Young American Jewess

Last week I made an impromptu trip to Spain. This was my first time there, and my first European destination outside of France and Germany since I stopped eating pork entirely as part of my evolving Jewish observance. In those countries, I can always rely on duck confit or chicken schnitzel. Spain was different.

The majority of my knowledge on Spanish history is grounded in its tumultuous Jewish history. I’ve been a history buff since childhood, reading every historical fiction novel I could get my hands on – many of which were Jewish. I arrived in Barcelona excited to tour El Call (the ancient Jewish quarter) and visit their Jewish history museum. But I quickly discovered how little of El Call’s Jewish origins are still visible. Almost no obvious signs of its past remain, and the Jewish history museum is a teeny ten-year old exhibit, open only 3 hours on Wednesdays and 7 hours on the weekend. At Chabad that Shabbos, a few tourists I met recommended I make the trip to Girona, the birthplace of Ramban (Nachmonides) and home of one of the best-preserved Jewish quarters in all of Europe. The following Monday, eager to explore the medieval city, I arrived early to my tour guide’s meeting spot and sat down at the nearby café to grab a quick breakfast.

I was confronted with a menu full of pork. Fuet. Iberian ham. Sobrasada. My translator app was spitting out words I’d never even heard before. Not one nourishing, protein-rich breakfast option without pig. Just a croissant or toast with jam or Nutella. I sat there, stunned. For the first time in my life, keeping a Jewish law felt like a real constraint, not just a harmless preference. I felt truly negatively restricted. I would be going on a three-hour walking tour in 90º heat, on a nearly empty stomach.

The tour of Girona was absolutely mind-blowing. There’s a medieval bathhouse which once doubled as a Christian site and a male-only mikvah. My tour guide explained that the Virgin Mary figurines placed above certain doors had a secret: inside them, conversos had hidden mezuzot to which they blew kisses when entering and exiting their home. I stood before a private mikvah, over a thousand years old, and placed my hand over a recess in a stone doorway where a mezuzah had laid for hundreds of years. The Jewish history museum had incredibly preserved artifacts, many discovered only 75 years ago when a lane in the Jewish quarter, untouched since being locked by the banished Jews in 1492, was finally reopened. And yet, despite being a hotspot travel destination for Jews from all over the world, my tour guide shared sadly that there is no Jewish community today. She’d hoped to introduce me to the one orthodox man she knows, who runs the one Judaica shop, but he was closed for the day.

I am struck by the success of Spain’s Inquisition against the Jews. Over 500 years after all practicing Jews were expelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, their discriminatory measures designed to make Spain inhospitable for Jews are still in effect. Even I, a Jew who does not concern herself with hechshers, shochet certifications, or even cross-contamination, found myself with severely limited meal options in what was once a thriving Jewish center. The persecution my people suffered here still lingers, tens of generations later.

Never before have I felt so inclined to keep the rules of kashrut. Standing in the shell of a Jewish world violently erased, confronted with the genuine residue of ancient hostility, eating kosher becomes an act of revolution. Of resistance. A refusal to bend to the antisemitic powers of centuries past, whose discriminatory acts still cast a shadow on modern populations. A way to honor my own ancestors’ struggles against cruel regimes that tried to break their dedication to Jewish practice. Their strict abidance to the rules Hashem outlined for us, even under threat of expulsion or death. The fact that I am here today, living as a proud Jew, proves that my Jewish ancestors persisted and prevailed time and time again against rulers like those during the Spanish Inquisition.

It’s mentally easier to not keep kosher when it is easy to keep kosher. I grew up near the largest kosher super market in North America. My family did our pre-Pesach shopping there, and stopped by whenever we were hosting more observant family or friends. On campus, I cook a lot of my own meals, often eat at Chabad, and even have a kosher station available at the dining hall. I now recognize how the ease with which I can access a kosher meal has diluted the meaning behind kashrut for me. For much of my life, it never made much of a difference whether I decided to eat pork or not; there was always a pork-less option available. But in Spain, with no options provided catering to my religious dietary restriction, I came to understand more fully the importance of keeping kashrut. By maintaining my commitment to the mitzvah Hashem has asked of me, especially when that commitment is difficult to uphold, I am strengthening my bond with Hashem. I am proving to myself and to Him that my fleeting desires do not carry more weight than my deep devotion to my faith. And though I do not keep fully kosher by halachic standards, I certainly am thinking more deeply each meal about what my choices say about who I am and what I stand for.

For the first time, I was truly forced by external powers to stop and think hard about my decision to keep a mitzvah. Was I really going to return to this aveira, just to be a little less hungry for a few hours? No. I ordered the toast with jam and stepped into the heat with my emunah unshaken.