Young American Jewess

     Whenever I visit home these days, I am inevitably asked how things are “on campus.” I have sobbed to my parents before returning from each and every fall, thanksgiving, winter, spring, and summer break this past year. But tonight I didn’t cry to my parents over the phone, I screamed. I screamed out of frustration, exhaustion, and exasperation. Angry that the time a college student should be spending studying, I spend dealing with offshoots of the world’s problems. Tired of feeling responsible for making the Jewish presence on this campus palpable. Seething at the reality that sometimes, I just don’t get a choice. Disappointment in the unfairness of it all. The truth is, things are not good on campus. The truth is, things are just fine on campus! The truth is, I am so lucky my university environment isn’t one of the worse ones. The truth is, a protester ripped my friend’s Israeli flag from their hands and into pieces a couple weeks ago. The truth is, that happened just off campus. The truth is, my campus Chabad is my absolute favorite place to be. The truth is, my very first college friend no longer acknowledges me. The truth is, my professors were accommodating of my taking off for all of Rosh HaShanah. The truth is, this year’s shinshinim aren’t allowed to venture anywhere near campus. The truth is, one of my closest Jewish friends transferred out over the summer because they needed a larger Jewish community around them.

     I was talking with a friend tonight about how connected we have felt to our ancestors this last year. She relates to my experience of feeling my great grandmothers and my grandmothers’ grandmothers screaming from within. I draw from their strength. Their resolve to survive, persist, and continue on. They are the reason I exist, and the reason I am here, learning at university. I feel more connected than ever to my uncle born in 1948, a member of one of Yale’s first classes without a Jew admissions quota. All of us who remain connected to our Jewish identities today are the descendants of the most powerful ancestors, who were deeply rooted in their own Jewish identities.

     As I type now, it is the 7th. The old pre-Oct 7th world is lost to a past year, a past universe, a past me. The present is irrepressibly strong, and the world post-Oct 7th feels like all I’ve ever known. But as I began writing, we were one year out from another important date, October 6th. October 6th 2023 was the last day I recognized the world around me as the one I grew up in. One year ago, my world forever changed. It has been one year since my perception of the world around me became colored with antisemitism on a level I had never directly experienced before. One year of losing trusted friends and community members, realizing that my reality is not recognized or understood by so many.

     Yet this has also been a year of growth. A year of freedom, even. My values have not changed one bit in the last year. My identity is exactly the same, and yet the world around me has assigned me new labels. In losing past relationships and finding only conditional acceptance in past homes, my own internal vision has clarified. The brutal upheaval of my surroundings has revealed what truly matters. Like those friends who HAVE stuck by me- not because they are Jewish (which they aren’t), and not because they understand what I’m going through (which they can’t), but because they care about me and see me weighed down by the weight of the world. In being rejected by so many, I have discovered the most incredible freedom to stand more proudly in my truth. I do not apologize for my Judaism nor my Zionism. Those who truly know me know my character well enough not to be blinded by the negative narratives which are pushed to be associated with those identities. 

     I have discovered the strength in our Jewish community. Our ability to take turns lifting each other up. But this past year has shown not only the resilience of the Jewish community. It has shown our maturity as a people. In one day the ever-present conflict became a terror without comparison, and in response, we jumped right into action. We have each thrown ourselves into work wherever we’ve been able and have not let up. I also am more connected than ever with my Israeli family and friends. Our existing relationships have grown stronger, forged by a deep mutual care for the other. While I am concerned about my loved ones in Israel, they are (and this surprises me every time) just as concerned about me on campus.

     We all are gathering today. As one community. Across the globe, across time zones, across borders. We gather to mourn, to commemorate, and to lean on one another. For we are strongest together. And in our togetherness we find not only comfort, but also hope. Hope for the remaining hostages to return home, for families to be reunited, for scars (physical, emotional, and mental) to heal. Hope for a future marked not by war, but by peace. A future where we are busy planning celebrations, not vigils.

     October 7th occurred on the happiest day of the Jewish Calendar, Simchat Torah. A foundational aspect of Jewish practice is to create light in all scenarios, no matter how bleak. We have never and will never allow our enemies to strip us of hope and joy. Even the national anthem of Israel, HaTikvah, literally “the hope,” is founded upon this idea of looking to the future, holding hope in our hearts. It is this hope that I find myself turning to, again and again. The hope that my Sunday school lessons resonate with my students. The hope that the campus events I organize encourage underclassmen. The hope that my current experience will inform my descendants. The hope that you will see something of yourself in these words. The hope that this is not all for naught. 

     And I truly believe that all to be so. It has been one terrible year. A year of pain, suffering, tears, heartbreaks upon heartbreaks. I have never seen my Jewish peers, family, and leaders so incredibly broken. And in my short 21 years of experience, I have never seen a unity like that the Jewish people have displayed this year. Nor have I ever before noticed such strong gentile allies of Jews, among both public figures and my own peers. Better times will come. They simply must. And we stand united to welcome them in. Prayers for a year infinitely better than the one closing behind us is how I am entering 5785.

שנה טובה וגמר חתימה טובה