In real life, because Kenyon is a beautiful lapse in reality, I live in east coast Suburbia, 20 minutes outside of Manhattan. Our area is a little WASP-y, largely Irish-Catholic, and my family was different. We are Jewish. Though not heavily practicing, we were still set apart. I never believed in Santa Claus and remember thinking in second grade about how strange it was that my classmates didn’t understand what was actually going on. Thankfully, I never felt like the magic dude was skipping over me, I knew that he didn’t exist. My youthful self esteem was spared. Plus, I had other Jewish friends, albeit about ten in a class of 270. I didn’t feel out of place, so close as I was to a large Jewish community and, of course, New York City.
The contrast between my environment and myself grows starker the farther away from the east coast I go. I have never talked about where I live so much as I do at Kenyon. Maybe it’s because I’ve never realized what an identifier it was. I try to explain to people here: I’m not even a city kid. To my friend who grew up five hours from New York City, he says of course I’m from the city. The girl who immediately stopped talking to me once she realized I wasn’t from one of the five boroughs would disagree.
New York City is a huge part of my life. Both my sisters live there and I spend an enormous amount of time going in and out of Manhattan. When I go to Columbus, or even Boston, I’m confused as to who thinks of these as cities, because clearly they’ve never walked down 42nd. I can’t use all the subways without a map, but I can get myself anywhere on foot with ease. I’ve fallen asleep crossing the GW Bridge too many times to count, and the skyline is wonderfully unimpressive. I grew up with one of the most diverse cities in the world as a backdrop, and so didn’t really develop of feeling of isolation. I didn’t realize that in different parts of the country, it could be so different.
When I tell members of my family that I’m talking to someone who grew up in Ohio, they ask me, “Have they ever met a Jew before?” Laughing uncomfortably, I say, of course they have, Ohio is not as homogenous as you think. And then, wondering, I asked someone I knew from the surrounding area a similar, less accusatory question. They told me they hadn’t met a Jewish person until they were 16.
My relationship with god, and with organized faith in general, is undefined. My family wasn’t religious, but connected strongly with the culture of Judaism. A large part was my grandmother’s legacy; her four daughters had celebrated all of the holidays throughout their lives, regardless of actual temple attendance, and so they carried it on. The goal has always been to pass it on to us, to my cousins and sisters. Being a member of a minority is a weird concept, especially because in all other ways I’m fairly privileged. I’m white, middle class, and straight. But I’m Jewish, in a world where there aren’t many. As it turns out, even less in Ohio.
It’s a difference that isn’t visible, and isn’t quite understood either. It’s mostly just ignored or hesitantly made fun of around Christmas time. (I only learned to tell apart the stories behind Easter and Christmas a couple of years ago.) I feel a responsibility to bar and bat mitzvah my children, but otherwise I’m ambivalent. There’s not attachment to the religion itself, but instead a connection to my mom and my childhood. It’s weird but common among the Jewish kids I know, to feel strangely devoted to this concept of “being Jewish” while also kind of caring little for what we’re representing.
Being a Jewish New Yorker at Kenyon isn’t unusual in the slightest, but being a Jewish New Yorker in central Ohio is vaguely unnerving. I’m not what most people are used to, and I can tell by people’s reactions to the way I speak, too loud and too aggressive, and the way I’ve only ever decorated a Christmas tree twice in my life. I’m not attacked for my difference, which really isn’t a big one, but I’m noted, or like I said, it’s ignored. Neither is prefered. This article isn’t an open letter to anyone, it is just a commentary on what I see in response to what I am, and how I distinctly feel just a little out of place.
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Image Credit: History.com, Menorah.com