As part of the volunteer program, once a month, we had an in-depth educational day with Nouriel, a Conservative rabbi and lawyer in Israel, who taught us about the intricacies of the country—from its politics and social issues to its collective memory and biblical history. When Nouriel began summarizing one of our recent sessions, I tuned him out, thinking about all the preparations for my move to Israel: packing, paperwork, and more. The only thing I still needed was a letter from my rabbi to prove my Jewishness to get citizenship.
“Today we’re discussing the question ‘Who is a Jew?’” he announced. The question pulled me out of my head and back into Israel’s Independence Hall. Proud to be Jewish, I chuckled and ironically asked out loud, “With centuries of persecution, why would anyone who isn’t Jewish claim to be?”
Ignoring my sarcasm, Nouriel began his lecture. “When Israel was established in 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister, envisioned a country that provided a safe haven to any Jew who had been persecuted during the Holocaust. This meant that a person whom the Nazis defined as being Jewish would have the Right of Return to the new Jewish homeland. The Nazi’s definition of a Jew was anyone with one Jewish grandparent.”
I smiled to myself, thinking how the same definition that once led to Jews being murdered now leads to their salvation. Content with the poetic justice, I returned to planning my aliyah in my head.
“However, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis didn’t agree with this definition,” I heard him explain. “The ultra-Orthodox rabbis believe that the definition of who is a Jew should come from halacha, traditional religious law and customs. According to their interpretation, a person is Jewish only if his or her mother is born a Jew. And the ultra-Orthodox believe the only conversions that God accepts are the ones done by their strict, ultra-Orthodox standards.”
My head snapped, with the force of a car accident, in Nouriel’s direction. The blood rushed through my ears. All I heard were the thoughts streaming through my head. How do the ultra-Orthodox know what God wants? Who made them experts on interpreting God’s words? It seemed like dangerous pedagogy, strangely similar to those people announcing every single day that the world would come to an end tomorrow.
I thought back to the past summer when I had been working at the Jewish Community Center’s gym, trying to save money before the volunteer program. Sitting at the fitness center desk, I was reading The Red Tent, a novel that depicts the biblical story of Dinah from a woman’s point of view, when I was interrupted by an Orthodox Jewish woman, who exercised in a long skirt, baggy T-shirt, and a handkerchief covering her head.
“Don’t believe any of that book! Nothing in it is true!” she had forcefully said.
I had looked up to respond. But before I had the chance to ask what her proof was that the burning bush was not Moses on shrooms, she had run out.
Thinking about that encounter, I felt the blood drain out of my face, but Nouriel didn’t notice. In the US, the woman at the JCC was just expressing her opinion, but here in Israel, people like her have power over my Judaism, over my identity.
“Ben-Gurion was concerned that using the ultra-Orthodox definition would hurt the relations between the international Jewish community and Israel. He didn’t want to isolate the Conservative and Reform Jewish movements abroad, nor did he want to cause a rift between the religious and secular Jews in Israel. He considered the long-term prospects of the Jewish state if it only accepted ultra-Orthodox marriages and conversions done abroad. He realized that both of these outcomes could cause the destruction of the small and vulnerable state as much as an Arab attack,” Nouriel explained.
I exhaled for the first time since he had said that only ultra-Orthodox conversions are acceptable. I looked over at the Israeli flag with a big blue Star of David and my hand instinctively grabbed the Star of David hanging on my necklace.
Nouriel continued. “Ben-Gurion understood the importance of unity between the secular and religious. So he made a compromise.”
I gripped my necklace tighter. The points from the star dug into my palm.
“For the purpose of making aliyah to Israel, a person is defined as Jewish if he has one Jewish grandparent. This is called the Right of Return Law. But Ben-Gurion allowed the ultra-Orthodox to use their definition for the important Jewish lifecycles: birth, marriages, death, and more. This means they decide who is Jewish enough to get married or be buried in a Jewish cemetery in Israel. Basically he gave the ultra-Orthodox a monopoly over Judaism.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t believe that free-thinking people in the democratic State of Israel would actually agree to these outdated and primitive laws. What would this mean for me? I’d have the right to move here, but not to marry? It was far away, but I knew I’d want an Israeli family of my own in the future.
