This was my submission for Jewish Perseverance Week a couple of years ago and it feels like time to bring it back.
My family are Sefardic and even though our tradition is to just light one menorah per family, this little thing always manages to put in an appearance anyway.
A few years ago, I was walking home from work when I was stopped by a rabbi and his wife. I was confused because we don’t have many Jews here and, for safety reasons, nobody is too open about it if they are. “Excuse me, are you Jewish?”
I shrugged. My mother’s family were Jewish but my last real contact with Judaism died with my grandparents. What was left of my Jewish identity was comprised of a few linguistic and cultural quirks, antisemitic neighbours who hated us, and the very occasional contact with observant family who live in other countries.
I settled on “I’m a little bit Jewish?” He said it’s like being a little bit pregnant – you can’t be. I reluctantly told him a little about my family.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to a stranger. It was that I was uncomfortable being around proper Jews again having severed my ties so completely. I was frustrated at being viewed with suspicion and excluded from the small slivers of Jewish life which exist here. I’d spent years ignoring my heritage because I wasn’t frum enough for the few Orthodox people I’d met along the way and I wasn’t Ashkenazi enough to feel particularly comfortable with the Reform people I knew. I wasn’t a “proper Jew”.
It felt like I was missing out on a huge aspect of my cultural inheritance and I’d even started to let Christian friends take me to church in an attempt to patch that hole. I quietly resented them for believing that they had “saved” this Jew who needed Christ, but at least they seemed to want me around. That phase didn’t last for long. Nothing about that felt right.
And then, as I was trudging back to my parents’ house after a truly awful day, a rabbi and his wife appeared. I was genuinely shocked by their inclusivity. Suddenly proper Jews were insisting that I still had a place. They seemed mildly amused by my assumption that I didn’t count and even invited me to dinner as though I was one of them.
They asked if I would take a menorah home and showed me the blessings written on the box. I told them I’d forgotten how to read Hebrew but they still weren’t deterred. They gave me literature in English, in Hebrew, in transliterated Hebrew. They even offered to find me some in French for the rest of the family. Whatever I needed to know, they explained. They didn’t judge me and they didn’t even patronise me. I’d expected to be admonished but it felt more like being welcomed home. I left with a hanukiyah, a forest’s worth of paper and a bemused expression.
I let my mother light the candles and was surprised to hear Hebrew flow so naturally for the first time in probably a decade. We left the menorah out well beyond Hanukkah. I think we were just enjoying having something Jewish around.
Slowly, little things started to happen at the family home. Candles came out one Friday night… and then the next one… and the next… Nobody really acknowledged it, it just became a thing that we did. Bread was replaced with matza on Pesach.
“It’s Yom Kippur tomorrow, do you still want me to cook or…?” “Shana tova, do you want to help make baklava?”
By next Chanukah, the family menorah was brought down from the loft and unwrapped from its dust cover. Somebody played Ocho Kandelikas and it was the first time I’d heard Ladino since my grandmother died. Somehow, somewhere along the way, we’d stopped being “a little bit Jewish”. We’d found our place.
I love Hanukah. I don’t care for people telling me it’s a “minor holiday” when it marks the end of my family’s weird, extended rumschpringe. Not only that, but it reminds me of what our community should be. I’d experienced so much elitism, suspicion and exclusion from fellow Jews that I didn’t even think I was Jewish. I’d experienced so much antisemitism from goyim that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be.
And then I experienced an act of kindness from a couple on the street and my life changed.
This time five years ago, a Jewish couple gave me a hanukiyah. The exchange lasted less than 10 minutes but in that time they returned to me my family, my people, my culture, my history, my faith. And if I go to synagogue and lose my place in the siddur 10 times, that’s ok now. If I still occasionally say kaddish when I mean kiddush, I’ll laugh about it and the world won’t end.
My wish for all of you is that you can feel as assured of your place and as welcomed by your people as I do now, regardless of your knowledge, background, or level of observance. I hope you get to enjoy the culture you inherit and know that you belong.
“The Talmud makes a challenging statement. If you have the desire to spill blood, say the Rabbis, become a butcher, and if you have the desire to steal (in other words to take hold of and possess) other people’s money, become a collector of charity. In other words, take the desire you have, and use it for a good purpose. This is a crucial idea within Judaism. There are two aspects to who I am as a person: the gifts and desires I am given, and what I choose to do with them. Everything we are given in this world, however challenging this may sometimes be, is ours for a reason. We all go through life with our own little package, our own suitcase, full of our talents and skills, desires and foibles; all the things that bring us up, and all the things that bring us down. There isn’t much we can do about that. Each of us has a suitcase, and whatever we think of it, it is ours to keep. Some are born tall, maybe they will become basketball stars, and some have musical talent, and others, the gift of knowing when and how to smile. Many of these talents we do not really earn, they are ours to develop. The question, however, is what we choose to do with them. And if everything comes to me from G-d, then even my weaknesses can be a gift, if I will only find a way to channel them for the good. If I have a desire to steal, it must come from somewhere, and therefore there must be a way to make good of it. Our challenge in this world is how to do just that.”
Rebellions are built on hope 