What IS it about religion?

"I go to bible study," a new friend of mine said to me the other day while sitting at my kitchen table. "I love Jesus Christ." He said, slouching back, taking a sip of a beer.

I looked over to him.

"Why? Why do you love Jesus Christ?"

"Because he's my man. I mean he's helped me out so much in my life. I just love him."

I'm watching my friend, who has only been my friend for about a week, and I hide whatever weird reaction I am having to all of this by saying, "oh."

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Visiting Warsaw

When I was younger I thought all Jews in the US came from Eastern Europe. Any Jew I met in Synagogue I pegged as having Russian, Polish, maybe Lithuanian roots. It was a naïve thought, but it seemed that most Jews in America that I knew, and that my parents knew, and that my grandmother knew, were Eastern European.

I always had this image of what that part of the world was like, Jewish. I imagined that there were butcher shops on every corner, that the women wore brown pin skirts and low heels with white blouses and that the men tipped their hats and shined their shoes. I saw bakery store windows filled with fresh baked challah, and outside the kids were playing marbles on the street. Okay, I know, maybe my imagination took me too far, but put simply, I always thought Eastern Europe was home to the Jews. Even after learning about the Holocaust, I still imagined that part of the world to be rooted in Judaism, and well, Jewish.

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Cemeteries are communities

"Let's go see mommo," was what my mother said. The first thing that came to mind was heritage house, and then the second thought was the cemetery.

"For her birthday, let's go see her and poppo." My grandmother's birthday was the 20th of May, and I was back in Columbus, Ohio.

"Maybe we should bring gin and tonics?" I said, jokingly.

Every Friday night before Shabbat dinner, my grandmother would drink a sapphire gin and tonic.

My mother took a lime from the basket on the counter, grabbed the bottle of gin from the above cabinet, and the tonic water from the refrigerator. I watched as my mother fumbled around to find a jar to put it in.

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'Different' is good

For me, tradition has always been attached to Judaism. The way we set the table during holidays or Shabbat dinner, the plates we use, the food we cook, the way we are supposed to dress for synagogue, all of these things we do because of tradition. We do them because my grandmother's mother did them, and her mother before, and so on. Sure it's strange when you meet another Jewish family who has different traditions than your own, but just because their traditions may seem strange, it doesn't make them less Jewish, it just means they have different traditions.

Whether we keep these traditions alive today because we believe in them, or because it's what we've always done, and what we know, I'm not sure. But I do know that traditions do change. Think about what happens when people get married? How do you decide what traditions to keep and which to set aside?

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My grandmother was Judaism

The last couple of weeks have been difficult. Difficult because my grandmother, the woman who not only loved me unconditionally since the day I was born but also instilled in me, and everyone she knew, her love for Judaism, passed away.

She was the matriarch of our family, and we all maintained specific religious traditions for her. The synagogue that my grandmother and grandfather belonged to in Columbus, Ohio became the synagogue of my family. We stayed at the synagogue not because we felt like it reflected who we were as Jews but because it was where my mother went when she was younger, and a community that my grandparents were so involved in. But now, what would happen? Without my grandmother, what would happen to the traditions of our religion?

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My grandmother

When I walk through the sliding glass doors to Heritage House, a Jewish senior center in Columbus, Ohio, there is a specific odor that tickles the small hairs on the inside of my nose. The scent makes me dread coming to this place; it is the smell of death and decay. My grandmother, Miriam, who I have forever called Mommo, lives in room 250 at the end of the beige hallway. She is eighty-six, looks seventy-two and is legally blind.

"They want me to die in this?" she says, her grip tight around her walker as we tour the building. "You do know, honey, this is the last stop before Epstein’s (the Jewish funeral home on Main Street)." 

When the joking gets tough

What does a Jew do after his friends leave? He checks the sofa for loose change. Or what about this one, why do Jews have such big noses? Cuz all the air's free. Now, these jokes must have gotten your attention; I know when I first heard them, I put my hand to my mouth and gasped. The topic of Jewish jokes came up the other night over dinner.

I was sitting in my apartment with a couple of friends and we started talking about what is and what is not politically correct when it comes to joking about other races, religions, and so on. The subject came up because of Golf channel's news anchor Kelly Tilghman who was only suspended for two weeks after she said, on air, that any young players who wanted to challenge Tiger Woods should "lynch him in a back alley." Although Tiger Woods agent at IMG said he didn't believe there was any ill intent, it did spark debate among my friends. Then the topic switched to Judaism. My friends asked if I was offended by Jewish jokes.

"Like, what's a Jewish American Princess' favorite position? Facing Tiffany's"?

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The role of religion for the secular

I recently came back from Egypt. I had never been to a Muslim country before and I hate to say it but the images I'd seen on television had made me a bit nervous. After a couple days, the pictures from the Media disappeared and I no longer felt uncomfortable around men in traditional religious clothing or the one or two women on the street, hidden behind veils. With speakers on the sidewalks filling the streets with religious chants, I soon became accustomed to how the city sounded during time of prayer. I started to wonder if there were people living in Egypt whom, like me, felt torn between maintaining religious traditions and living the life they want? Are there people of my generation who want traditions to change?

Around this time, close after the New Year, the resolutions made beforehand tend to fade back into the routine of daily life. No matter if resolutions are met, the effort itself for things to change fills us with hope. Whatever the wish, the one ingredient for a New Year is change. It seems we always want to change something about the way we live. 

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Jewish education shortcomings

It wasn't until I traveled to Israel, in my early twenties, that I really started to think about what it means to be Jewish. During my birthright Israel trip, I realized that I knew very little about my religion.

Because I went to a non-denominational school my Jewish education was limited to Hebrew school, two days a week, and one day of Sunday school. During my formative years, and I can only speak for myself, I wasn't interested in learning about Judaism. Since Hebrew and Sunday school were tacked on to my daily education, and because I only had to attend up to a certain age, I treated the subject matter as inconsequential.

There was a clear divide between my general education and Jewish education. As I grew older the separation widened and soon my Jewish education came to a complete stop. Once bat-mitzvahed I no longer needed to attend Hebrew or Sunday school, and it was at this time that I somewhat left the realm of Jewish education altogether. During this break, about sixteen years, I still attended synagogue with my family, had Shabbat dinner every Friday night, but my knowledge of Judaism was limited to only the traditions that I grew up with. What was it about my Jewish education that didn't engage me? Why didn't I want to know more about my heritage? Had my afternoon classes pushed me away from the topic?

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Little White Lies

Is it okay to tell a lie to repair a relationship? This is a question I have been struggling with for a couple months now. Where does the question come from? Well, as you may have gathered in my previous posts,  my grandmother and I have different views on what it means to be Jewish.

Although we both feel it necessary to preserve the Jewish faith, the way in which we go about it is different.

At the moment, I am dating a non-Jew. Because I am dating a non-Jew, my grandmother is not a happy camper. Don't get me wrong; I definitely understand where my grandmother is coming from. If I do not date a Jew it is more likely that I won't marry a Jew. And if I don't marry a Jew my children are less likely to remain Jewish.

Statistically, this is true. The National Jewish Population Survey found that only a third of interfaith couples raise their children Jewish and are less likely to involve themselves in Jewish activities.

"Have you met any nice Jewish boys over in Spain?" she asks me over the phone.

"No, grandma. I haven't met anyone."

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