The Piece of Myself I Didn't Know I Needed

My Jewishness has long been a defining factor in my life, though I might not have said so in my youth. I grew up in a suburb of Hartford, on the side of town that houses a majority of the Jewish population. I lived near what was called "The Reservation," also predominantly Jewish (though all the streets boasted Native American names, not rabbinical), and my school included a large group of Jewish students. Almost all of my friends were Jewish, many of them attending the same Hebrew school as I did, all of us equally uninterested in our Judaism, but thankful for the shared history and the extra time to hang out with which Hebrew school provided us. We loathed going to services, dressing up, sitting for long hours at a time, reading a language we didn't understand, being crowded into seats next to family members who glared at us or shushed us in equal measure.

I read The Diary of Anne Frank in both Hebrew School and middle school, and understood a bit about the Holocaust, but didn't see how it pertained to my life. Here was a young girl in a terrible situation, but it could not have been more different from my own situation. Here was a girl surrounded by rapidly changing beliefs about herself and her family. Where once people had befriended her and played with her, she was suddenly shunned. She was surrounded by images that did not represent her own understanding of herself, and yet, had become accepted as the definition of who she and her family were (and somehow always had been...the figurative wolf in sheep's clothing). I felt for her, but didn't feel like her, so it was all somehow lacking in meaning for me. 

In high school, I don't particularly recall learning much about the Holocaust, but I imagine we must have gone over it during history classes. I feel as though if I had read Night by Elie Wiesel it would have stuck with me. Looking back, I would hope that that novel, as eloquent as it is, would have made me reflect in a way that other books could not have. But perhaps I was too immature, thinking too much about my own social life and dramas to understand what others had been through so that I could be this complacent.

The only time during my youth that I ever felt "outside," or "separate," was during the Jewish High Holidays and during Hanukkah. Most years, when Yom Kippur came around in the fall, I would set my determination to fast for the day. My mother explained it to me as a worthy sacrifice, a time, once a year, when we could make ourselves uncomfortable for the purpose of reflection, and I liked the idea. But hunger usually won out over my lofty goals, and more often than not, by two p.m., I was sneaking snacks from the cupboards. I didn't resent my non-Jewish friends the day off from school, unless it was during the 2 1/2 uncomfortable hours spent in temple, when I knew they were fast asleep. I didn't even realize that most of the world did not get Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off from public school. Most Jewish kids had to take the day off if they wanted to attend temple. I would not have then understood that there was a level of acceptance here that did not (and does not) exist elsewhere. I got through the day by thinking of the break-fast celebration that my family would have with a huge spread of bagels and lox and egg dishes, cream cheeses spread across the table, and brownies and cakes for afterwards. At the first sign of dimness in the sky, we would converge in the kitchen, mumbling prayers and grabbing food. The laughter and warmth made the day worthwhile. This is what I take with me from those days. I didn't think about the people not celebrating this holiday, nor wonder what they thought of me. That was a luxury for which I am now incredibly grateful. 

Christmas time was always a bit strange, however. I understood, of course, that ours was not the religion of the majority (even if it seemed to be in my group of friends), but the barrage of Christmas trees and holiday music that began at Thanksgiving and continued into January always made me a bit uncomfortable.  I smiled when I saw the occasional menorah, and appreciated the token Hanukkah songs at the Christmas concert (as it was still titled in the '90s), and was only the tiniest bit discomfited by the Merry Christmases that the teachers sang out in each classroom, as though we all celebrated this holiday, or as though the other holidays that we did celebrate were not important enough to mention. My otherness at this point was subconscious, there, but not yet frustrating. It lay below the surface, but just barely. 

There were moments, of course, when my difference was thrust in my face. I buried these times, for the most part, allowing myself time to deal with them when I had matured enough to understand the motivations behind the comments. In first grade, a classmate called me a kike. I did not know what he meant, and I am sure that I just looked at him, confused, and walked away. I certainly did not ask my teacher about it. But I could tell by his sneer that the word was unkind, meant to belittle. I am not completely sure that even he understood the term. I am confident, however, that it was a term much used in his house along with other hateful epithets meant to make his parents feel stronger, better, more secure in their own relative superiority. Children don't come to these terms on their own. 

I went home and asked my father about the word. He grew explosively angry, not defining the term, but telling me to punch him in the face if he said it again. I had to ask my mother, later, for the actual meaning. I don't remember her response. I couldn't empathize with my father's anger that arose from one small word. At six years old, I was secure in my world.

