My connection to my heritage bonded me to Mom-there’s a lot of truth about what’s said of Jewish boys and their mothers. A secular Jew, for sure, but a proud one. And in the years since, I’ve only grown more committed to these traditions. It may not be healthy, but it taught me a small, visceral lesson of my culture.Īround this time, and almost certainly connected to it, I began to practice tiny acts of devotion-lighting candles, the occasional fasting for Yom Kippur, hanging a mezuzah. Somehow these various bigoted assertions made me feel more Jewish than growing up surrounded by Judaism. The usual stale old tropes about money, cheapness, world domination, George Soros, and the like. More frequently, in almost all corners of the world, I’ve heard casual antisemitism bandied about. Nothing else gave me away (although conditioning has made me susceptible to the belief that my prominent schnoz might alert some). I was fortunate-privileged, really-that I only heard such things when volunteering my heritage. Someone called me an ugly slur for the first time, and another questioned my ethnicity-in a manner that was neither polite nor complimentary. It was only when I started traveling abroad in my twenties that I first encountered it myself. Mom didn’t have it as easy-she grew up in Pittsburgh, outside the Jewish area, surrounded by goyim who were all too comfortable with antisemitism. As secular Jews in Los Angeles, I never had to feel any way about it. It’s not that I rejected Judaism, but I didn’t feel Jewish. Though it took decades for me to feel this way. She told me I was a dummy.Īnd now I agree with her. But I didn’t want one-I didn’t want to learn Hebrew, I didn’t want to go to school on the weekends, I didn’t want to do the work. So, as I approached 13, my grandmother pushed me to have a bar mitzvah. And I desperately wanted to be a good Jewish boy. It’s what good Jewish boys do, after all. War or peace, I was dragging my small mishpocha to Passover in Jerusalem. I didn’t want to wait another year-if the pandemic had taught me anything, it’s not to delay things. “ Next year in Jerusalem,” I said referring to a signature phrase of the Passover seder, “will be this year in Jerusalem.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to upend the court system had provoked massive demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as well as a general strike so broad that even McDonald’s temporarily shuttered. The trip began with the threat of mass demonstrations and now it ended with the threat of all-out war.īack in Los Angeles, on March 27, just before we left for the trip, Mom wondered if we should cancel. Good, I thought, better they don’t know how bad it’s gotten until we’re higher, farther away. I glanced over at my parents, who remained oblivious. Israeli media reported they began at roughly 12:30 a.m., on April 7, and now it was 1:15. $400 large conference room with a seating capacity of 120Ĭomplimentary coffee and water with all room rentals.įor additional cost light refreshments are furnished.Passover with my family in the Holy Land gave me a mishmash of real war and personal peace.įrom 7,000 feet over the Mediterranean, just minutes after take-off from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport, lights flashed over Gaza. $200 small conference room with a seating capacity of 42
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