. . . But I Digress

Donald Trump gets attacked by an eagle.

it’s run by a fascist

it’s been trending further right for years

it needs serious reform

things you can’t say about the USA:

it’s unique in any of the above mentioned issues

it’s the most right wing or conservative place on earth

Which meant that they'd sometimes have students call them at home to ask questions. And sometimes, I'd be the one to pick up the phone, which meant that the following dialogue occasionally ensued:

STUDENT: Hello, may I speak to Professor Lastname, please?

TEEN PARGOLETTA: Professor Lastname HE or Professor Lastname SHE?

STUDENT: . . . . um.

PARGOLETTA PARENT WITHIN PHONE-GRABBING DISTANCE: Give me that! (fond eyeroll)

I was raised completely detached from my matrilineally Jewish heritage. The only thing I know is that they were Eastern European Ashkenazim. My grandmother never talked about her family much because they were really terrible people. I feel like that bled into being ashamed to be Jewish. To the point that my mother identifies as just a white Evangelical... even going as far as getting a Southern Baptist Cross engraved on my grandmother's headstone. She and my sister only care about their Jewishness to play politics. My mom falls in line with whatever Trump is doing, and my sister is an antizionist tankie. I am the only one that cares about keeping our Jewish heritage alive.

I always so out of place and like an imposter. I never got to learn about being Jewish so I'm always playing catch up. Hebrew is, for some reason, more difficult for me to pick up than any other language I've learned. I don't think I will ever be able to come to the bimah and read the Torah on the High Holidays. I don't believe I'll ever hold a bar mitzvah for the same reason.

I don't own a tallis or a kippah. I feel like I don't deserve to. I don't know enough about being Jewish because it was taken from me without ever really knowing. I feel like everyone, especially here can tell that I don't know anything and that's why I feel so alone.

Every Jewish soul that ever was or ever would be stood at Sinai together. Sometimes they wander off a bit and end up somewhere far away, but they're still Jewish, and they still find their way home. It's like there's a call reeling them back in. Converts aren't aliens who decided to join the tribe, they're our long-lost siblings who felt that call and followed it all the way back home. Same with born Jews who got disconnected from the community. We don’t care where they started from, we’re just happy to get our family back.

Read over what you’ve written. You write like you crave to be Jewish, but you won’t allow yourself to be because you don’t live up to your standards of Jewishness. Don’t you see how twisted that is? You yearn for home, you feel that call in your soul. But you won’t let yourself to go home, because you think you don’t deserve it. Well, if you need to hear it, I’ll tell it to you right now:

You deserve to come home.

I've been a singer since I was six, and I promise you it's much easier to sing a foreign language than speak it. Cantor Benjie-Ellen Schiller herself, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman Professor of Liturgy, Worship, and Ritual and Professor of Cantorial Arts at the Hebrew Union College Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, has spoken about how, in college, she could speak only about four words of Hebrew, and she found her way into prayer through song. And if you don't think you have much of a voice . . . who cares? Sing anyway. It's the synagogue, not Carnegie Hall.

Rabbis love people who come in wanting to explore their Jewish heritage; having those conversations is literally part of their job description. I don't know where you are, but if there's a Jewish community near you, email the rabbi (/cantor/kolbo) and ask to make an appointment to talk to them about wanting to re-connect with your heritage. I don't know a single rabbi who wouldn't be delighted to get that email.

And if you just maybe want to visit a synagogue to see what it's like, you can generally do that. If you're not in the US, you might have to email the synagogue first to let them know you're coming, and even in the US these days, it's good form, just so that any guards or greeters know to expect you. But beyond basic safety precautions, we do love guests, and someone is very likely to come say hello and make sure you know what's going on. (At my synagogue, we can in fact go a little over the top on the friendliness sometimes, but we mean no harm by it.)