As a junior in high school, I got a job working as a counselor in the town camps. This was my first real interaction with high school students from the other side of town. It was the first time that someone was surprised when I told him I was Jewish. He looked at me differently for a moment, with a sort of appraisal, but it didn't feel negative, just odd. I was suddenly strange, exotic. But it became a story to tell my friends, nothing more. He hadn't seemed to be looking for horns, just changing his image of me, adapting to new knowledge.

The next summer, we had all become a bit more comfortable together, and that comfort bred a freedom of language. When I told my co-counselors that I had been accepted to Tulane University, one of them called it "Jewlane" with a smirk. I winced, but said nothing. It was just a comment, a fleeting moment. It didn't mean anything. I didn't think about the age old stereotypes that led to that comment: Jews and money; Jews and greed. Tulane was expensive. Was it greedy to go there? Was I conforming to type?

My parents always instilled in me that education was the most important part of my life. Grades and success were hugely important to them. Getting a C equaled failure in their eyes, and I was well aware of the expectation that I out-do my peers. This was true for all of my Jewish friends. We were expected to excel, to go to good schools, to push ourselves. We had to participate in sports and extra-curriculars and above all else, succeed. I didn't think about it. It was as much a part of my upbringing as the expectation that I eat healthy meals and be respectful to adults. My parents told me that education had always been important to Jewish people. I could see this in my community, but suddenly my success was being mocked. Suddenly my religion was a cause for embarrassment.

When I went to college, I surrounded myself with mostly non-Jews. My college boyfriend proudly wore a cross around his neck. I didn't talk about my religion. It set me apart. It was easy to ignore. When I walked across campus and was approached by a member of a temple just off campus, I shook my head when he asked me if I was Jewish. I can still feel the shame of denying my faith. It is a burning within me.

The summer after my junior year in college, my friend and I went to see the movie Schindler's List. I remember sitting in the worn down plush seats of the theater. The movie had been out for over a year, but I hadn't gone to see it. I didn't question why. He convinced me to go, and could feel the dread building. It was a nameless dread. Somewhere, deep within me was a young Jewish girl, hiding, and I was not yet ready to claim her. Halfway through the movie, the torture, deprivation, the absolute decimation of humanity broke me. I began to shake. My friend didn't notice. I clenched my entire body into a ball and trembled for the rest of the film. I couldn't speak. He looked at me, and I saw his gaze transform. I became a Jew to him in a way that I was not before. He was Christian. This was just a movie. For me, it was a turning point.

This didn't mean that everything changed, but that I began the process of accepting this part of my life, of questioning it as well. What did my religion mean to me? Did I believe in a God (absolute and terrifying? Generous and preserving?)? After college I moved in with a few friends, two of whom where Jewish, and we went to The Matzoh Ball (a dance held annually so Jewish young adults could meet). It was as awkward as you'd imagine it to be. I met and danced with who I can only imagine was the one non-Jew in the place. He had come with his Jewish friend. My parents scoffed, my friends laughed; I was more and more confused. What did I want out of my future? Could I truly abandon Judaism completely? Was there a part of me that had already made the choice?

But then I went back home, as I always did, for the High Holidays. I was surprised at the comfort and relief I felt. I was surrounded by hundreds of people who shared the traditions of my past. There was a deep, somehow innate connection, a tie that bound us all together irrevocably. There was, in fact, no choice to be made. I was home, not in the language being spoken (which I understood even less than I did as a teen), but in the unspoken language of faith. It became less about God, and more about family, heritage, and history. Here, we sat in a temple after so many had been destroyed by enemies of our religion. The sun shone through the stained glass windows and promised hope. There was not yet a policeman guarding the door, just my community clamoring to enter the sanctuary. Here was a place of absolute safety.

Now, when I bring my children to temple, there is a guard who smiles at me and high fives the kids. I look warily at the gun holstered on his hip. I cannot help but think about the rise of antisemitism around the world: Attacks in New York City, swastikas in schools, hate speech elevated to political rhetoric. Every year I declare my Jewishness to my students. This is who I am. This is who we are. I talk to them about my holidays. For each of the memories of which I am ashamed, I have created another memory of standing up, making noise, demanding change.

• The picture of the Madonna and Child came down from the middle school office wall after a meeting I had with the principal.
• When swastikas were plastered across the walls of that same middle school, I spoke clearly and personally to my students about the physical pain I felt seeing that black sharpied shape on a place I held sacred.
• I taught the book Night to my 9th graders with pride and calls to action, teaching about those who resisted as much as about those who were forced to succumb.
• I teach all of my students to be not only an ally but a soldier for inclusion and understanding, to break down barriers, to talk to each other.

