting or harmonizing, in order to develop a genuine dialogue.

Our primary goal is to give Jewish women an uninterrupted voice, a place where all voices are heard and listened to, devoid of any patriarchal sponsorship or censorship.

Author and publisher, Dina Ripsman Eylon has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She has been teaching various undergraduate courses at Carleton University and at the University of Toronto. For the past twelve years, she has served as the publisher and editor-in-chief of Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal (http://www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/journal/journal_index1.html), a gender-related publication, which has engaged and promoted new feminist scholarship in Jewish Studies. Her book, Reincarnation in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosticism, was published by Edwin Mellen Press (2003). Eylon founded the Vaughan Poets’ Circle and serves as the Thornhill branch manager of the Ontario Poetry Society.

This piece is based on Dina Ripsman Eylon’s “No More Anonymity,” which appears in Living Legacies: A Collection of Inspirational Contemporary Canadian Jewish Women (edited by Liz Pearl). It’s reprinted here with permission of the author.

1 Comment

Filed under Jewish writing, Judaism

Tagged as , ,

November 30, 2009 · 9:14 am

The World’s Oldest…Question

by Irina Tsukerman (Brooklyn, NY)

…is “Who am I?” In my case, it means who am I as a Jew. Am I even a Jew? My ethnic identity and my religious identity should be one and the same, because all Jews, as a people, are supposed to follow certain religious prescriptions (many of which indeed sound like a bitter pill to swallow). But I don’t believe in much of it. For instance, I don’t think kashrut is justified. I’m an agnostic. Praying doesn’t do the trick for me. I don’t want to waste my Saturday afternoons in synagogue, which to me, is a good place for community interaction, but otherwise isn’t particularly useful. I’m not a Democrat. I don’t believe in abortions, welfare, affirmative action, community service, and pro bono work. What can I say? I’m a bad Jew…

Or at least I would be according to one view. The other view, secular nationalist one, seems to justify me completely. I espouse my history and background. I completely support Israel. I encourage the unity among the Jews, including one language, which should be Hebrew, not Yiddish or Ladino or anything else. Hebrew. I’m an ardent advocate of Israel’s right to exist… I long to rejoin the Jewish community, and hopefully one day will actively participate in a number of important Jewish networks and organizations. And I support the core tenets of “traditional” Jewish values, such as justice, defense of the helpless, and love of learning. (Though the phrase “People of the Book” has a slightly different connotation in my view). I hope to become the best that I can and make my people proud of me. Which makes me a good Jew…

But wait a second. Some of the more religious communities wouldn’t call me Jewish at all. I don’t even follow the basic of Jewish things. I eat pork, well, sometimes. I don’t really like pork. But I love rabbit and seafood and black caviar and chicken covered with cheese with dry plums. I am far from modest in my attire. I don’t mark the Holidays with the exception of Yom Kippur, which I mark only by fasting not prayers or restraint from work. I don’t have a Jewish name and I don’t want one. And though I want my children to have a Jewish education, I’m more concerned about their secular one and that they enjoy life, and are vivacious, aggressive, fun-loving, a bit crazy and to an extent, even disobedient and skeptical.

I want them to be everything I am and more. I want them to have an opportunity to go to the prom in school if they so wish. I didn’t, but only because I didn’t want to, not because I couldn’t. I don’t want them to wear long skirts all the time, but a variety of clothes that they like, as long as they don’t look like prostitutes. At the same time, I would love them to be as much interested in Jewish history, culture, and current life as I am, and I want them to be just as supportive of Israel. So who am I? Am I Jewish or not? Am I a bad Jew or a good Jew? Is an agnostic who supports Israel any better than an ultra-Orthodox who doesn’t? Is it so wrong to want to live to the fullest, and eat what I like, and do what I want with my life and free time, in the modern world?

