In Between

Last weekend I stayed with a Catholic friend in the tiny town of Watertown, Wisconsin. On Sunday her parents took us and two friends out to their favorite Italian restaurant, a place with butter-drenched garlic bread and huge portions of lasagna. As everyone dug into the hearty food, I sat with an empty plate. It was Tisha B'Av, a major fast day, and I was not eating for 25 hours. During the previous two days, I had told them a lot about the fast and suddenly became hyper-aware that I was talking about Jewish things a lot. At the Milwaukee Brewers game - Ryan Braun is Jewish! At the state fair - I just had fried cheese curds, so I'll pass on the venison on a stick. What did I do yesterday? - oh, I went to the Milwaukee Jewish Museum. I kept feeling like I was holding a giant neon sign that said "Jew" above my head, but I couldn't stop myself.

On Sunday afternoon I went to Chicago. I stayed with a friend from Boston who is Modern Orthodox and we hung out with his friends who are also religious. All of a sudden I became hyper-aware of how I was not as religious as them and wondered if they knew. When we went out to a kosher restaurant, the guys all washed their hands before eating and after we ate everyone pulled out portable cards with the after-meal prayer on them. A few hours later, I proposed making cookies, only to be rebuffed because my friend waits six hours after eating meat to eat dairy. When he asked me when I was returning to Boston, I pretended that I wasn't sure of the date so I wouldn't have to point out that I was traveling on Shabbat. Whereas in Wisconsin I had felt unnervingly Jew-y, in Chicago I felt unnervingly un-religious.
This is a tension I feel a lot as I go in and out of different communities. I can be the only Jew, and I be around observant Jews, but there is always a part of me that feels a little uncomfortable, because while I can mingle easily in those groups, I always know that I am a little different in some way. I am in-between, which is not always an easy position to be in.

By Shari Rabin  |  August 15, 2008; 1:17 PM ET  | Category:  Chutzpah Chronicles
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Posted by: test | September 12, 2008 8:46 AM
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