The part of the course that first really changed my original perception of what it meant to be Jewish was when we talked about bar and bat mitzvah.   This raises that main issue of an American Jew.  We have studied Jews from different parts of the world e.g. Argentina Morocco.  To have this one sided American view of what it means to be Jewish is limiting, I think.  I thought that a person was Jewish if they had a bar or bat mitzvah. But we learned that this isn’t necessarily the case.  Actually the meaning of the word just seeks to tell us that someone has become of age, and not the American image of a huge party with lots of singing, dancing and putting someone on a chair.  So now when I hear someone talk about bar and bat mitzvah I pass along my knowledge of the word so they can have a better understanding.  The Diaspora also has changed my perception.  At first I thought about a Jewish person on a very narrow minded road.  I guess it has just made me realize how clueless I actually was.  I couldn’t picture a Jew in Yemen or Morocco.  I guess the first day of class when we watched that video I was really confused.  I was so confused it made me scared that I had no idea what was going on.  How could this person be Jewish if they prayed like that?  But it seemed the rest of the class had also not been exposed to this type of Judaism and this type of Jewish culture.  As the semester moved on we kept seeing different types of Jewish culture.  It was fascinating to see such diversity packed into one culture, “Jewish.”  Jewish people taking on other cultures but at the same time having the “great tradition.”  The terms like Judaizing, great and little tradition were also new to me.  At first I was confused with these concepts, but now they make perfect sense because I see this larger picture of what it means to be Jewish.  Well I like to think I see what it means; I guess I have an idea.  Class made me want to go back to my Mckinney suite while everyone was playing video games and interrupt and talk about perception of the Jewish culture.  It made for excellent long run conversations about religion and what does it mean for a person to be Jewish.  As I said in my first blog and was pointed out by Professor Staub there really should be more awareness of the culture and religion on campus.

Since I have so much new and fresh information on Jewish culture and Jewish experience (the title of our course) it leads me to a few questions.  Since there is a Diaspora and there are different types (sects…? not sure of the correct term) of Judaism Why do they clash as they have been in recent events at the Western Wall?  I suppose every religion and culture will have different little tradition views which lead to argument… In my observation of my dad I would really like to know how he could stop practicing Judaism?  Maybe his answer is simple, he has never stopped practicing.  So then I am left with what makes a person Jewish forever?

I had actually never been to a Shabbat service.  In fact the last time I had really been to any type of service was probably for a bar or bat mitzvah when I was in seventh grade.  My father does not go to Shabbat or any other services anymore, so there has never been any incentive or interest in attending.  I had a picture in my head of how the service might go and what it would look like from the bar and bat mitzvah services I had attended.  When we walked upstairs into the room the Shabbat service was being held (not sure of the name) it was different then I had imagined, but looked “Jewish” in some sense.  We were both given books (bibles?).  I had to explain to Mary that it was read the opposite way than English is read.  And that in fact the book starts at the end (from the perspective of someone who only reads English).  When the service started and the young girls leading the service said go to page 75, Mary was confused because she opened it the wrong way and saw page 600.  Another point I want to make is that when we first sat down an elderly women asked us if we were observers and then continued to go into detail about how a Shabbat services works.  It seemed like she wanted to make it clear to us that everyone was Reform.  Why is it that people who are Jewish will often say if they are reform, conservative, or orthodox?  She explained that the women and men get to sit together because they are reform but orthodox Jews sit separately. (A fact I had already known!)  She also explained who was leading the Shabbat service.  It was the daughter of someone in congregation.  She had a bat mitzvah and was studying Hebrew.  The elderly women told us that she had actually taken a few classes at Dickinson.  This part of the service was different because it was just a young girl leading the service, I expected it to be a Rabbi.  The atmosphere was very relaxed and friendly, everyone knew each other.  There was a part where a man read a story and the congregation talked about the story.  It brought to life what some of my Jewish friends had said that the religion aspect is very story oriented.  At one point the young girl leading the service opened the (cabinet) with the Torah.  It was similar to a Torah that I had seen carried at my friends bar mitzvah.  The entire service went by fairly quick and it finished with everyone talking about a potluck for the next week.

