This essay won the Scholastic Award.
I never felt more Jewish than the day I found myself face to face with a massive red swastika hanging prominently on the otherwise pristine white wall in my English classroom in Paris. This visual confrontation became a prominent turning point in my comprehension of what being Jewish meant to me.
Religious identity has always been something relatively foreign in the Frishman household. We light candles and, of course, exchange presents during Hanukkah, and each Passover, we make the staples like chocolate-covered matzah (my personal favorite part of being a Jew) and have hectic Seders with my Chicago cousins. Since kindergarten, I have attended an Upper West Side private school with an overwhelmingly Jewish population. For seven years, starting when I was nine, I spent each summer at sleepaway camp. This camp did not advertise itself as a Jewish establishment, but they continued to have assemblies called “services” every Friday night, and there was only one Christian girl in my entire division. For the vast majority of my life, these two predominantly Jewish communities were the only ones I knew.
Despite my parents’ Jewish upbringing, Hebrew school and bat mitzvahs were a choice for me, and so in first grade, I ultimately decided that they were a sensory overload for my recently diagnosed dyslexic brain and opted out. My brother emulated my decision because that’s what little brothers tend to do.
When you're thirteen in New York, bar and bat mitzvahs become weekly traditions and dominate Saturday evenings without fail. I never felt particularly left out. All my friends and most of my classmates were the centers of attention at their often extravagant parties (a position which I preferred to shy away from) while I enjoyed all the marvelous things an open buffet could offer. Ironically, they more often than not consisted of piles upon piles of pigs in a blanket. Definitely not kosher - at least not in name!! When I say extravagant, I am referring to more than a fancy centerpiece or cool gift bag. For starters, the party theme was taken to an entirely new level. A carnival theme would consist of twenty different booths overflowing with prizes, a wide variety of carnival food, and acrobats swinging from the ceiling all fit onto the roof and top level of a five-star hotel. Then, there were the top tier parties that had celebrity appearances. One boy was carried into the room by the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, while others had famous singers like Charlie Puth, Cardi B, and Fetty Wap perform small concerts. Airpods, speakers, and expensive sneakers are a few of the prizes I recall being thrown from the stage into the hands of dancing pre-teens. I was never a talented enough dancer to win any of these esteemed prizes. This extravagance was not necessarily a reflection on Judaism, but in the absence of Hebrew school, temple, or a particularly religious family, my Jewish experiences were primarily constituted of superfluous bat mitzvahs.
In honor of my thirteen birthday, I went to Paris with my mom. It was my dream to go to Paris, and my mother was more than happy to oblige. I was pretty thrilled with myself, considering I was going to partake in a European trip while avoiding attending hebrew school and nervously chanting segments of the Torah at a temple I didn’t belong to. Five splendid days in the city of love did not quench my thirst for a French life. So, three years later, I said, "au revoir" to New York, and was walking the cobblestone streets of Paris to the two-bedroom apartment that I already considered my new home. It is fair to say that I never felt more Jewish than the time I spent in Paris, which is quite ironic given its history as a Catholic Capital. Being one of the three Jews in my grade in Paris at an international school affected me more than I anticipated.
The boy from Israel, Dor, and the girl who hosted Sabbath dinners each Friday, Liv, thought I was one of them. At first, I thought they must be utterly confused. They greeted me with open arms and excitement, and in response, I said something along the lines of “Yes, okay, I’m technically Jewish, but I’m not religious, are you sure I can be part of this elite club?” They responded without a second thought that I, indeed, was one of them. We called ourselves the Jew Crew. Apparently, friends who were not Jewish, like the two Danish boys, could also become part of the Jew Crew by completing a few tasks, which included attending Sabbath at the Rosenblat’s, Liv’s family, coming to the Hanukkah party Dor manipulated me into hosting, and saying a few words in Hebrew.
