On Being Jewish—Right Now and Always

I wasn’t technically Jewish until shortly after my sixth birthday.

In the Jewish faith, children are born into the religion of their mothers. My mom was raised Catholic, and loved to tell stories about how much trouble she got in with the nuns for wearing too-short skirts and fish nets to school. She was in the middle of her own conversion when I came bursting into the world, so I had to make a conversion of my own the summer before first grade. 

My parents took me to the mikvah, where I stripped down and dunked into a warm pool of water while the rabbi stood behind a curtain and prayed over me. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what was happening—I was just excited that I got to go out to dinner with my parents afterward rocking the shiny new Star of David necklace they’d gifted me for the occasion. 

After my trip to the mikvah, I went through all of the standard rites of passage associated with Jewish womanhood. I was consecrated, received a Hebrew name (Aliza, which means “joy”), and—most notably—had a Moulin Rouge-themed Bat Mitzvah that I entered on a swing that came down from the ceiling. I went to religious School twice a week for nearly 10 years, memorized the Hebrew alphabet, and became intimately familiar with stories starring Abraham, Issac, Rebecca, and Sarah (which were also the names of a whole lot of kids in my religious school classes).

Despite how many hours I dedicated to being Jewish throughout my young life, I never really understood the point. I dreaded the three-hour-long services on high holidays, and looked at religious school less as an educational experience and more as an excuse to wear cute outfits and flirt with a boy named Josh.

By the time I made it to my Jesuit college—which, by the way, had a cross in every classroom—I had lost what little faith I'd ever had. None of my friends were Jewish, and school (and, okay, social) commitments stopped me from going home to celebrate the days I’d been taught were holy. My parents, oddly, stopped practicing too: With no kids home to light the candles with, they didn’t really see the point. It felt as though being Jewish was a part of my past, and I didn’t think twice about missing it at all. 

Then, my dad got sick, and my mom rejoined the temple that we hadn’t set foot in for nearly a decade. The first time I went back was for his funeral. That day, I was taken aback by how much comfort I found in a religion I thought I’d lost—in the prayers, in the community, in the idea that there was some sort of higher power to turn to in these moments of pain—and I started the journey back to finding my faith.

In the years since, I fell in love with a Jewish boy whose Jewish family and Jewish community welcomed me with open arms. I’ve prayed with them on high holidays, cried with them at shiva, and celebrated at weddings and baby namings. Our shared beliefs and history have created a culture that I feel so proud to call my own—whether that means lighting a Yizkor candle and saying the mourner’s kaddish for lost loved ones, dancing the hora while my best friends are lifted in chairs high above my head, or waiting in line on Sunday mornings for an everything bagel with the works.

Being Jewish means different things to different people, but to me, it’s come to mean having a community that’s linked by our dedication to a shared belief system and the traditions that go with it. It’s a group of people who show up for each other—whether that means coming together for a Shabbat dinner or grieving together about what’s happening to our tribe thousands of miles away. Our people have persevered through unspeakable tragedy, and have historically lived in a world where a lot of people hate us, yet somehow choose hope time and time again. I have never felt more connected to—or needed—my Jewish identity than I do right now.

When the attacks happened on October 7th, I was home celebrating my nephew’s first birthday—and there was suddenly a dark cloud cast over a day that should have been filled with so much joy. I couldn’t help but think of the wedding tradition of breaking the glass, which is designed to remind us that even in our happiest moments, we can’t forget about the suffering endured by our Jewish ancestors. Only now, the suffering wasn’t some distant thing in history—it was happening in real-time.

There’s a reason there are so many Instagram memes going around encouraging you to check on your Jewish friends: We are not okay. I have spent the last few weeks scrolling, crying, and feeling overwhelmingly jealous of anyone who’s been able to go about their lives without the unique combination of sadness and fear that’s come to dominate my everyday. I’m not here to debate the politics of what’s going on in Israel—my priority, above all, is peace—but I am here to tell you that as a Jewish woman, I am scared.

This isn’t new. Global anti-semitism levels reached an all-time high in 2022, and in 2021 one in four Jews reported that they’d experienced some form of anti-semitism. Just last month—before the current conflict began—I walked into our Westchester temple to discover increased security and a new blockade system that had recently been installed to keep us safe.

Since October 7th, though, the hate has become even more pronounced. Tuesday morning, I woke up to news that Stars of David had been painted on Jewish homes in Paris; last week, the same thing happened in Berlin. All over the world, there are people chanting, “Gas the Jews,” and all over the country, Jewish college students are terrified. Just down the street from my New York City apartment, a woman showed up to a pro-Palestine protest with a sign calling to “keep the world clear” of Jews; and since the beginning of October, the NYPD has seen 33 anti-Jewish hate crimes—nearly double the monthly average for the rest of the year. My partner and I have had very real conversations about where we would go if it became unsafe for us to stay in New York (and how lucky I am that I don’t “look Jewish”), and I’ve thought long and hard about changing the name on my Uber account in fear that “Weiner” is too obviously Ashkenazi.

As Jews, we’ve heard the phrase “never again” repeated throughout our lives in reference to the Holocaust. But “never again” is now.

The initial helplessness I felt on October 7th transformed into action when I joined forces with a fellow beauty editor to raise money for aid in Israel. Over the past three weeks (and with the help of dozens of women and countless brands), we’ve worked tirelessly to host virtual and in-person sales, and to date have brought in more than $120,000 for ISRAAID and the Israeli Red Cross. Seeing so many people come together for the sake of the cause has brought a tiny bit of light into all of this darkness—but it’s also made us targets.

… Take a second and imagine the amount of hate it must take to go out of your way to send nasty messages to people who are simply trying to do something good for a community—our community—that experienced unthinkable violence. That is the world we’re living in.

I won’t pretend to have an answer here—none of us do, because what’s going on is far more complicated than a social media post can even begin to express. My heart breaks for every innocent person who has been impacted by this war, and the “pick a side” narrative that’s dominated the Internet has been endlessly frustrating. I don’t believe that standing with Palestine means you’re pro-Hamas or that being against the actions of the Israeli government means that you “hate Jews,” but I do believe that the current rhetoric toes a dangerous line of placing the blame on an entire group of innocent (and historically persecuted) people. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that though the bulk of the violence is far away, a whole lot of us are feeling its effects here at home. The generational trauma is real. And if you don’t get that, you’re not listening.

The week after the attacks, I attended a baby naming for a friend’s three-month-old son. It felt odd to be celebrating in the midst of such horror (there’s that shattered glass metaphor again), but there was also comfort in choosing to embrace Jewish joy—it was our own form of resistance, and our own form of hope. As the rabbi put it that morning, “We are celebrating new Jewish life, and we need that now more than ever.”

I spent much of my life struggling with my Jewish identity, and much of the past few weeks trying to muster the courage to write about it on the Internet. But what I’ve learned in the process is that we are a strong, resilient people who choose to look for light in unimaginable darkness—and a tribe I feel lucky to be a part of.

I am proud to be Jewish, and I won’t let fear get in the way of that.