Life is so short – why waste it on useless restrictions? Don’t get me wrong, if I were forced to follow the rules (such as if I married into an observant family), I’d be able to. I’m a good, disciplined girl. But is it worth it? Is any man and any family, no matter how much I love him, worth the sacrifice of my core belief, my very identity of living life to the fullest? Can I really change – not just my habits, but my very nature- for the sake of somebody else? Do I want to? I’ve read John Fowles’ masterpiece, Daniel Martin. There, a character, an energetic, spunky though very stubborn young woman, marries a guy who becomes a deeply observant Catholic. She adapts to his way of life, but in return, fades, and loses her sparkle. Is that what would happen to me if I were to embrace my traditions? Do I want that? I’m seriously questioning myself and my motivations. I have no right to make promises that I can but do not want to keep… including promises to myself.

And I have to make peace with myself and know who I really am. Otherwise, I don’t feel like I really belong anywhere. If anyone of my readers has ever experienced such a conflict, please help me understand what is happening to me. How do I deal with not knowing what I am in relation to my own nation? What do I owe to my ethnicity and my religion? One thing I know for sure: if I want to come to any satisfactory conclusion, I’ve got to be honest with myself, which I haven’t been previously. And if any observant Jew ever reads this, please do not judge me too harshly. I came from a world where Jewish tradition was suppressed, and for me it doesn’t make any sense half the time, rationalized or not. For me the costs of giving up the way of life that I enjoy seem greater than the dubious benefits of an observant lifestyle. Before condemning me as the heretic that I probably am, read Daniel Martin and try to see how similar I now feel to Jane. And read Hesse’s Steppenwolf – it’s kind of the opposite. There, a cultured but very withdrawn and dry individual, reaches out to embrace life with all its complexities and heterodoxies. Please do respond to this, whether you’re Jewish or not. What, to you, is your identity?

Maybe Jewish and maybe not,

Irina

Irina Tsukerman was born in Kharkov, Ukraine in 1985, and came to the United States in September 1995. She received an A.B. in International/Intercultural Studies from Fordham College at Lincoln Center in 2006, and graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She currently resides in Brooklyn.

You can read more of her work at her blog, The IgNoble Experiment http://sicat222.blogspot.com/ where this piece first appeared in 2004. It’s reprinted here with permission of the author.

1 Comment

Filed under American Jewry, Jewish identity, Ukrainian Jewry

Tagged as ,

September 14, 2009 · 7:40 am

The Mezuzah

By Gloria Scheiner (Sarasota, FL)

“Ouch! Oh no, not again.”

My son, Adam, got another cut on his finger kissing the mezuzah.

When Adam’s kids were small, he carried the children on his shoulders so they could kiss the mezuzah when they entered the house.

Now they are four and seven years old, and each has a mezuzah within easy reach on the doorpost of his or her room.

What is it about the mezuzah?

It has become a magnificent work of art.

Sometimes I think it’s a symbol for how so many of us live our Jewishness.

We keep it beautiful. We build beautiful buildings. We respect the talent and artistic drive that creates these structures, and we try to identify with the great Jewish writers, Nobel Prize winners and musicians. But it appears we are searching for our Jewish identity by association.

I’ve learned that many people don’t even take the time to insert the prayer.

We need to be careful lest the mezuzah become a mirror of the empty vessel through which we live out our Jewish identity.

Other times, I think maybe the magnificent, empty mezuzah is needed on some level to remind us that we are in process. The message is coming. It just doesn’t come at once.

Each of our grandchildren has a mezuzah. We chose each one carefully for its art and meaningfulness and we paid extra to have the prayer inserted so that the mezuzah would be kosher.

The mezuzah helps remind each of the children who they are and where they came from every time they enter their homes.

I’m not certain they engage in the ritual of kissing the mezuzah like Adam when they enter their homes.

However, when they enter their homes, and when their friends enter their homes, they know it is a Jewish home.

I’m sorry Adam cuts his finger every now and then. But I guess therein can be found the historical message.

No matter how many times he gets hurt, he continues to kiss the mezuzah as he shares his love for his Jewishness with his family.