After finding my voice, I hesitantly asked, “Doesn’t that sort of create a purgatory for some Jews here? What do the Jews who meet Ben-Gurion’s definition, but don’t meet the ultra-Orthodox definition, do? How do they get married?” I tried to hide my fear of my identity being erased in Israel.
“It creates exactly that. Many go abroad to Cyprus to get married. There are no civil marriages in Israel, only religious ones. And it is illegal for Reform and Conservative rabbis to perform marriages here.”
“But how does the rabbinate know if you’re Jewish to their standards or not?” I asked. I had a feeling that I didn’t want to know the answer.
“There are many ways. A letter from an Orthodox rabbi whom the rabbinate accepts. A ketuba, a Jewish marriage contract, is another way . . .”
With my heart pounding in my ears, I didn’t hear the rest of his answer. I was starting to doubt my decision to move here. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was Israel actually a fundamentalist country like its neighbors? No! It couldn’t be. I thought about all the secular fun I had in Tel Aviv. There was nothing fundamentalist about the house music in the club. I calmed myself down by convincing myself that this who-is-a-Jew law is probably just like some of the other archaic Jewish laws that no rational person in today’s day or age follows, like stoning an adulterer or swinging a chicken around your head to rid yourself of sins. Or sort of like how oral sex is illegal in Texas.
It won’t affect me.
When the lecture ended, I approached Nouriel, whom I instinctively trusted. As everyone else left the room to explore the building where a free Jewish nation was declared over fifty years ago, I asked Nouriel what I could do so that I wouldn’t be one of the Jews in purgatory. He clarified for me that a letter from a rabbi is enough for making aliyah, but that for marriage, a higher standard of proof is needed. After discussing different options, weighing the pros and the cons, the ethical dilemmas, and the legal ones, I decided that I wasn’t going to let these anti-Semitic laws change my identity. Nouriel, understanding the importance of my Jewish identity and the absurdity of these laws, agreed to help.
A few months later, I went to his synagogue with a copy of my parents’ ketuba. I carefully pulled out the document, a botle of Wite-Out, and a pen. I delicately placed them on the desk. As I looked up at the Ten Commandments hanging in the sanctuary, I opened the Wite-Out bottle and slowly and carefully whited out the name “Abraham,” which was written as the name of my mom’s father. Abraham, as the father of the Jewish people, is accepted by every convert as their new father after conversion. His name on my parents’ ketuba would have been an obvious sign to the rabbinate that my mother had converted.
I gently blew on the Wite-Out to speed up the erasing of my past. With my face next to the paper, the fumes seeped into my nose. Once it dried, Rabbi Nouriel adjusted his kippah, took the pen out of his pocket and carefully wrote my grandfather’s real name: Jonathan—Yonatan in Hebrew—making sure that each Hebrew letter matched the original handwriting. It seemed to be fate that my grandfather’s name can pass for some Jewish peasant versus a traditional Christian name. As the ink dried, my secret and my family’s past began to fade.
&
nbsp; With a swipe of the pen, he had changed my future. He had given me his blessing. It made what I was doing kosher and not just an act of defiance. I felt like a young Gloria Steinem. A modern-day Ester. A Jewish Rosa Parks. Looking at this new document, I couldn’t see any evidence of my original history. I hoped that it would also pass the rabbinate’s scrutiny.
“If they don’t accept our Judaism, I’m not going to accept theirs,” I said, while staring at the new ketuba.
Thoughtfully stroking his beard and nodding, Rabbi Nouriel agreed, knowing that the rabbinate doesn’t even accept him as a real rabbi or his teachings as real Judaism.
