What I Wish I Still Didn’t Understand

In the months surrounding my conversion, I remember thinking “why would my family have hidden their Jewish identity for generations? Why would they have cut themselves off from so much culture and community?” Even after I completed my conversion and reclaimed that heritage, I continued to find it hard to comprehend why my ancestors would have willingly given up something that I had found so meaningful. I suspected that it was likely due to antisemitism, but it was still a difficult concept to wrap my head around.  As the months passed, I decided that those questions were probably never going to be fully answered, so I began focusing on raising my son Jewishly and eventually let my questions about my ancestors’ motivations fade.

Then October 7^th happened. I remember, in the days immediately after the attacks, the global outpouring of support...and hearing Jewish leaders predicting that this solidarity would be short lived. After a couple weeks, I saw the tide begin to turn. I saw people posting about the attacks as though Hamas was justified because “Israel has been oppressing the Palestinians for generations, so this was the only they could make themselves heard.”

As I saw more people who I (perhaps naively) thought would express empathy for the hostages and the Jewish people begin to chant “from the river to the sea” and refer to Israel as “Is-not-real,” I found that I was no longer wondering why my ancestors chose to bury their Jewish heritage. This wasn’t due to my decision to stop pondering questions about the past that no living person could answer...it was because I no longer had to wonder; I was beginning to understand.

I saw people, including family members, adopt one-sided views, expressing empathy for innocents in Gaza but remaining silent about the Israelis being held hostage. As I watched, “Zionist” became an acceptable derogatory term for Jews. I read about Jewish homes and places of worship being vandalized It seemed that committing hateful acts against Jews and Jewish communities in North America became acceptable ways to protest the actions of the Israeli government.

I could imagine that my family didn’t want to distance themselves from their community, it was because they probably felt that there were no better options to keep themselves and their children safe.

As I continued to watch antisemitism and Christian nationalism rise, I found myself worrying about how to best keep my loved ones safe and wondered if my great grandmother had the same thoughts.

My questions no longer centered on “why,” but “how.” How could I best keep my child safe? How could I balance my reclaimed Jewish identity with keeping those I love safe?

I don’t have it in me to renounce or hide my identity. When I saw antisemitism begin to spike, embracing my own Jewish identity became a radical act on two fronts. On the one hand, I refuse to let others make me ashamed of my heritage...especially when I’ve worked so hard to reclaim it. I also see it as defying those whose hatred led my ancestors to cut themselves off from their community. I refuse to allow antisemites, past or present, to dictate my family’s story or future.

I’m continuing to raise my son as a Jew. I’ve just enrolled him in our synagogue’s religious school and hope to eventually send him to a Jewish day school, in part, to help fill the gaps in my Jewish knowledge since I wasn’t raised in a Jewish home. I don’t see myself as the only Jew in my family. Rather, I see myself as a restored link in a chain that was broken, extending back to Sinai and hopefully continuing from generation to generation into the future.     

If I were to speak to my Jewish ancestors now, I wouldn’t be asking them why they chose to hide their background. I’d just say, “I get it, but I want future generations to proudly embrace their full selves and their Jewish roots.”