#kenkatayanagi

my father is the youngest of four kids from a very politically conservative roman catholic family in detroit. my great grandparents were even founders of a church in 1887 (i think that’s the year??) that’s still around. my mom, on the other hand, is rom a reform jewish household that was extremely liberal. when they got married, they decided that they would raise their kids - aka me and my sister - with all four of those sets of ideals in mind.

needless to say, things got a little messy. i was baptized (although my mom says that she and my grandparents aka her parents were crossing their fingers). i was given a hebrew baby name (esther), and i also attended hebrew school and catechism. all of my life, i thought that this was normal (i have no idea how). i would go to catechism and be told about jesus, then round out the week at hebrew school. there were literally no jews in my town, at all. we would have to drive somewhere around 40 minutes to the nearest synagogue. also, the kids at my school were all catholic, as well, so i had absolutely no jewish friends. 

when i was in catechism one day, i was probably like 6 or 7, we went around the circle and told the teacher what our favorite prayer was. when it got to me, i recited a prayer in hebrew that we say over the candles on hanukkah. in response, a girl near me started hysterically crying because she thought i was a witch! that was kind of the last straw for me in terms of judaism for a while. 

meanwhile, my parents sort of used religion as a weapon. i mean that by whenever i attended church with my dad, it was seen as a big win for him. whenever i said a prayer in hebrew before bed with my mom, my dad felt like i was taking her side. on top of some other pretty nasty marital issues, this was not conducive to a happy family environment (i promise i have a point to all of this). by the time i moved to maryland when i was fifteen, i was done with religion. 

i somehow got involved with a jewish youth group that my mom had been involved with when she was younger, for no other reason than i needed to make friends. learning about religion on my own terms was absolutely life changing. additionally, i really loved learning about my own culture and custom. the only thing is, as i got more involved with judaism, i began to view christianity and catholicism in a villain type manner. i was at this weird crossroads where i was starting to feel connected with judaism, but as i got farther away from my dad, i also really started to hate christianity.

it wasn’t until i went to israel the summer before my senior year that things began to slowly shift into perception. as you know, israel is a jewish state, and while i was there for 3 amazing weeks, i mostly did jewish related things. i began to really have a deep love and respect for not only my culture, but i saw, especially in jerusalem, all of the different religions playing off of each other.

i remember the most beautiful scene was standing at the kotel and seeing the top of the dome of the rock in the distance, and a large cross on top of a church in the distance. i don’t know why but this really clicked with me, you know? for the first time, religion wasn’t being used as a mom vs. dad thing, or even a point of something for me to be teased about at school (I was told to ‘chill out’ because ‘nobody was going to put me in a gas chamber), but really seeing religion as something that set your soul on fire. using religion not as an answer, but as a question.

this really inspired me to take a class on religion my first semester of college. within one week, i was absolutely in love. on my own, i had learned not only how to strengthen my own spirituality, but learn about other people’s, as well. i mean, this class was incredible. there was no passing judgement on anybody else’s religion. we learned about everything from christianity to wicca, rastafarianism to islam. i was really in love with it.