Now, sitting in the back seat of the car, with our synagogue behind us, I take out the forged document. While I only need the letter from my rabbi to prove I’m Jewish enough to make aliyah, I will someday need the forged ketuba to get married in Israel. My thumb caresses my empty ring finger. It feels strange thinking about something in the distant future, but I’m forced to so that I can be accepted in Israel as fully Jewish. I closely inspect the ketuba. I can’t even tell that it has been altered. There will be no reason for anyone to doubt my Jewish identity when it’s time for me to get married. I think I’ve secured being able to build my own Israeli family. Content, I tuck it safely away in my bag for future use, wishing that I didn’t have to hide the truth, but knowing that I have to so that I can have the full rights of a citizen in Israel. This law doesn’t seem fair or just. But I can’t fight the law. I’m going to have enough battles to fight as a new immigrant.
As we pull up to the Minnesota airport, I look at my Israeli immigration visa. It is proof that the country has accepted me. I wonder to myself where the greater irony lays, that the homeland of the Jews is the only country that would consider me not Jewish, or that I choose, as my home, the only country in the world that doesn’t consider me to be a Jew. Either way, my sarcasm and self-mockery as a survival tool is proof that I’m part of a culture that has been persecuted for thousands of years. And now with my plan to join the IDF, I’ll be a part of preventing that persecution.
Jewish Spring Break
My flight to Israel is supposed to be a charter flight full of Jews making aliyah. The flight was organized by Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that provides scholarships and guidance to North Americans who want to fulfill the ultimate Jewish dream of moving to Israel. It’s sort of like a Make-A-Wish Foundation for Jews: except that we aren’t dying . . . we just have a death wish.
The organization is largely funded by evangelical Christians who want all of the Jews to move back to Israel to bring about the Armageddon and eventually the return of Jesus Christ. It’s no wonder we need our own homeland; even people supporting Jews want us killed. I hope they don’t expect to get their money back when that plan does not come to fruition.
After my flight from Minnesota, I am now dragging my two oversized suitcases to the check-in desk at JFK. I can already picture this flight being like a Jewish spring-break trip. I’m imagining hundreds of other twenty-somethings, just like me, who packed up their entire lives, left their entire history behind them, in the hopes of beginning a new, more fulfilling life in a strange and foreign country.
When I arrive at the check-in area, instead of seeing a bunch of young adults ready to party, I see little children running around screaming, babies crying, women in long skirts and hair coverings, and religious Jewish men gathered together in one location, praying. The scene reminds me of the first time I visited the Western Wall of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem. It was the first time I directly felt the control of the ultra-Orthodox in my life. We had spent the evening lost in the Old City and then we had suddenly walked out to a bright, crowded open area. This enormous wall was towering over people who looked like ants in comparison. Each stone was the size of a car. It was magnificent.
But my awe quickly ended when I had noticed that, unlike in our synagogue, where women and men are equal and pray together, in Jerusalem I saw that women were praying on one side and men on another . . . and it seemed like the men had the better side. We had approached the Western Wall as a family, but then my dad had to separate from us. As I had watched my dad veer off to the left to go to the men’s section, I remember being upset that he had to be alone during this meaningful family event. We had spent years praying together in the direction of the Western Wall, and now that we are here we can’t be together.
At the airport, staring at the men praying separately in one section, I freeze, thinking that this must be a sign from God: “Go back! These zealots will control your life in Israel!” This is a very powerful omen, considering that I don’t actually believe in God. Yes, it’s true: I’m an Atheist Jewish Zionist making aliyah, but that just goes to show that I’m a true intellectual and a deep individual. These multiple personalities have nothing to do with being confused, lost, or disturbed. At least that is what I have been trying to convince rabbis . . . and psychologists. Rabbis have recommended prayer; psychologists have suggested Xanax. I think it is clear now why I would have the tendency to lean towards secularism—they prescribe the good drugs.
Just as I’m doubting my aliyah decision a smiling twenty-something woman wearing tight jeans and a tank top appears out of the sea of families.
“Hi, I’m Ester,” she introduces herself to me. I can instantly tell that we’ll be good friends.
In a short conversation, we find out that we’ll be living, interning, and studying Hebrew together. This coincidence reassures me that I’m making the right choice.