Gloria Scheiner is a member of “The Pearls,” a group of six women who meet every Monday in Sarasota to write. “We choose a word and write for about ten minutes. If we like it, we are free to expand it, edit it, or just hone in on a particular phrase or idea. What I love most is how one word evokes such a different chord in each of us.“


1 Comment

Filed under American Jewry, Jewish identity

Tagged as ,

September 7, 2009 · 11:28 am

Marrying Jewish

by Norri Leder (Houston, TX)

I got married at 33, just two months shy of 34, and, let me tell you, it was cause for celebration.  My sister and I have five first cousins.  Between the seven of us, one cousin and I are the only ones currently married.   Two others were married, but are now divorced, and both of those unions were interfaith.  They married non-Jews.  My grandmother would say to people in her thick Georgia drawl, “If you have five grandchildren, you’re lucky if two of them are married.”  And I married a nice Jewish boy.  I hit a home run.

My husband Jason and I knew each other as young children.  Photos of us exist from a family friend’s birthday party at a miniature golf venue.  I remember having a crush on him as a kid.  His big brown eyes looked like Speed Racer’s.  But we were never at the same schools, and our families weren’t in close contact.  He reemerged at the same friend’s birthday party – but this time the friend turned 30 instead of 7.   Jason and I noticed each other, finagled an introduction, and the rest moved incredibly smoothly.  He called when he said he would.  Our conversations were long and effortless.  He displayed great sincerity, integrity and smarts.  Dating around for well over a decade had jaded me,   but Jason leaped through every ring of courtship.  After six months or so, I realized, “We’re never breaking up.”  This was it.  I felt peace, and upon our later engagement, elation.

Companionship – to me – always seemed like a huge bonus in life.  Truth be told, I was frequently angst filled over the years worrying about whether I would ever find that “special someone.”  I now shudder to think of the time wasted fretting about this issue, and can only hope my daughters are spared the anxiety.  Ever since I hit late adolescence, I longed for a companion.  I wanted a friend, a partner, a romantic “soulmate.”  And I always wanted that person to be Jewish.  At first, I wanted Jewish because my parents told me it was so important.  Their reasons were manifold.  Judaism was a beautiful, vital part of our lives, and I would want someone to share that with me.  It would profoundly disappoint them, and even hurt them if I married a non-Jew.   My grandparents would be crushed.  Marriage is so much harder when the husband and wife have different religions; matrimony has enough challenges.

Then there was the genuine guilt of marrying outside the faith.  Jewish organizations have commissioned studies that show how intermarriage drains the number of Jews worldwide. The studies include statistics showing overwhelming odds that your children, grandchildren, and certainly great grandchildren will not be Jewish if current intermarriage rates continue.  Rabbis, Jewish professionals, and practically all identified Jews know these numbers, and they expend tremendous energy trying to retain Jewish culture – and yes – Jews.  This issue resonated with me as an identified Jew, a Jew who actually took part in at least some religious traditions and felt connected to her culture.  I didn’t want to diminish a three thousand year old heritage for which my ancestors had endured hardship and persecution.

On a personal note, Judaism was always an integral part of my upbringing.  My sister and I attended very integrated public schools and had friends from a variety of backgrounds, but we always had a family Friday night Shabbat dinner, kept kosher, and observed Jewish holidays.  We had passionate dinner time discussions, many times involving Israel, Bible stories and the merits and drawbacks of religious observance.  We had friends over to share holidays or Shabbat with us.  At Passover time, we were all enlisted in a massive effort to clean the house and switch out our dishes so nothing was “contaminated” by bread.  My sister and I attended Hebrew school three times a week, studied for a year to prepare for our bat mitzvahs, and attended Jewish summer camp.  In our family, Judaism was fun, social, warm and relevant.  Its absence in life – and certainly family – would be palpable.  So, I invested myself in trying to meet a Jewish man.

One way I tried to ensure I would marry Jewish was by only dating Jewish.  Many people I knew hoped to find partners from their same cultural background,  be they Jewish, Indian, Catholic or Latino, to name a few.   But I was particularly disciplined.  I remembered my father saying that if you don’t date a non-Jew, you won’t fall in love with a non-Jew.  This comment generated lots of teenage rebellion in me during middle school and high school.  But as I got older and experienced heartbreak on my own, I knew I didn’t want to endure it more than necessary.  Ever since my college years, when I met a non-Jewish man I was attracted to, I forced myself to let it go.  In some cases, I set him up with close non-Jewish friends, in the hopes that two great people might find happiness where I took a pass.    And I continued to wait for my Mr. Right.

