To be a Jew is to be linked to a religion filled with culture and customs, heritage and history, persecution and prejudice. It is to feel a sense of peoplehood, rooted in tradition that connects individuals all over the world.
For thousands of years, Judaism has been a tradition grounded in the written word. In the beginning, responsa served as the main resource of knowledge. One was curious about something, wrote to a scholar with a question, and awaited his responsum, ultimately creating the building blocks of Jewish law. It was all written. If two commentators argued, another recorded the conversation. If a teacher unpacked a piece of text, his students documented his wisdom, thereby guiding future generations. We now read the remnants of those conversations and debates, the laws that dictate daily life for traditional Jewish people.
However, not all of American Jewry follows the same set of laws. To be a Jew in modern day America may not manifest itself in the form of tradition. On the contrary, it can mean a hundred different things. One can be a Jew by blood, a Jew by features, a Jew by observance. Another can identify as a Jew by culture, by race, or by ethnicity. It may even be one’s mother, one’s father, or one’s connection to state of Israel. Essentially, to be a Jewish American isn’t solely dependent on traditional customs, laws, or texts; rather, one’s community and how that environment influences individuals often holds much more weight.
Personally, community grounds me as both a Jew and a person. I grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, a cluster of towns heavily populated by white, upper-middle class Jews. I went to synagogue every Saturday, attended a Jewish day school from September to May and a Jewish summer camp from June to August. My friends were Jewish, my teachers were Jewish, and my role models were Jewish. I dwelled in a Jewish bubble filled with culture and customs, heritage and history. I loved my childhood; I wouldn’t trade it—or my religion—for anything in the world. It was a nice way to grow up. I felt connected to my tight-knit community and rarely wavered in my Jewish pride.
That said, to be a Jew in the northern suburbs of Chicago was certainly not characterized by persecution or prejudice. No, swastikas and neo-Nazis did not dare penetrate the protective Jewish bubble. The community was too strong and, as children, we were too sheltered. My acknowledgement and awareness of the agonizing and unforgiving Jewish past arose from education and literature, the bedrock of Judaism. While—because of my sheltered community—I never experienced anti-Semitism firsthand, historical persecution was central to my education and community.
Although much of Judaism involved both ancient and modern Jewish literature, as a child, I seldom enjoyed reading. That is, until I came across Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. During our literary Holocaust unit, this book was delivered to me by my third grade teacher. I became fascinated by the saddening, yet hopeful, story and was innately connected to its ingrained history. I related to the characters’ identities, thus becoming emotionally attached to the narrative of hardship, affliction, and adversity. These were my people, history’s underdogs.
Year after year, I looked forward to the various Holocaust novels and began to develop an academic and personal interest in these books. They told distant, yet recent stories, sharing a piece of history that touched my morality and identity. I learned of the righteous gentiles who risked their lives to save another person—regardless of their religion, appearance, or social status. I learned of the disturbing individuals who put humanity on trial.
As I grew older and saw the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka through my own eyes, I grew to appreciate what it meant to unpack my experience—to tell my story—because so many stories remain untold. I began to appreciate the tradition of telling and retelling a story, of reading and rereading the weekly Torah portion.
Every year, on the holiday of Passover, we read and retell one of our most ancient stories: the Exodus from Egypt. Passover is an interesting holiday; the story does not change. In fact, we change and the way we read and write changes.
On Passover, we do threefold: year after year we read the ancient text, we ask old and new questions, and we rewrite what it means to be enslaved and what it means to be free. In his poem, Passover, Primo Levi wrote:
“Each of us has been a slave in Egypt, / Soaked straw and clay with sweat, / And crossed the sea dry-footed. / You too, stranger.”
Here, Primo Levi refers to the stranger not as someone who’s unfamiliar face simply passes you on the street but as the victims of the Holocaust. Each year, there are new atrocities in the world, new stories that should be told but will never be written. New stories that try to teach us the art of appreciation. Yet, every year, there are also new ways to help others. Whether it be welcoming a stranger to your Passover meal or inviting a foreign face on the playground to play with you and your friends.
I write to conjoin the traditional standards and values of Judaism with contemporary progressivism. I write with a Jewish head on my shoulders, but refuse to do so with outdated values, tools, and ideas. I write to understand the conflicts I encounter as a Jew and as a human being living in 2017. How do I maintain my Jewish identity in a secular world? How do I experience the fullness of society as a committed Jew? I write to find out. I write to explore my unplanned, indecisive, never-ending thoughts.
I write to tell my story because so many stories have been lost. By writing, I am taking the opportunity to live a more thoughtful and meaningful life.
By writing I am intentionally appreciating what I have.
I recall boarding the bus in Poland, Auschwitz’s horizon over my shoulder. I sunk into my seat, opened my journal, and pierced the page with my angry language, my confused thoughts. I wrote to find answers. How could this happen? How could someone treat another which such inhumanity? I wrote and wrote. I wrote with so much rage that my hand began to squeal with pain.
Primarily, I write because I can. And that should not be taken for granted.
For our gateway assignment, we were assigned the task of writing why we write. Easy, simple, clear. Wrong.
I had never really thought about why I write. Sure, there are the cliches: I write to escape, I write to know myself, I write to express my emotions. In preparing for this assignment, we read George Orwell's Why I Write, the foundation for this rising genre. We explored other famous authors like Joan Didion as well as less known authors. For me and my Why I Write, Zetta Elliot probably had the biggest influence. She, a children's book author, writes because of her identities. As a black woman in today's world, she writes "to tell stories that give voice to the diverse realities of children." In her words, "I write books my parents never had the chance to read to me. I write the books I wish I had had as a child." You can find her Why I Write here.
In thinking about my most precious and salient identities, I decided to write about my Jewish identity.
Why I Write
I had never thought this much about the reason for writing. Writing was always a given; it was simply there. This piece, and the gateway class as a whole, has added “writer” to my list of identities. By putting so much thought into why I write, I was able to tap into a part of my Jewish identity that I hadn’t yet explored.
One of the hardest parts about writing this piece was thinking about Judaism through this specific lens. Judaism, even though it’s one of my strongest identities, doesn’t always fit with the secular parts of my life. For me, writing falls into a secular category. So, seeing how these two identities interact was a grueling, yet exceptionally rewarding process. Putting into words how these two parts of my life fuse together has given each identity more meaning. It has allowed me to write, and express my Judaism, in a new, thoughtful way. In a sense, it has opened the door for a new identity: the identity of a Jewish writer.