So, I decide to leave the signs from God to the men with kippahs, praying in the corner near the baggage carts. I quickly get in line to get my ticket to my new life.
By now I’ve flown back and forth to Israel a number of times, so I’ve grown used to the interrogations. While I realize the need to ask these questions to weed out the terrorists, I’m still impatient.
“Where are you coming from?” The security checker greets the passengers ahead of me in Hebrew.
She looks just like the security checker from my first trip to Israel ten years ago. I remember how strange it seemed back then.
“Is this your first time in Israel?” the security checker had asked with a stern face.
“Yes.” I beamed. At thirteen years old, I, like every teenager, enjoyed talking about myself.
“For how long you go?” she asked.
“Two weeks. I’m missing summer camp,” I said, pouting.
Uninterested in my disappointment, she looked down at her notepad. “Do you go to synagogue? Which one?”
“B’nai Israel, a Conservative synagogue. We walk there every Shabbat. My dad is the president of the synagogue and on the JCC board, and my mom is the president of Hadassah in our city,” I said proudly, before I remembered that I was too cool to mention my parents.
She nodded in recognition, as if she personally knew the rabbi at our synagogue. I thought that maybe she had a synagogue list on her clipboard. “Who are you traveling with?” she asked.
Looking over at my family, I rolled my eyes. “My parents and my younger sister.”
Glancing at them, her face remained blank. “Do you speak Hebrew?”
“Ummm . . .” Re-adjusting my backpack, I wasn’t sure how to answer. My dad had tried to teach me Hebrew when I was younger. “I know how to read Hebrew. I read for my bat mitzvah and we pray in Hebrew at synagogue every Shabbat. At my Jewish day school, Talmud Torah, I took Hebrew lessons and learned how to say a few words. But, no. I don’t really speak it.”
She perked up following that answer and asked, “Do you keep kasher?” Instead of saying it kosher, like I did, she emphasized the word oddly and rolled her “r.”
“Of course!” I said defensively.
She continued with her line of questioning, “You said you went to a Jewish camp. What’s its name?”
“Herzl Camp. After the founder of Zionism,” I said, not realizing the irony that I preferred to sing songs about Israel while at camp in the Mid
west rather than actually be in Israel.
“Do you know anyone in Israel?” she persisted, in accented English.
At my childhood synagogue there was one wild-haired Israeli with a bushy mustache. When his daughter had a temper tantrum during services, he had picked her up, stomped out of the sanctuary, and slammed the door behind him—making more noise than his toddler. “Yes, at our synagogue there is an Israeli. Some of my Hebrew teachers are Israeli. Oh, and we hosted an Israeli for a few weeks during her army service when she worked at a Jewish day camp.”
The questioner looked down as if she was trying to think of other questions and I wondered what she was going to ask next—what my favorite prayer was? What my bat bitzvah haftarah portion was? If we lit candles on Shabbat? Irritated, I looked over at my parents and sister to see what their interviews were like and overheard a young man, wearing the same security outfit, ask my mom what synagogue she went to as a child. A quick wave of pain, that only I noticed, flashed over her face.
“Where are you coming from?”
It takes me a moment to realize I’m not thirteen anymore when the security guard asks me the same question in Hebrew.
“Minnesota,” I answer, as I proudly hand her my passport that now has an Israeli visa.
After looking at my passport, she asks me where I’m going.
“I’m making aliyah,” I say in Hebrew, enthusiasm oozing from me. I add, as if I’m a thirteen-year-old again, “I’m also planning on joining the IDF.”
She laughs at my declaration, asks me a few questions that sound like they are out of a high school yearbook, and then quickly waves me through. Unlike my first trip here, my Jewish identity is no longer in question. I’m beginning to think that the amount of time that I spend in the country is inversely proportional to the amount of questions I’m asked at the airport.
The security guard moves to the next person in line who is wearing an IDF T-shirt with a keffiyeh around her neck. I wonder what her security check is like and then think to myself that she is an identity crisis waiting to happen.
Chutzpah & High Heels Page 3