The experience of going to Shabbat was in the best word, fun.  There was signing and everyone enjoyed each other’s presence.  They were open to myself and Mary observing the service.  There was a young girl about eleven years old who had a chance to read part of the service.  It was fun to experience the sense of community and their availability to each other, I guess it is just something I missed out on in a religious aspect.

As we were on the topic of travel I was telling my Aunt about last holiday break. I had decided that I would take a road trip to visit a friend in Georgia. As I live in Philadelphia this was going to be a fairly long drive, about 800 miles. Reasons for such a trip? I wanted to go somewhere different for New Years and thought it would be a typical college road trip. Of course my mother and father weren’t at all pleased with the decision. They were worried about the long drive, potential creepers out on the road, and any accidents.

When my Aunt and Uncle went to Israel they bought my mother and my father a hand of god keychain. It was my Aunt and Uncle’s opinion that it could serve as a protector and good luck. The designs of the actual keychain are colorfully detailed with symbols representing good luck. There is also an eye in the center to protect against the evil eye. They thought it would be an appropriate keychain because cars can be dangerous. (my aunt has had numerous, non-serious, car accidents)

So when it came time to leave for my trip my father insisted on putting this keychain on my key holder. He went rummaging through his drawer to find it. (Interesting that he himself never put it on his key chain, but nevertheless had it) Apparently as the conversation went on with my aunt and uncle, we have actually since lost one of the two key chains that was given to us. At first I thought it was just some weird “Jewish” thing that my dad had. The trip went quite well, no speeding tickets, accidents and only a few creepy people. It has been on my key holder since last holiday break and I refused to give it back to him after the trip. I felt that it did protect me and it did give me good luck. I have a strange attachment to this key chain…! Then it came to my attention over thanksgiving break that it is from Israel. I’m not sure but that makes it even more important. The article we read had amulets that were for birth and other occasions and I can see reasons for people’s attachment or maybe the word is obsession with a type of good luck or protection like an amulet. The hand of god for my father, aunt and uncle is not at all “weird,” it is something they feel they can connect to that will bring them luck and protection. In the end the question that I am left with is what makes the hand of god Jewish? Is the hand of god Jewish because it is from Israel and was given to me by my Jewish aunt and father? I feel it is Jewish because it has some type of Hebrew on the drawing itself and it is an amulet that has meaning, which other Jewish people can identify with. I suppose this is open for other opinions!

I would define the term half Jewish to mean that someone in your family identifies themselves as Jewish.  Therefore, by association with a mother or father, you are then considered half Jewish.  Now if we use what we have learned about being Jewish does the term half Jewish still hold?  First it would be appropriate to use the interviews as a starting point.  My first thought is to recall the sense of community that so many interviewees expressed.  A person who considers themselves half Jewish should be able to identify with this community and feel as some interviewees put it, part of a special club.  I would ask the half Jewish person if they feel a closeness during a holiday that their parent is observing, is this holiday bringing the family closer together? If the person who thinks they are half Jewish has this sense of community then does that make them half Jewish?  Well I would say no because there are so many other parts to being Jewish.  One of those parts is understanding the stories.  Can the half Jewish person tell the story of Moses and the Exodus?  Do they know what a Diaspora is the names of the 12 tribes of Israel? The interviewees expressed the emphasis on the story line and the duty to pass the story on to their children.  I would also see if they followed the religion.  According to some of the interviews religion plays a major part when someone identifies themselves as Jewish.  They have faith in their religion and observe holidays in accordance to the religion.  Does a person who is half Jewish only have to observe half the holidays and understand half the holidays? Another point that arises when I think about Jewish culture is understanding Hebrew and certain words.  This is a part of the culture of being Jewish so if a person is half Jewish they should at least know what Hebrew is.  A few basic concepts that we have learned in our class are being put to the test in order to call somebody half Jewish.

