Being Jewish: Past, Present, Future

So what does it mean when I say that I’m Jewish, not just “born Jewish,” but Jewish? What’s Jewish?

Ben Ostrower-Upsplash...

When the Oct 7, 2023 massacre occurred at first I was a bystander and I felt an inexplicable distance from the unfolding tragedy. I don’t know why. Then, perhaps like many other Jews, I reassessed my relationship to the religion, what it meant to me, and how much being Jewish was a part of my identity. I wrote an essay about my experience as a Jew and my relationship to Israel, some of which I’m revisiting in this piece. I’m reconsidering how my perspective has changed since then, and how external circumstances impact me. I never used to give much thought to being Jewish, for years saying, when asked, that I was “born Jewish.” A very minimalist classification. Since October 2023, I find myself re-evaluating this identity especially when yet more bad things happening to Jews dominate the news.

The most recent provocations, two events, the first involving a young couple, two Israeli embassy employees, gunned down while attending an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. The man planned to propose to her. Maybe that night. Maybe he had the engagement ring in his pocket. The second, June 1, occurred hours before the start of Shavuot, when eight people who were participating in a Run for Their Lives event to honor the Israeli hostages suffered injuries from a firebomb attack. And maybe a month before, there was the firebombing of Governor Josh Shapiro’s home when the family was celebrating Passover.

I no longer feel the remove I did on October 7^th, almost a me-them dichotomy. That’s gone.

Still, over the years I’ve had one foot in, and one foot out about my Judaism. I’ve never found solace attending services. I wish I did. Mostly, I felt like an outsider even as a young girl when I attended shul in recognition of the three big “ones:” Rosh Hashanah, ushering in the New Year; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement when you could try and make amends for your misdeeds during the prior year; and Pesach, when you ate matzo for eight days because that’s all they had going through the desert. I’ve always fasted on Yom Kippur hoping that fasting betters my chance to be written into the Book of Life for the coming year.

I even tested the fasting hypothesis my freshman year in college. Down the block from my dormitory there was a luncheonette, one of those old time venues with lunch counters that are so hard to come by now. Seated at the counter I ordered a Western omelet. Not only was I going to eat but I was going to eat ham, prohibited by kosher law. Though not raised kosher, my father instilled in me that the foods from such animals were forbidden. I waited. I waited for the stool to be struck out from under me. Now, so many years later that same foreboding is with me, like a claw on my psyche. While I’ve given up the two to three days of synagogue attendance, still fasting, I assure myself, I’m good for the Book of Life. For another year. Whether that’s rooted in some deep seated belief or superstition, I may never know.

And for years that was the only time my Judaism came to mind.

I come by my ambivalence honestly. My brother who is six and a half years older than I am, agreed to be bar mitzvah after my grandfather offered him a fair amount of money. Back then only orthodox or conservative girls received bat mitzvah so I, being reform, was confirmed and received twenty percent of what my brother was given. The misogynist criterion for who would be bar mitzvah challenged my connection to the religion. Later I learned that more traditional Jewish men thank God every morning for not being born a woman. No surprise that didn’t sit right with me, no matter the reason or interpretation behind the blessing.

And in discussions with my father he emphasized our superiority, which troubled me. We argued. A lot. That’s one of the reasons, I told him, why we’re hated. I didn’t like that attitude and I was Jewish. My doubts flourished.

Then there’s how I feel about Israel’s conduct in Gaza. I’m horrified by what’s being done to the Palestinian people and I have to remember that is apart from the religion. I’m all for the existence of Israel. It’s rooted in my DNA. After all, my father, a Palestinian Jew, lived in the region before the state of Israel was established in 1948, arriving at Ellis Island in 1920. Though he wasn’t technically a sabra, I think of Israel as his homeland. And my inheritance. Maybe this is why, if anything were to happen to Israel I’d feel like I’d be losing him again. I inherited this confusion, but no matter the confusion I can’t disown the country.

So where am I these days? I don’t believe in what one usually believes in when claiming membership of a group. I don’t believe in G_d and I don’t believe in the stories. So what does it mean when I say that I’m Jewish, not just “born Jewish,” but Jewish? What’s Jewish?

When I was a young girl, in eighth grade, New York City’s rush hour, one morning, the Lexington Avenue bus loaded up with passengers, lurched its way out of the stop and I was knocked into the person near me. “You damn Jews are all alike,” the words spat out at me. More than being insulted, or afraid, I was perplexed. It seemed meaningless. Are Jews more likely to bump into other people on the bus? Of course, looking back now, I see how it wasn’t meaningless. It was dangerous.

A friend of mine who lives in LA says that the nightmare unfolding in her home town is creeping into her nightmares, of her family being rounded up by the Gestapo. Her parents were survivors.

Which raises the question of why do I feel safe? Because from what I’ve read there are a lot of Jewish people who don’t feel safe these days. Is it because I don’t frequent events or places that are more likely to offer opportunities for attacks? I don’t look to see where the exits are when we walk into Jewish spaces. (see “Jews Are Afraid Right Now,” Sheila Katz, NY Times, June 3, 2025)

Where I live I’m not sure what percentage of the population is Jewish, but I don’t feel like an anomaly. There is a fair smattering of people who walk and talk and feel like me–whether or not they’re Jewish—so I don’t usually think about the fact that I’m a Jew. Every so often, however, I become self-conscious about that reality and wonder if people know, maybe because of my hair which is Jewish-curly—as distinct from Afro-curly—and I wonder what others see. Talking about this with a friend, she said to me, “If I met you and talked to you, I’d say “That’s a New York Jew.”” The accent and the hair, she said. A dead giveaway. But my friend has known a fair number of Jewish people in her life. Still, I wonder how I’m categorized when in less “familiar” environments. Something I rarely used to consider.

Why did that incident on the bus stick with me? Maybe because those words speak beyond the message spat at a twelve year old girl on her way to school. They suggest the unpredictable hatred and potential violence that I haven’t paid much attention to but that perhaps I should give more respect.

There’s a mezuzah attached to the doorway of my home that was included in the purchase price of the house which made me chuckle at the time. The idea of me having one seemed ludicrous given my understated relationship to Judaism. These days I’m not chuckling. I’m owning my identity more than I have for years. Even if from a distance.

These thought have been coming and going and I hope they’re received with kindness.