And I reflect, always, on the rhetoric of the powerful and the expected silence of the powerless.

Elie Wiesel said, "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." I chose sides. I chose strength. I chose to raise my voice. My mezuzah hangs as a proud identifier on my door frame and a menorah stands in my bay window for all to see.

a promise for the new year

When you have a child with ADHD or any set of initials that will follow him through life, you learn yourself anew. You find tiny triumphs and grasp them tightly, hold them high like the trophy he deserves. But you also learn exhaustion in a whole new way. His need is such that finding space to breathe is a luxury, that remembering yourself without him is harder and harder, that finding ten minutes to lift a weight, to type, to read, is a pleasure that holds you through the day. It has to.

When you have a child who struggles, you sometimes neglect the one who doesn't. The sibling who still needs but not as stridently. The sister who reaches out through tears and anger and kindness, trying to be seen. It's easy to divert your focus. To say, she is fine, will be fine, will land on her feet, is strong.  It's easy not to see that she is hurting too.

When you have a child who is so close to your heart that it seems he lives there, it's easy to forget you have a husband who remembers who you were before. Who needs your time, your thoughts, your dreams as well.

How do you work it out?
How do you balance?
How do you choose who loses?

Each day is a question of losses and wins, and trial and error, of so many failures and forgotten triumphs.

Each day is a chance to hug and love and laugh, and remember joy.

I can not promise I have enough to go around, just that each day I will offer what I have to give, remembering, as I do, to save a piece for me as well.

I am the kind of exhausted that stems from body, spirit and mind. It is the kind you feel in your bones. It is the kind that makes you question it all. Am I the woman for this job? Am I strong enough to parent and teach and exist as someone separate and unto herself? Can I also be a wife and a daughter? A niece  and a cousin? Am I a sister if I barely see my brothers?  Who is this person, after all?

I Will March

People keep asking me if I am excited for Saturday    I don't know how to respond.  Am I excited? No.  I am everything else.  I am nervous.  I don't like crowds.  I went to school in New Orleans and stood on Bourbon Street during Fat Tuesday once.  Once.  I am five foot nothing, and when I felt my feet leave the ground, I was terrified.  There will be 1,000,000 people at the march in D.C., and I am still five foot nothing.  I am frustrated.  I don't like the cold.  It is January.  I will be outside.  I want D.C. in spring, not winter.  I am annoyed.  I originally thought most of my friends would be making the trip.  They are not.  I am not a huge fan of busses or sleepless nights.  I will be on a bus for 6 hours in the middle of the night.  I am not excited.  But I am going.  Because I must.  I will be marching with my mother.  She grew up in the 60s. This will not be her first march.  She marched so that I would not have to. But Saturday, we will march together.  Because I have a daughter.  She is lovely and bright and filled with energy.  She had an "awesome" day today because, I kid you not, she had a math test.  This excites her.  She is and will be a force to reckon with, and she will never be touched or grabbed or violated in any way, if I have anything to say about it.  But I am tired of turning off the news when she enters the room.  Just the other day, her old school was on the news.  She attended a Jewish Community Center school until she was in kindergarten. On Wednesday, someone called in a bomb threat.  This was the case across the country, not just in our town.  Friends texted me.  They worried about their children, being walked across the campus.  I imagined their teachers, acting silly, trying to distract them from the abrupt change in routine, trying to ensure they felt safe.  My children were not there, and I felt relief, and guilt.  So I will march.  Because this, this new reality is not okay with me.  I have watched my friends in other states post about incidents of antisemitism.  In my naivety, I thought, "How sad, but not here. We will not have that sort of thing here."  We pretend, you see.  We are safe.  We are in a blue state.  I teach at a diverse school, in a diverse town.  My children will never be called kikes, or find a swastika on their classroom doors.  But just a week ago, someone made a swastika in the snow.  It was later turned into a peace sign.  But it did not negate the first iteration.  This is why I will march.
I am a teacher.  A good number of my students attended the inauguration of a president about whom I have grave reservations.  Will he protect their rights and their needs?  Will he allow them to be curious, to question and contradict?  Will there be security and safety for their parents who need it most?  Or will he tweet away their safety?  We have worked so hard to make them feel included, to feel they had a voice.  Do they still?  Will they always?  I will march on Saturday to let them know that if I have a say, so will they.  I will do what I can, what I am allowed, so that some day, they might choose to do the same. Some day, there will still be a place to make the choices that in my lifetime have remained a right.  Some day, there will be a person in the White House who sees them as an equal part of this great nation, who allows them all the chance to live, to prosper, to thrive, no matter who their parents were.  Someday, we will all remember that we are a nation of immigrants first and foremost, that women birthed this nation, and that children must not bear the burden of their fathers.
I am a mother, and a teacher, and a Jew.  This is why on Saturday, no matter my discomfort, in spite of my discomfort, because of my discomfort, I will march. And like my mother before me, I will do so, so that they don't have to.