But as my late twenties were starting to take hold, dating was getting older and older.  Oh, the bad dates – how do I recount them all?  The set up with the guy so big he could barely fit in my Honda Civic.  The car actually tilted once he finally got situated.  (I’m too picky, complained my cousin/matchmaker.  In time I wouldn’t see his weight at all.)  The brother of someone who took me out a couple times and said approximately 20 words combined on both dates.  (I’d regret it, said the brother.  He was very successful.)  The overly slick, combed back guys who drove sports cars and wore clothes that screamed of mid-life crisis before mid-life.  And, of course, those I found compelling, but they didn’t feel the same about me.  My mother would always say, “You like them more than they like you, or they like you more than you like them.  When it’s even, you get married.  That’s the way it is.  You only need one.”  Her words were meant to comfort, but the search was starting to take a real toll.

By around age 30, I started to wonder if it was really possible.  Maybe I would never meet anyone at all – forget the Jewish element altogether.  My first cousin, a single man, would panic me even more, telling me that odds were terribly low that I would meet anyone I wanted to spend my life with at all.  “Meeting someone Jewish is even less likely.  Statistically, everything is stacked against you,” he warned.  He may have even pulled out the old, “You have a better chance getting killed in a terrorist attack than meeting a man, much less a Jewish man.”  It felt overwhelming, and depression would take hold at times.  I would call my sister and close friends, chanting what was becoming a mantra:  “Do you think I’m ever going to meet someone?” One of those friends was a non-Jewish buddy from law school.  We were very close, and there had always been a pull between us, but he was one of those I let go.  Suddenly, I began to wonder.  What if I was making a terrible mistake?  Work was nice, friends were great, but I didn’t want to spend my whole life alone.  What if my cousin was right?  What if I was passing up my small statistical chance for happiness?   It haunted me.

And what if I took action?  How would my family react?  Would I feel shame?  Could I sacrifice personal happiness for heritage?  But soon, the questions shifted.  Would I be happy with a non-Jewish partner?  What would I personally be giving up?  How would I pass my traditions and beliefs on to my children?  Would I sing the songs and prayers by myself?  With whom would I carry on the passionate debates about Israel, religious observance and history?  Who would care with me?  Would my children, as the statistics predicted, disappear into the American melting pot?  I ultimately realized that I wanted a Jewish partner.  I needed someone who cared about the meaning.  I needed someone who saw it as a beautiful gift – something worth handing down.  Parents, guilt, and Jewish continuity all took a backseat to this.

As for my law school friend, after much hand-wringing, I decided to take a chance.  I knew I wanted a Jewish partner, so – I thought – perhaps he would consider converting to Judaism.  As a general rule, I can’t say I endorse converting to a religion for the sake of romance.  But we were close friends, and I thought it might work in our case.  Regardless of the outcome, I was terrified of losing the friendship.  And, truthfully, I was also very frightened at the thought of rejection.  I went over to his apartment.  I shakily confessed my feelings, with the caveat that he should not even kiss me unless he could consider building a hut in his backyard once a week each year and hanging fruit from it (in celebration of the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot).    It was a scary moment, because I knew he had feelings for me, but didn’t know if he would be willing to jump this far.  Additionally, I knew that if he reciprocated, my Jewish life would be different and possibly more challenging than I had anticipated for myself.  Ultimately, he opted to date someone else he had been seeing.  And he didn’t bother to share his choice with me until weeks later.  It was very disappointing for me initially, and I was back to ground zero in terms of finding Mr. Right.  Still, the process crystallized the importance of culture and religion to me personally.   This realization is with me to this day.

