Hi! I’m Laura, a 20-something-year-old Jewish American woman navigating identity, religious observance, community, and history in a tumultuous world. This blog is a record of my Jewish journey.
Why I Write:
My brain is constantly turning over lessons and reflections regarding my relationship to Jewish history, Jewish observance, and Jewish identity. I started this blog because I found myself craving a space to assemble all these internal processings in an outward-facing mode. I believe that personal Jewish narratives are vital in this world where Jewish identity is too often flattened into homogenous caricatures. Through sharing my unique relationship with Judaism, I hope to connect with Jews and non-Jews alike on their own journeys to understanding our complexities as a nation.
If something I’ve written resonates with or challenges you, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to comment on posts, reach out through my contact form, or just keep reading. I am so glad you’re here.
My Jewish Life:
I was raised Conservative, attending a k-8 Jewish day school. My family attended synagogue every Saturday morning, did Shabbat at home every Friday night, kept Kosher for Pesach, attended shabbatons with our Havurah, and at my Bat Mitzvah I led services & read from the Torah. We also never kept kosher (I’ve eaten prosciutto on my matza), weren’t shomer shabbos, and every afternoon I headed to ballet and gymnastic classes with my non-Jewish classmates.
Jewish Leadership:
When it came time to apply to high school, I didn’t even consider the local Jewish one. I needed to get out of the Jewish bubble, to find my identity in relation to the larger secular world. My first months at my secular high school came with real culture shock. A week into freshman year, a girl learned in history class that it was 2017 because it had been 2017 years since Jesus’s death, and promptly asked, “what life was like before Jesus.” Another day, a group of classmates concluded that Jews believed Jesus was a prophet. I had known as soon as I chose to attend a secular school that I would join the Jewish Student’s Association, and after finally experiencing the secular environment I needed an in-school Jewish community even more. Junior year I shared the JSA presidency with a classmate who had also come from my Jewish day school, and we did everything in our power to breathe life into the barely-active club: holding biweekly meetings (attendance included two non-Jewish members curious about Judaism), hosting an all-school Hannukah party, selling Mishloach Manot, and throwing a zoom Purim party.
The first time I ever heard of Chabad was on move-in day at my university’s freshman resource fair. Growing up in such a massive thriving Jewish community, we had always relied on the area’s seemingly infinite diverse options of synagogues, shabbat events, and cultural centers. Upon meeting our campus shlucha, I confided in her just how much I was looking forward to being able to relax and attend Jewish community events planned by someone else. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders knowing that if I didn’t step up, someone else *would*. But old habits die hard. I joined the Chabad student board my sophomore year, and when she asked me if I’d like to serve as president my Junior year, I jumped at the opportunity to give back to the community I’d fallen in love with.
The first couple months of my Chabad student board presidency consisted mostly of behind-the-scenes administrative tasks. I joined the Jewish Federations’ Jewish Changemakers fellowship, to encourage deeper thinking. Then everything changed. After October 7th, I suddenly felt the same fire I’d had in high school to create around me the community I myself needed. Planning campus vigils and smaller restorative community events, meeting with university administrators, interviewing with a local news channel, painting an Am Yisrael Chai mural on campus, wearing a yellow ribbon pinned to my shirts, sharing openly with non-Jewish professors and friends… these actions are what kept me sane. I needed to take action, to tangibly see that I could add positivity into the Jewish world directly in front of me.
Evolving Observance:
With October 7th, and the complex grief that followed, also came an internal need to foster a closer personal relationship with Hashem. I’d attended Friday night dinners and evening classes at Chabad nearly every week since freshman year, but I found myself grasping for more. In the week immediately following October 7th, I put a mezuzah on my bedroom door and began saying Sh’ma morning and night. A few months later, I added Modeh Ani in the morning. I began lighting Shabbat candles each Friday afternoon without fail, taking that moment to speak directly with Hashem. I started eating Saturday lunch at Chabad, and was soon spending the entire day there, through Havdalah. I scheduled weekly one-on-one learning with our shlucha, returning to the complex textual analysis I’d loved in my middle school years. The following year, I took on a job as a Sunday school teacher at a local reform synagogue. A friend of mine established an egalitarian Saturday morning service on campus, where I read Torah for the first time since my Bat Mitzvah. The more mitzvot I followed, the more fulfilled I felt. I began toying with the idea of not eating pork, and finally stopped consuming it entirely. The thought struck me: I want so badly to have a close relationship with Hashem. So why, when Hashem has laid out ever-so-clearly the things I can do to grow closer to Him, am I choosing not to do these things? I am in no rush to flip my life, behaviors, and religious practices entirely on their head. I won’t be turning frum at the drop of a hat. But I am savoring the experience of progressively increasing the areas of life in which I adhere to Jewish teachings. I’ll keep experimenting with adding mitzvot into and removing averot from my life. I’ve found that sometimes you cannot wait to begin a habit until you feel it is “right” for you; many times its positive impacts can be detected only after committing to it consistently.
In the past, I have described my Judaism to non-Jewish friends as “being the most important part of my life, but not ruling the rest of my life.” My perspective is still growing and changing, but as of now, I would say that the more areas of life I allow Judaism to define (ex. which meals I can choose between at a restaurant), the more daily reminders I have of my commitment to this faith, which in turn increases daily the proximity I feel to Hashem.
My Ancestry:
On my mother’s side, I am Ashkenazi. Our ancestors all immigrated to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from eastern Europe. Everyone we are descended from got out before the Holocaust; there were no survivors, not even their towns themselves. On my father’s side, we descend from the most American ancestry possible. He converted to Judaism before marrying my mom and is a fifth generation Oregonian. His ancestors crossed the country on the Oregon Trail and we can trace them back onto the Mayflower, past Oliver Cromwell, and to a Scottish clan. This unique ancestral mix has left me with a complex relationship to the United States. On one hand, I am intrinsically connected to and proud of the people who founded and established this country. But on the other, as a Jew, I feel an astute sense of impermanence in my identity as an American. My great grandparents escaped here from Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, just as their great grandparents had escaped from somewhere else. As a Jew, I am only an American so long as we are safe here.
Sometimes I wonder what my 1800s Oregon Territory settling ancestors would think, knowing their great+ granddaughter is a Jew. Or what my shtetl ancestors would think, knowing their great+ granddaughter has the most goyishe name and grew up eating pork. What a world, for these two polar-opposite identities to ultimately become inextricably wound together, in me.
Young American Jewess 