My Pledge

Previously Published in Huffington Post on 11/09/2016:

I don't think I can say the Pledge of Allegiance today.  I teach high school students, and second period, when we all say the Pledge together, I will be sharing my room with my eleventh grade Advanced Placement Language and Composition students.  I have spent the last three months teaching them about the power of words.  I don't think I can use those words today.  I don't think I have any words to speak today that will be good enough or strong enough to quell my fears, or to touch the unnamed fears my students must be harboring.  I have brown skinned children in my class.  I have blue haired girls, and muslim young women.  I have strong women in my class.  I believed that I would walk in today able to speak to that strength, able to hand to them an America that I believed in.  But today, something has shifted, and I don't know how to form the words, to make them believe that I support this man.  He has bullied, and shamed, and hurt so many.  He has divided and belittled and served no one but himself.  He is now America.  As a teacher, how can I support that?  How can I tell them that their America is still alive and well, when we have now seen another country rise up in our midst. The Trump country is one of ignorance, resisting intellect with wild abandon.  The Trump country is one of ownership, of women's bodies, of guns and division.  It is one of dishonesty again and again and again.  It is anti-constitutional, even as he claims to hold up the second amendment.  He keeps the press out.  He holds no belief in the power of discourse.  He is a one man government, who will surround himself with men like him, who would have gladly joined him in his "locker room," and they will laugh together at the world that they are raising, and the future that looks more and more like a past we have tried to forget.
And perhaps that is the problem.  We allowed ourselves to forget.  We believed we were safe, because we had already created a sense of equality in our nation, we had already fought for civil rights, and women's rights, and marriage equality, and perhaps we forgot that each of those rights is not built on a cement foundation. That the wrong Supreme Court addition nominated by this man, can turn each of these successes into dust.  Perhaps we forgot that we still need to fight.  Perhaps we forgot that each of these victories left blood on the battlefield, but clearly not enough.
So maybe I have found my words as I write this out.  Maybe all I say to my students, is that we have to keep fighting.  We have to hold on to what we have built, and not allow it all to be demolished by the many angry people who won their own small minded battle last night.
We will fight for the words, for the language, for our beliefs that still can stand even in the face of this new America, which has risen from the shadows.
My Pledge is this: I Pledge Allegiance to civility, to brotherhood, and sisterhood, and goodness.  I pledge to protect those in my care and those who need my care.  I pledge to support those fighting for my safety and for my ability to share these beliefs with the world at large.  I pledge to love.  One Nation.  Indivisible.

