Reconciling My Jewish Identity

Attending temple as young and easily bored child, there was nothing more snooze-inducing than sitting through a holiday service. The struggle didn’t just start when the services started. There were the complains from my little brother on wearing his fancy pants and my mom stressing that we were always late. To bribe us, my mom would supply my sister and I with a stash of mints and light savers. Although it was always a fun excuse for me to feel special as I put on my holiday-best, actively sitting through a service for a concept I didn’t quite grasp was not ideal. 

Now that I’m older (and bat mitzvahed) I really miss the community feel of attending services more than I thought I would. I’ve never felt too religiously tied to Judaism, but being Jewish is a large part of my identity. My sister and I like to refer to ourselves as culturally Jewish; we attended sleep-away camp, had lavish bat mitzvah parties, cooked matzah balls with our grandma, and exclaimed Yiddish phrases on a religious basis. Identifying as a Jewish woman consumes a large part of my soul. 

Since attending college, it has been more difficult than I anticipated to be away from family during the Jewish holidays. My first Rosh Hashanah was about two weeks into school, where my friends who I’d known for the same amount of time shared apples and honey with me. They don’t even realize how much that actually meant to me, and we’ve all been friends ever since. That small and meaningful interaction held me over for a while, but I continued to grow more disillusioned with a large part of myself. I found myself talking about Jewish traditions way more often than necessary out of a desire to keep that part of my life alive.

When an incident of vandalising a torah occured at the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house last week, I felt disgusted. Since feeling so detached with my religion, I considered myself so far removed from anti-semitism. I don’t particularly look Jewish nor do I come off as a Jewish person (unless we’ve been talking for a while and I somehow mentioned sleep-away camp). It seriously appalled me that this is still an issue today. 

Standing in solidarity with students felt a lot more powerful than I anticipated. Sure, there is that awkward concept where you’re unsure what to do in such a random, large crowd. And yet, without knowing many of the people around me, I felt so assured that we all stood with the same purpose: to support the Jewish faith.

My adorable grandfather instilled those culturally-Jewish values my entire life, through lighting Hanukkah candles to bagel brunches. My dad and uncles have all visited Israel and my grandpa is a large part of the Technion Institute of Technology, the oldest university in Israel. My grandma and grandpa on my mother’s side married in 1960 even though he was Irish Catholic and she was Jewish. Their love story prevailed and always inspired me to accept my religion and cultural identity. 

It’s hard to continue family traditions tied to religion when you’re on your own at college for the first time. I’m enlightened to reflect back and realize the importance my religion played on shaping who I am.