I met my husband within a year or so of this event, and everything — miraculously —  fell into place.  We have a strong, happy marriage full of humor, affection and joy.  We also share a lovely Jewish connection with each other.  We have beautiful Shabbat dinners with our children and parents each week.  We build our sukkah in the back yard each year and invite friends over to share the fun with us.  Jason and I attend lectures on Jewish topics, debate Israeli politics and belong to a chavurah (a group of Jewish friends that meet regularly) through our synagogue.  Our kids keep kosher and attend a Jewish day school.  It wasn’t easy getting here, but I have to say, it’s truly wonderful.    And what about those years of anxiety spent finding a partner?  What of all those failed attempts, lost opportunities and psychological stretch marks?  The impact runs deep.  Almost a decade into marriage, I still have this recurring dream.   Jason has left me.  Maybe he met someone else.  Maybe he’s just rejected me.  My parents are asking me what I’ll do.  Where will I work?    I’ll have to move out of the house.  And even more pressing, at least in my dream, is how will I meet someone new?  My mind races with the realization that I’m alone again.  I have to start dating, looking, trying all over.  I’ve returned to the same agonizing spot I was in before. Then – I wake up.

The dream makes me appreciate the life I have.  Work is good, friends are great, and I’m not alone.  For me, it’s an incredible feeling, especially because I wasn’t sure I would land here.  I never took it for granted.  As I write this, I realize some might think my dating approach was backward and impractical.  In this enlightened age of diversity, why limit myself?  “Be open to everyone,” they might say. “Give yourself the chance to meet everyone.  Religion is only one aspect of life; it isn’t everything.”   Others might think my insistence on dating Jewish men to be lacking in spontaneity or somehow squelching the natural way we meet people in life.   Some might even consider my approach to be racist.  Did I somehow think my background was part of a special pedigree that had to be preserved?  As for the racism charge, I can decidedly say I feel no superiority to others.  How could I?  My family’s story is one of poverty and oppression, of faith and endurance, just like millions of others in America.  The Jewish people’s story, while unique and compelling in some ways, is no more special than many other ethnic and religious groups’ tales.  As for the natural development of relationships, I obviously chose to let mine progress only with lots of forethought.  I consider it perfectly valid, thoughtful and sensitive to think through expectations for a relationship.  I think I would be naïve if I didn’t recognize that practically any date could turn surprisingly into a romance, and therefore any romantic relationship could develop into a marriage.  As for diversity, some of my most valuable  experiences in life have been in highly integrated schools and through my many friendships with people from different cultural backgrounds. In fact, I would have been completely open to dating and marrying a Jew from Ethiopia, Iran or India.  My question is how do we slide into the melting pot without forgetting who we are?  For me, marrying Jewish – or trying to – was a way to remember who I was, and not melt away.  I’m glad I didn’t.

Norri Katzin Leder lives in Houston, Texas.  A graduate of Brown University and the University of Houston Law School, she worked in management consulting for over six years, and is now a full time mother of two amazing, wonderful, brilliant daughters.  When not packing lunches, she is active in the Houston JCC Jewish Book and Arts Fair and other sundry organizations.  She enjoys writing, and hopes to do more of it in the near future.

14 Comments

Filed under American Jewry

Tagged as , ,

August 24, 2009 · 8:23 am

Writing Practice: Simple Acts

The simplest acts in our lives–from breathing to brushing our teeth to bending over to lace our shoes–are sometimes taken for granted.

Can you think of an act that you perform daily or weekly which you may overlook in your rush to catch the bus on your way to school or as you hurry to your next office meeting?

Maybe it’s the moment at your desk when you take the first sip of your morning coffee.

Or maybe it’s when the phone rings and you hear a loved one’s voice.

Or see a rainbow from your car window.

Or hear a new song on the radio.

Take a moment to think of the blessings in your life… and then write about a specific moment in which you first recognized that moment as a blessing.

Once you’ve written down the bare bones of the moment–go back and re-read what you’ve written.

Can you find a Jewish element in the moment?

And can you flesh out that Jewish element as part of that moment?

Here’s the beginning of a draft that I came up with:

Sunday Morning Doughnuts

It’s early Sunday morning, and I’m sitting at Dunkin’ Donuts after dropping my daughter off at Hebrew school.

On the table in front of me I’ve set a medium cup of coffee (extra light, no sugar), steam rising above the rim, and, on a paper napkin, a chocolate frosted doughnut.