When we say a person is half Jewish what comes to mind?  We can certainly paint a picture in our minds of a person who identifies themselves as Jewish.  I feel that in other religions and cultures associated with that religion the term half is less often used.  It seemed that in high school people always referred to me as half Jewish.  At this point in the course I am not sure I am comfortable with name tag.

The connection that I have been looking for since the beginning of class is the connection to foods I am familiar with.  About four years ago my mother began making kugel.  She wanted to make my father a “Jewish” meal for one of the holidays, so she researched a Jewish dish that would be appropriate via the internet.  When her results from the internet search were null she asked my grandmother for a recipe or something simplistic.  My grandmother just told her go with a kugel.   Ever since then she has made a kugel at least once every two weeks.  The kugel she cooks is very sweet.  She makes it with raisins and noodles, as for the rest of the recipe, I am clueless.  But in any sense, it is one of my favorite dinners because I feel like I am getting desert as a dinner.  Christy was saying that she tried a kugel and her thoughts were that it was sweet tasting too.  This made me feel comfortable with the fact that it might be an actual Jewish food.  The feeling was reinforced after looking through the cook books that Professor Staub brought to class.  There were a few different recipes for kugel, I cannot say that those kugels would be sweet or not based on my lack of knowledge of my mother’s recipe.  It challenges the question that was posed about what is Jewish about _____? In this case the kugel seemed to be a food of choice for other people who identify themselves as Jewish, thus making it a Jewish food.  Not just because a Jewish person cooked it does it make it Jewish but because it can be familiar to those who identify themselves as Jewish.  Does kugel have an original source that we can track back to the bible? I’m not sure in this sense of the answer to the question, but a connection from home to the class occurred.

When we saw the tallit katan with tzitzit that Professor Staub brought in I made a connection to my friend.  During his bar mitzvah I vaguely remember (this was a while ago) him wearing this when he was reading his Torah portion and throughout the ceremony.  I never asked him what he had thought about it or what it meant to him.  When we talked about the tzitzit in class I remembered being a thirteen year old kid sitting at Zach’s bar mitzvah.  So seven years later I am able to fill in the pieces of the puzzle that was my wandering mind.  As for the tefillin that we also saw in class, I had never seen or heard of it before, but watching the youtube of someone putting it on and listening to my classmates talk about it, there seemed to be many different opinions.

We have to do 2 miles to the war college, then 4 laps of the 2 mile loop and then again 2 miles back to campus. The guy’ answered in fairly different ways.  One of the guys on the team who is Catholic answered first.  He explained that it was his understanding of the basics of the religious aspect of Judaism.  That people who identify themselves as Jewish do not believe in Jesus as a messiah.  He also pointed out that the bible that we had been talking about in the warm up to the war college was different in the Jewish religion.  He wanted me to know that if a person said they were Jewish that meant that they read the Old Testament and not the New Testament.  The bible he refers to and has faith in is not the same bible.  Another guy on the team who went to church as a child also had a response that dealt with the religion.  He said that he understands that Jewish people have no experienced church in the way that he is familiar with.  He explained that if someone were to say they were Jewish he would not be able to picture what that looks like in his head.  He said the image that comes to mind is Chanukah and other popular culture themes related to Jewish life like a dradle or chocolate that is wrapped in a gold coin.  The third guy on the team who went to Catholic school recalled the story of the Exodus.  He said that when a person identifies themselves as Jewish he pictured the story he was taught about the Jews being in the desert for 40 years.  The last guy that we were running with briefly explained that he thinks of Jesus because Jesus was Jewish.

My teammate’s image and understanding of what it means to be Jewish is narrow.  They really only brought up the religious aspect of what it means to be Jewish.  This is in complete contrast to our interviewees who had more to say about the culture and related cultural events that made them Jewish.  The interviewees talked about the religion but explained that the experience is what they believed meant to be Jewish.  I think before the interviews I might have answered in the same way as my teammates, but in a few weeks I feel that my understanding and image of what it means to be Jewish has drastically changed.