Oh Bon Appetit...You Lost Me

Published August 29, 2016 at Huffington Post

Dear Bon Appetit,
  You may have just lost me.  I have been, until today, a lover of all things you.  I subscribe to your magazine and gush over the pictures.  My husband and I shout recipe ideas over the sound of our screaming children.  "We should make this on Saturday," I'll say.  He'll agree and offer to make a list of whatever ingredients we may not have in our pantry.  We dream up dinner parties  as we page through each new edition.  And I love your emails.  My husband and I race to forward them to one and other.  "Subject: Tonight?"
  But I thought you understood me too.  I thought we were simpatico.  But now, I know, we are as far apart as Earth from the most recently identified planet with the possibility of life.  You just don't get me.  Today, I received this in my inbox: 30-quick-easy-school-lunches-to pack for kids.  I got excited.  My two children go to school.  My two children need lunch.  I need these lunches to be "quick and easy" as I am a teacher, who needs to be out of the house by 6:30.  I do not have time to labor over the oven in the morning.  I require speed and convenience.  I assumed that was what I was getting when I clicked on your oh so tempting link.  But, Bon Appetit, this time, you failed me.
  You gave me zucchini pancakes, and pinto bean and ham tortas.  You gave me vegetarian sushi and fresh herb falafel.  You gave me noodle salad with chile scallion oil.  You were wrong on so many levels, that it became hard for me to click through the slideshow of insanity.  It's not that my children don't like good food.  Well, at least one of them inherited our foodie genes.  My daughter eats raw oysters and crumbled blue cheese.  She loves tuna and avocado sushi.  But she is 6 and 1/2 and does not love spice.  So, chili oil, maybe not so much.  But it's not even the ingredients your recipes call for.  There is nothing quick or easy, or even lunch-box-compatible in these meals.  Is my daughter meant to know how to construct her own tofu summer roll out of lettuce, fresh basil, cucumbers and carrots, each placed neatly in their own adorable container?  And when exactly are my husband and I supposed to have the time to be stirring in "thinly sliced scallions (green parts), toasted sesame seeds, and chopped peanuts" to my daughter's "quick fried rice"?  This is, of course, ignoring the fact that my son eats only cream cheese sandwiches (to which you suggest adding sliced salami and pickles), or Wow butter and jelly sandwiches (because peanuts aren't allowed).  So, forgive me if I'm not seeing how this relates in any way to me, or any mother I know, for that matter.
  It pains me to say, that you may have lost touch with us "normals."  Our kids run around the kitchen island screaming, often naked, with a granola bar in one hand and their sibling's favorite stuffy in the other.  Their lunches consist of basic sandwiches.  These may include the gourmet turkey and cheese, with a vegetable/fruit pouch, and a bar of sorts.  I have bought sandwich rounds (circular bread) so that I don't have to take the time to cut off the crust for my son.  That is to say that our mornings are about survival.  They are about getting out the door.  They are about brushing teeth, wearing clothes that approximate the weather outside, and finding shoes.  Because, god knows, the pair is never together.  The right one is behind the chair, and the left is under the couch.  Or upside down at the bottom of the stairs.  Or under a bed in the wrong child's room.  
  Perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow is now doing your editing.  It is clearly no longer someone in touch with those of us who work, and don't have nannies. Because we are all about the basics.  We are all about just making it by the skin of our teeth through the mornings.  We are not making sweet potato and black bean burritos on a week day.  I'm not sure who is.

The Great Divide

Published at www.huffingtonpost.com 08/2016

When I started teaching English, I thought the job was about the books.  Don’t get me wrong, I was always in it for the kids, but I thought I was going to teach them to love books.  I thought I was there to instill in them a love of Literature.  But more and more I realized that the books were the tools, the wrenches and pliers, and it was my job to teach my kids to use those tools to build bridges between the kids and their world.

More than anything, my students need to understand how they connect to each other and how they can communicate that connection. 

Because, really, isn’t that the problem we have in our world today?  Watch the news.  I dare you.  It’s awful out there.  As the divide between the police and the people they protect grows, as the divide between those who have more and more, and those who have less and less grows, as the divide between the cultures we understand and those we do not grows (even as our world seems to shrink), the thing we are lacking is that basic human connection.

And so I try to teach my students to connect.  It starts with connecting to me.  From the first day of school, they learn my life.  I talk to them about my kids.  I talk to them about my beliefs.  No longer do they see a teacher who keeps her ideologies silent.  I am the first book they learn.  And because of that, we connect.  Then, they connect to each other.  We have discussions and debates.  We talk about the problems in the world.  We talk about the possibilities in the world.  We talk about books, but we focus on how they connect to our world.  What they can teach us about the people around us, and how they can help us empathize and reach out.

I grew up in this town.  I went to high school in this town, left for college and stayed away for another 5 years, and then I came back to this town to teach.  But, this town, my town, could be anywhere in the United States right now.  Every year we grow more diverse, not less.  Every year it becomes more and more important to find ways to sympathize if not empathize, to reach over the divide and find the similarity, the humanity, the “us” in the “other.”  When I was in high school in the ‘90s, my school was mostly white.  My classes were homogenous, and my friends were as well.  The connections were implicit.  Of course, there were cliques.  Of course kids were different from one and other, but my high school photos show a very different group of kids, from those of today.   

Looking around my tenth grade English class today, my former self would be shocked by the diversity.  Just shy of half the class are minorities, and the socio economic status of the kids runs the gamut.  This class is a microcosm of the larger world.  Yet, in my class they work together, in our cafeteria they eat together, in our hallways they mix and match in ways my younger self wouldn’t have thought possible.  So, the connections can happen. 

The problem comes when they leave.  Because though the world looks a lot like our school, the adults in their lives, and the adults they will meet, have not grown up going to schools like theirs.  They never learned to connect.  They learned to categorize and separate.  That is what they know. 

So, perhaps my students will be strong enough to overcome instead of be overtaken.  Hopefully one of the tools they will carry out of this building will build the bridge for my generation to walk over as well. 

Because, right now, all I see when I turn on the news is the great divide.