I lift the doughnut to my lips and, before biting into it, say a blessing to thank God for allowing food to be grown and processed and made into something as delicious as a doughnut.

This simple act of blessing the doughnut–or any food that passes my lips–is my way of acknowledging God and reminds me of  all that flows out of God and how I’m as much a part of that flow of energy as the wheat and sugar and chocolate (not to mention the human labor) that goes into the creation of the doughnut.

But part of me wonders–in the very act of saying the blessing– how I can say such a blessing if I doubt God’s existence?

Does my doubt–as slight or great as it may be on any given day– make the blessing hollow, hypocritical?

These two conflicting poles–wanting to acknowledge and thank God on the one hand, but doubting God’s existence on the other–pull me in different directions.

On some days I gravitate toward one pole; on other days, toward the other. The tension is always there. It’s part of my Jewish identity, an internal debate reflecting, perhaps, my American-Jewish soul.

As an American, I try to be open to the world. I want to be free of the shackles of the Old World, to explore new ways of living. But as a Jew I look a bit dubiously at the New World. I want to be faithful to the past and to the faith of my forefathers and my Jewish heritage.

How am I supposed to reconcile these two conflicting impulses? Are they conflicting impulses or simply different sides of the same issue regarding faith?

Do I just learn to live with them or, ultimately, must I choose one or the other?

Can both–faith and doubt– co-exist simultaneously, or must one conquer the other and emerge the victor?

And then I take a bite of the doughnut, and all my questions of faith and doubt dissolve in the moment of savoring the taste of chocolate frosting.

Let us know what you discover about being Jewish in the simple acts of your daily life when you get a chance.

2 Comments

Filed under American Jewry, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, writing practice

Tagged as , ,

July 6, 2009 · 7:28 am

From Jew-ish to Jewish

by Rachel Reeves (Brighton, UK)

I feel frustrated at the moment.  I’m sitting here on the train, wishing I had my laptop instead of having to resort to my illegible scrawl.  This will be my ‘nth’ iteration of my innermost thoughts about my journey to becoming Jewish.  My initial version was written in the time running up to Shavuot – which has now long since passed.  Reading it back to myself now, it comes across as rather thin and superficial – not because that’s how I feel about my Jewish journey, but because I’m afraid to let too much out.  It’s an intensely personal thing and I’m afraid of baring my soul to readers who know nothing about me.  But, if I don’t tell the truth, then what’s the point of writing it down in the first place?

This redrafting has partly been inspired by a few in-depth conversations I’ve had with a new (Jewish) friend of mine.  He was born Jewish, lived very un-Jewishly for many years and has only recently started to bring his Jewishness back into his life.  He wants to be productive, contributory, a good Jewish person.  From what he tells me, he carries a lot of guilt around for basically ‘checking out’ for a large part of his life.  This really made me think hard.  I had made the assumption that all born-Jews I had met had lived intensely rich, fulfilled Jewish lives.  All the things that I, as an in-transit convert, had not.  To be honest, it has not been unusual for me to feel terribly jealous of these seemingly settled, comfortable, confident people that I have met over the past few months!  But this insight has been a bit of a revelation for me, at once helping me to feel a little less different (we are all, it seems, dissatisfied with our situation on some level!) and also a little more unsettled.  If all I can look forward to is more self-doubt, more internal pressure to do better, then why am I doing this?

And I suppose that this is the six million dollar question.  The easy answer that I have at the ready (for a short-hand ‘in’ to anyone at the synagogue that asks) is that somewhere in my family’s past there are Jewish roots.  True, but I don’t think that it totally answers the question.  That answer does nothing to reveal the deep-seated urge within me to be Jewish.  At the first Shabbat service that I attended, the rabbi (who has a beautiful voice) led the singing from start to finish.  The passion and haunting melodies pulled at something in my soul to such an extent that I knew there was no way that I could just be an observer.  I wanted all of ‘that’ to mean something to me, to form part of my way of living, breathing and being.

