Winning Piece - Nonfiction

by Jessica Elkin, Georgia

When I was little, my mother told me to marry Jewish. I didn’t know what marriage was, but I knew it was important. I didn’t really know what being Jewish was, but I knew I was.

When I got a little older, I went to a wedding and learned that marriage was when two people loved each other very much. I saw that being Jewish meant we crushed a glass at the ceremony, yelled “mazel tov,” and why my aunt and new uncle got to be raised in a chair as we danced around them. I saw that being Jewish was why my mom spent months making my aunt a chuppah, and I knew that we were.

As I grew, I learned that not everyone was Jewish. I was taught that being Jewish meant I didn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter and instead Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah. To me it was why my mom came to my kindergarten class and made us latkes, it was why I sat in the temple on Saturday mornings, admiring the stained glass, and why I went to Shalom School every Sunday morning, tracing Hebrew letters and trying to make a “ch” in the back of my throat. The other girls and boys in my kindergarten class told me about their churches as we played dreidel and won gelt, but in my mind, my synagogue was always prettier.

Then I got older. My parents gave me books about being Jewish, and I read All of a Kind Family, Rabbi Harvey, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, and more. I learned that being Jewish was family, being wise and funny and that it was hard. I didn’t like Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret. I remember asking my mom why Margaret didn’t want to be Jewish, and she told me that when she was little, she felt the same. I couldn’t relate. I loved being Jewish, to me it meant challah, gelt, afikomen, apples, and honey. It meant being unique, getting days off of school, and celebrating holidays my friends had never heard of.

I never finished the book.

As I got older, I learned more and more about being Jewish. I knew what the Torah said about it, some of what the Tanak said, what my rabbi said, and what my parents said. In my confirmation classes, I learned our history, our ethics, and our story. I learned what Israel was, I learned that I loved it. I learned what it meant to be Jewish- academically.

It wasn’t until recently that I learned what being Jewish meant. It wasn’t until October when I sat in a class with my non-Jewish peers in an AP Government class during a current events debate. It wasn’t until I’d spent the whole period trying to shrink myself down and pass undetected- made more difficult being that I was one of two girls in class and the only Jew- that my teacher turned to me and said words that crumpled my soul.

“Jessica, you’re Jewish, what do you think?”
As I got older, I learned more and more about being Jewish. I knew what the Torah said about it, some of what the Tanakh said, what my rabbi said, and what my parents said. In my confirmation classes, I learned our history, our ethics, and our story. I learned what Israel was, I learned that I loved it. I learned what it meant to be Jewish- academically.

I think 45 minutes is too long for a class period. I think you should let us go early today. I think my stomach hurts. I think I may throw up. I think I want to leave.

How do you explain your soul? How do you explain that a country you’ve never seen is as much your home as the place you’ve lived for your whole life? How do you explain that your religion isn’t just a religion? How do you explain how once you made a joke to your mom that you could pack your room to flee the country in half an hour? How do you explain that sometimes you’re scared that one day, that won’t be a joke?
That night I scribbled out a poem, I don’t know where it went, but I knew how it went.

It said:
I wore my heart on my sleeve, and my star under my shirt.
Never before have I been ashamed, but today I felt like dirt.
I’m not some sort of commodity, or lesson, or example.
Today myself, I feared you would dismantle.

The internet made me sad, and Instagram stories made me sob. I reevaluated my college list. I watched as people turned life into black and white, I watched as they called me wrong. I dreaded my classmates’ words, I dreaded their silence more. I turned off the phone. I looked around and realized that for those around me, nothing had changed.

I was puzzled over what it truly meant to be Jewish. I’d never had my identity shoved so firmly in my face- not at my bat mitzvah, not at my confirmation, not even at the Holocaust Museum in DC. All of a sudden, one of the foundational blocks of my psyche was front page news, a buzzword. Something that people felt they had to justify, defend, or attack.

It wasn’t until I sat in the most beautiful synagogue I’d ever seen that I realized what it meant to be Jewish. It meant finding a home in the middle of Rome, seeing family in the tour guide walking around the temple, and having the whole gift shop come together to help me pick out a necklace. I realized it set me apart- I realized it meant I’d never be alone. 

I still wear my heart on my sleeve, but I try not to wear my star under my shirt. To me, being Jewish is being brave. It means that I cannot hide away, I cannot bend in the face of those who scream at me, that no matter how much I want to run I must stand firm. I refuse to allow anyone to make me feel ashamed of who I am, to make me feel other and different because of who I worship, what I believe, and what foods I do and don’t eat. 

When I was little, my mom told me to marry Jewish.

When I got older, I learned why. Because sometimes your soul is bare to the world and you can’t bear to explain the things you’ve known in your bones since birth. Because selfishly, my mom did not want me to have to give an explanation. Because selfishly, I can not, and would not give one for anything.