As we are halfway through the semester I feel like we have developed a good idea of the Jewish experience.  I understand terminology that I was not familiar with at the start of the semester.  I would like to address the issue of what it means to be half Jewish.  Friends often tell me that I am half Jewish and I have referred to myself as half Jewish.

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.

I was recently asked to attend a dinner with a visiting scholar, Dr. Morton Levitt. Following dinner, Dr. Levitt gave a lecture on Jews and Modernism. As a Judaic Studies major and a Psychology major I do not know very much about modernism. I feared that with such little knowledge I would be lost during the lecture.  Interestingly enough, my ignorance about modernism did not keep me from being able to relate to Dr. Levitt’s material. As he spoke, I found myself wondering if he could have made his lecture fit any more perfectly into our coursework in The Ethnography of Jewish Experience.  There are two quotes that I jotted down that I think are especially intriguing given our class discussions.

The first quote I mentioned in class. Levitt was describing a conversation he had with an artist at a gallery of modern art.  After viewing the pieces, Levitt said that he had some trouble making sense of all of it. In their conversation following this, the artist told him that she felt that her painting “was deeply informed by her sense of her ‘Jewishness’.” The second quote is one that Levitt gave himself. Unfortunately, I do not remember his exact wording, but it was something like, “All Jewish writing, since the holy books has contained common elements of inquiry, a sense of justice, a search for truth, but the difficulties known within that…”. His list continues, but I am unable to capture his detail and eloquence here.  These two quotes and our discussions in class about what makes something Jewish have led me to one question, is there a way to think Jewishly?  Perhaps, Jewish art, writing, humor, music, anything, is Jewish because there is a Jewish way of thinking. I say perhaps, because I am not entirely sure of the answer to this question myself. I would argue that yes, there is of course, a way to think Jewishly, but I am not sure if every Jewish artist, writer, etc. is thinking in a Jewish mindset, or even aware of this mindset.

I believe that Levitt’s quotes stick out in my mind, because they express something I have felt. The way I think and act daily has to do with being Jewish. I am not always fully aware of this, but sometimes I am given the opportunity to see how true this really is. Several weeks ago, I attended a meeting where the possibility of the Asbell Center (Dickinson’s center for Jewish life) temporarily sharing its space with another office/department was being discussed. Who it was does not matter for my purposes here. What does matter is that this office’s work is not dissimilar or unrelated to the work of the Asbell center. At this meeting, there was a significant about of discussion over the logistics of the situation, and there was quite a lot of “boundary making” happening. At the time, I was very frustrated with some of the comments of my fellow Jews.  To me, their way of thinking and “boundary making” was “not Jewish”. After spending some time in this class, however, I now realize that their way of thinking and dividing was actually quite Jewish.  Still, their comments feel “Jewishly” wrong to me.  When I was given the opportunity to speak, I expressed how the Asbell Center and those who fill it had become a sort of home, or even holy place for me.  The idea that we as Jews had a home we were somewhat unwilling to share felt very uncomfortable to me. Had we wandered in the desert, experienced persecution time and time again, only to shut our doors to those looking for the same safe space that we were enjoying?  It did not feel “Jewishly” right to me to do so.

As the artist showed, “Jewish thinking” can be done outside of Jewish contexts. I think that my experience with “Jewish thinking” mentioned in this post became particularly relevant because it was in a Jewish context, but I believe that thinking Jewishly is a component of every part of my life. This is not to say that those who are not Jewish cannot think in the same ways. It is more that, like the artist, I feel that the way I interact with others, make decisions, express creativity, read, write, (the list goes on) is deeply informed by my sense of “Jewishness”.