It’s not easy, but then nobody ever told me it would be.  Much of the time, I have felt only Jew-ish.  As if I am not putting enough effort into this journey of mine.  There is always something else demanding my attention, my time, my energy.  I see other people who have embarked on their conversion path at the same time as me and they seem so much more prepared, practised, consistent, organised. I just see them as being in a better place than me.  I know that being Jewish requires a practical commitment. It is far more about ‘doing’ Jewish than just considering yourself Jewish and having the piece of paper to prove it.  I expect that’s where my friend’s guilt is coming from. All those years of not ‘doing’ are clearly an important and serious issue for him.  And in a small way, I can appreciate this.  After all, my concerns all arise from the fact that I think I’m not ‘doing’ enough.

Judaism has had to adapt to the times over and over again.  I have joined a progressive form of Judaism – a truly modern iteration that still attaches great importance to traditional ceremonies, the Hebrew liturgy and inclusivity.  It may not suit some, but it certainly speaks to me.  The ethical and social approach fits broadly with the morals and guidelines that I tried to live by ‘before’ and those which I was brought up to value in an atheist household.  I wrote in my first attempt that I was concerned by the fact that this chosen religion of mine was centred around the family, and children in particular, and that I don’t have children to whom I can pass on my traditions.  To some extent, this concern has waxed and waned depending on how comfortable I feel with how much I am contributing to the community that I have joined.  I don’t want to be what a former colleague of mine referred to as a ‘net contributor’ – someone who takes more than they give, or who doesn’t give at all.  I would like to think that this ability to contribute is only limited by my current status (the one I refer to as Jew-ish) rather than by any natural disinclination to become a fully-functioning member of the community.  This ‘Jew-ish’ status also has more practical implications since I don’t really have any right to influence what happens in the community as yet – not until I become a fully-fledged member, which in turn can only happen when I become a fully-fledged Jew.

So, how do I feel with regards to my conversion?  Do I feel anywhere even close to being Jewish yet?  Well, I was immensely flattered and pleased to hear from someone just starting out on their conversion journey that they thought I was born-Jewish and had no idea that I was only a bit further along the winding path than they were.  Of course, this was all about outward appearances – the fact that I could follow the service, point them in the right direction in the Siddur when they lost their place, could sing or speak most of the Hebrew and knew other members of the community.  Yes, this is all part of ‘it,’ this progression towards becoming a Jew, but what about what is happening inside?  How do I really, really feel?  To be honest, I’m not sure that I know.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t know if I am doing the right thing, which is certainly beyond doubt and something I don’t ever remember questioning.  What I’m trying to say is that from day to day, my feelings change.  On one day, when I’ve made sufficient time to study Hebrew a bit more, when I’ve read a bit more of one of my many books on Judaism, when I ‘get’ a reference to some inside joke, then I feel that I am making good progress.  The very next day, when none of these things have happened, when for some reason I can’t attend a service, or when I’ve forgotten the Hebrew I learned the day before, I feel as if I am getting nowhere and have perhaps even gone backwards.  There have been days when my heart hasn’t been in the study, there have been Shabbat services when I have felt as if I am going through the motions and classes when I haven’t applied myself wholeheartedly to the work in hand.  This all makes me sound like a terrible student and perhaps not someone that should be welcomed with open arms into the Jewish community, which needs strong, disciplined, committed members for its future growth and benefit.  But I am trying my best.  When I feel that I have slipped, I work harder the next time. I try to approach the next study time with a different viewpoint and clear my mind of all the other day-to-day concerns that do their best to interrupt my train of thought.

But ‘this’ isn’t all about study, commitment and discipline.  It’s about spirituality, becoming a part of a people, history and life.  For some inexplicable reason (and believe me, I have tried to work out the ‘why’) I have always felt an affinity with the Jewish people, even when I was very young and before I knew about my own hard-to-pin-down family history.  I have always felt a little bit different, part of an indefinable ‘other.’  I couldn’t work out what this was until I first entered the synagogue for my first Shabbat service.  Never mind that a great portion of it was in a language I knew almost nothing about, that the constant flipping backwards and forwards through the Siddur confused me beyond belief.  I felt as if I had found my home and would do whatever I could to make sure that it became that place of refuge, a true sanctuary, for me in the future.