A week or so before December break, Dor told me we should throw a Hanukkah party for our friend group. I responded, slightly sarcastically, “ Yes, of course, let's do it.” I quickly forgot this conversation occurred and was very perplexed when a week later, my friend came over to me and said he was very excited for the Jewish party at my house the next day. Dor had invited almost twenty people to my small apartment to celebrate Hanukkah. I decided to go with the flow, but I made it perfectly clear the only thing I was going to contribute was my apartment. However, my mom had other plans. She bought two cheap plastic menorahs, enough chocolate gelt to last months, France’s version of jelly donuts, and for some reason, close to a million clementines. All things considered, the party was fun, but for weeks I was finding gelt wrappers in every nook and cranny. Aside from the party, I didn’t participate much in this “conversion”of our friends. It felt weird, and I did not believe I had the right to proclaim anyone a member of the Jew Crew.
In my English class at my Parisian school, we read the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman. I read Maus in eighth grade in New York, but I learned more the second time around for a couple of reasons. First, being in Paris, which was controlled by the Nazis during World War II, offered a different perspective. While reading, we took field trips to Holocaust memorials, to the stadium where the round-up of Jews at Vélodrome d'Hiver occurred, and on my own time, I was able to visit one of the hotels that previously served as Nazi headquarters and where Jewish families were reunited after the war. One day in class, we were broken into groups and asked to draft a graphic novel page that we thought represented Maus. One group, which consisted of an American, a German, and a Belgian, drew a swastika large enough to infiltrate each corner of the poster paper. It was red and bold, and hung on the wall with three other Maus posters. There was no explanation to accompany the symbol.
The next day the teacher explained that another student who had class in the room had complained and asked that the swastika poster be re-evaluated and taken down. I was thankful that someone else had spoken up because I had been planning to talk to the teacher privately to voice my concerns. The poster was taken down, but the cause of its removal was obviously not understood by all because the German girl decided that this was a good time to express her own distress. I am not sure what connection her words had with the swastika elimination, a symbol that now only represents evil, but here is what she exclaimed, “ I would just like to say, I find it very unfair how Germans are perceived regarding World War II; I do not think that people like me should bear the responsibility for our ancestors’ actions.” To me, this was a non-sequitur, and I quickly raised my hand to rebut her comment. I responded as eloquently as I could: “I understand that the past of one’s country does not define who a person is as an individual in the current day. As a human race, I believe we should be held accountable for all past mistakes because it is our responsibility to prevent them from happening in the future. The fact that the swastika represents hate is not a reflection on how this generation of Germans are currently perceived.” I do not believe the poster or the comment originated from hatred but was from a place of ignorance; they were simply oblivious about how rightfully hurtful the symbol might be to others. Given that the whole group and the teacher found it acceptable to hang the swastika in the classroom, it struck me that this is something that would never fly in New York. I never considered that people needed to be taught that the horrors of the Holocaust were unconditionally unethical, and therefore any symbol of that monstrosity would be wrong to display without that context. It is jarring to know that this is not a globally unspoken understanding.
I ventured to Paris with the intention of becoming as French as an American can be, but instead of changing who I fundamentally was, I evolved. I discovered a part of myself that had always existed, remaining dormant until I figured out what to do with it. To grow up in New York and attend a predominantly Jewish school, while having little religious affiliation, is a recipe for forgetting and discrediting one’s heritage. Being a Jew was never something that I felt defined me. Everyone else around me was Jewish too, and in my biased eyes, this had unconsciously become the “norm.” Needless to say, this is an extremely flawed perspective considering the Jewish people were a persecuted minority throughout their history and are still a minority in most of the world. Paris’s enchantment may have clouded my desire for cream cheese bagels on Sundays, but unexpectedly, it prompted me to remember I was a Jew from New York, and that was important and special. Now, whenever I step out of Barney Greengrass, I am more inclined to look up and take notice of the Isaac Bashevis Singer street sign on the corner of 86th.
Along with a clearer perspective of the Jewish community as a whole, I also developed an unclouded understanding of my own identity. While I used to believe that being a valid member of the Jewish community depended upon a belief in the one Almighty God, now I have formed my Jewish identity based upon the following: a respect for my heritage, an appreciation for my family’s annual cultural traditions, a sense of unrelenting empathy that is amplified by a persecuted past, and the experience of being a welcomed member of the Jewish community in all of my travels. I will also treasure the values my Jewish grandmothers have always eagerly bestowed on me (to be kind, accepting, nurturing, gracious, true to oneself, and of course, to always call). Finally, I will continue to value and accept not only “God’s chosen people” but all people and their own unique identities.