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“Awakening” suggested a kind of milestone, a coming-of-age, almost a second bat mitzvah. Here was my unofficial rite of passage into the real Jewish world: not an aliyah, but anti-Semitism.
These are miracles not because they shake the earth or defy the laws of nature, but rather because I was crazy and tender and hopeful enough to ask for them.
“The reason that I went was that everything was paid for,” she said, adding, “It was so clear that there was an agenda, but I didn’t ask who funded it. I didn’t really want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Figuring out who I am as an interfaith Jew has been complicated, but I have gotten to the point where I am more confident in my identity. Yes, I am the person who proudly wears Chrismukkah sweaters to parties.
The next day, atop Masada, I chose my Hebrew name and began my Jewish life. I was Rivkah, Matriarch; I was done taking shit from any human, institution, or supreme being. The Judaism I found gave me space to be newly brazen, and radically myself.
I remember telling my mother on the first night of Hanukkah sometime in high school that I didn’t want to sing “Hanukkah O Hanukkah” or anything else in English while we lit the candles. However, I also didn’t want or know how to sing the Hebrew prayers, wrapped as they were in religiosity, complicated words, and foreign melodies.
We cannot defeat anti-Semitism in isolation. In fact, it is the same ideology that puts all of us – Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, and people of color – at risk of violence.
As a California native whose Jewish family is effectively barred from returning to Iran safely, Neman grew up embracing and celebrating the new place that his parents chose to call home.
That was all the time it took to make it clear that there is no “both sides” when it comes to the brutalizers of Yitzhar and the nearby Palestinian villagers who are brutalized by them.
“I love soup, I always have…and, crucially, it’s the kind of food you can make in large quantities without it being too expensive. It’s also a humble kind of food – even if it’s really high-quality. It’s friendly, it’s welcoming. It’s a comfort food, and no matter what culture you’re from, soup is often the thing you eat when you’re sick, or the thing you eat on cold nights.”