Much of this gives the impression that I am trying to run before I can walk – which of course is perfectly true (and it won’t be the last time it happens, either!).  I want to know Hebrew inside out, understand all the rituals and the history behind them, help influence the running of the synagogue – all of it now (or even better, yesterday).  At least it shows that the commitment is there!  But even if all that were true at this very moment, that I had ‘passed the test’ and was now a fully paid up member of the Jewish people, would that mean I could rest on my laurels and stop learning?  Actually, no it wouldn’t.  Of course.  It would just mean that one part of my spiritual, practical life had ended and I would now be embarking on a new stage in my Jewish journey.  And I can’t wait to set off on that future path, wherever it might take me.

Rachel was born in Birmingham, England and has gradually moved south over the years until finding her true home in Brighton, on the south coast.  Any further moves south will involve moving to another country! She tries to work, rest and play to the best of her ability and believes that she has always been Jewish in her soul, but only found herself in the right place spiritually and mentally to actively ‘scratch the itch’ last year.  Starting her conversion journey has become more enriching than she ever anticipated. You can read more about her journey at her blog: http://shavuatov.wordpress.com.

2 Comments

Filed under Jewish identity, Jewish writing

Tagged as ,

June 29, 2009 · 4:20 pm

Writing Practice: On Being Jewish

In an effort to encourage readers to explore what it means to be Jewish in their daily lives, The Jewish Writing Project will offer suggestions for writing practice from time to time.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never kept a journal before, or if you prefer writing on yellow legal pads, or if you type your thoughts directly onto your computer after everyone else in your house or apartment or dormitory has gone to bed.

What matters is that you begin writing.

Who knows? Maybe a story or poem will emerge, or you’ll find the thread of a memory that you’d forgotten for years, or you’ll realize something about your Jewishness that you’d never known or thought about before.

* * * * *

For some of us, being Jewish is an answer; for others, a question.

“I’m Jewish,” some of us might declare, “and I live this kind of life, do these kinds of things, look at the world this way.”

That might mean you observe Shabbat by unplugging the tv or not turning on lights or walking to shul. Or it might mean you eat only kosher food, or you attend minyan every morning and evening.

“Why am I Jewish?” others might ask. “Why should I live this kind of life, do these kinds of things, look at the world this way?”

You want to know who can say how you should live, or what kind of food you should eat, or how you spend your weekends.

Each approach-–answer and question–-view being Jewish from different ends of the same telescope.

Between these two views is a spectrum of choices that await us as Jews.

Whether we follow halachah or observe only those portions that seem relevant to our lives or don’t observe at all, every Jew decides within these categories of observance or non-observance how to live his or her life to the fullest potential.

Observing Shabbat may mean spending the morning in shul or relaxing at the beach, studying Torah in the afternoon with a group of friends or reading a novel that you’ve been longing to read all week.

Whatever ways we practice Judaism, we make choices that allow us to identify strongly (or not strongly) as Jews.

Each of us chooses to be Jewish.
Writing practice:

1. If being Jewish involves a variety of choices, take a moment to make a list of the choices that you’ve made to be Jewish.

2. Set aside a few minutes–-say ten or fifteen, or more if you can spare the time-–and think about how you feel about being Jewish. (Is it an answer or a question?) And think about why you feel that way.

3. Can you describe the choices that you make on a daily or weekly basis that enable you to identify as a Jew?

4. List at least five examples of ways that you are Jewish… or things you do to make yourself feel more (or less) Jewish.

5. And, finally, ask yourself how these choices influence the way you see yourself as a Jew and how you view your relationship to the Jewish community.

6. When you finish, put the list aside for a day or two, then go back to it and review the list again. How does reading it make you feel? More Jewish? Less Jewish? Proud of being a Jew? Embarrassed?

7. Spend a few minutes noting your observations, and then begin writing them down.

8. To share your observations and discoveries with us at The Jewish Writing Project, simply click on the “comments” button below.

1 Comment

Filed under writing practice

Tagged as