My Jewish Identity

While writing this vignette, I discovered that it is much harder than I thought it would be to try and explain a culture that I have known my whole life to a potential outsider. Things that seem so obvious to me, are not obvious to someone who knows nothing about Judaism or Jewish culture. I chose to write about my Jewish identity and culture because I feel like it is one of the biggest parts of my identity. Judaism lets me feel connected to my ancestors and family members that I have never met, and provides a community with people that I would otherwise not have anything in common with. In his memoir Trevor Noah talks a lot about religion. His religion is not Judaism but it doesn’t matter that it is a different religion, he still had a community that came from his religion that he otherwise would not have had. In his early life, religion and church were much more important to his mother than it was to him, and I relate to that somewhat because when I was little, I did not much like going to synagogue but it was very important to my mother and other members of my family. My story becomes different from Trevor Noah’s though, because as he got older his thoughts on religion and church did not really change, but for me I became more grateful for Judaism and my congregation, partly because I was starting to become more aware of the struggles and hardships that Jews had faced for years and years, and how much they had sacrificed, which gave me a new understanding of Judaism and the importance it has to so many people.