My Family's Jewish Renaissance

Finding our way

May 20, 2025

This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.

man walking on pedestrian lane — Photo by Meredith Owens on Unsplash

The last thing I expected, after October 7, was for my barely Jewish brother and barely Jewish husband to become more loudly and proudly Jewish. My brother is a grown-up Hebrew School hater who married a barely Christian woman and is raising three children who have never been to a Purim carnival or a Passover seder. My husband is another Hebrew School hater whose conciliatory attempt to meet me somewhere in the observant middle was quashed by my mother’s three-hour late-in-life bat mitzvah service.

I am far from observant myself. But I am absolutely the grown-up version of the 12-year-old who balked at learning that she wouldn’t be allowed to face the altar at her bat mitzvah. I am proud to remember—and loudly sing—what I still call “the Bachar Banu thing.” And it’s been a comfort to me, and to grieving friends, to know the Mourner’s Kaddish.

But it feels wrong to be Jewish without belonging to a temple. My friends may be surprised to hear I feel that way. I like to think of myself as the oddest of ducks, the independent misfit, even though I’m sure I conform to every stereotype an Upper West Side Jewish woman of a certain age could hope—or fear—to embody: left-leaning and overeducated, with a therapist on speed dial.

For most of my adult life, I have been the one who tags along to temple. I tag along with my parents. I tag along with my friends. But I can’t imagine joining a Conservative congregation solo. (And no other denomination’s services are sufficiently familiar to feel right.) Maybe if I were single, or if I were an only child, I would have found the gumption ages ago. Instead, I’ve observed what I could, when I could, on my own. And, given the history of our people, I’ve often felt a little indulgent, even guilty, for being childless by choice. Until October 7, I thought of myself as the last Jew standing in my family.

But maybe my mind is the one that needs expanding.

I refuse to say that anything good has come from the antisemitism that’s moved from the fringe to center stage in the wake of the October 7 attacks—but it’s reminded my family that Judaism is more than a religion. It’s a culture, a community, a common heritage we will always be a part of, no matter how we choose to express it.

I’m proud that my nephews in New Jersey identify as Jewish (regardless of the “rules” of their birth), and are standing up for the Jewish community at their school. My father recently found a congregation in Florida that suits him. My husband, who for years vetoed any seder-like activity, this year happily welcomed an “express seder,” attended by our Jewish and non-Jewish friends alike. And no one in the tri-state area is so loudly cheering for the Jews playing and coaching in the NCAA basketball tournament. When wearing a yellow ribbon is considered an act of political courage, representation matters.

This year, for the first time ever, my family met for a seder on Zoom. We didn’t quite have a service, but we ate and laughed and reminisced about seders past. I had matzah ball soup with my husband, though I didn’t attempt a whole feast like my late mother. Maybe next year. But in the meantime, what we could do, what we did feel, was more important than living up to an abstract ideal of goodness.

There are, I suppose, as many ways of being Jewish as there are Jews.

I plan on taking the embers of pride and community and making them feel like enough. And I’ll carry them with me when, sometime soon, I find the courage to walk into a temple alone.

On Being Jewish Now

My Family's Jewish Renaissance

Finding our way

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