| A Return to Observance Abroad |
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| Written by Ashley Bagan | |||||||||||||
| Thursday, 11 October 2007 | |||||||||||||
 Jewish students in Greece. Image courtesty Whitney Phillips. Whitney experienced something that many American Jews have experienced while studying abroad: a return to observance. For some, it is born of a newfound fascination with their own heritage as they learn about other cultures; for others, it is a way to connect to something familiar while living in an unfamiliar setting; and for students choosing to study in regions unwelcoming to Jews, such as Whitney, a sense of marginalization sparks a desire to more intently practice their religion. Arriving in Athens just around the time the fighting broke out between Israel and Lebanon, Whitney was quickly made aware that Athens was much less friendly to Israel than the United States. Besides the anti-Israel rallies and the small incidents of anti-Semitism that pervaded everyday life, there were few Jews and fewer synagogues. Whitney checked three times to make sure her Star of David necklace was in her jewelry box and not around her neck before leaving her apartment. This feeling of repression made her want to celebrate the high-holidays more than ever before. She was abroad, both physically and ideologically, and this treatment of Jews was as foreign to her as the new, exotic foods she was eating. In other cases, as students learn about other cultures as they travel abroad, they begin to reflect on their own heritage. As Shana Slutsky traveled to exotic places such as Chennai, India and Yangon, Myanmar on her Semester at Sea program, something unexpected happened. As she become more aware of other people’s practices and customs, she realized how interesting her own religion was. Celebrating Passover by reciting the Four Questions in a JCC in Tokyo, Shana embraced her Judaism as being every bit as precious as those religions which she learned about at each port on her voyage. Still others practice Judaism abroad simply as a way to connect to something familiar. Matzah Ball soup is still the Jewish penicillin whether you eat it in Madrid, Spain or at a deli in New York. Aaron Goldberg, a leader of the international Hillel program, tries to further enhance this inclination to connect to Judaism while abroad. Currently, there are over 50 international Hillel’s in over 13 different countries including the former Soviet Union, Israel, South America, and Canada. “In feeling as though they are an outsider, it is not uncommon to look for Jewish experiences as a way to feel familiar,” says Goldberg. "We get hundreds of requests from students to get paired up with Jewish families for the high holidays or asking about locations of synagogues for services.” Hillel’s international program is a social outlet for Jewish students living abroad. It allows them to connect to something familiar while living in a foreign setting. In some sense, the Jewish student abroad is the modern version of the ancient Jewish wanderer; the farther they travel from their physical homeland, the more attached they feel to their roots.
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