How could God be so hateful? This is the question I asked myself when I got assigned my Torah portion for my bar-mitzvah. Although I was taught that God was omnibenevolent, when I first read my portion I was stunned to see that a supposedly perfect being would order people to kill any man who sleeps with another man. The anti-queerness I saw in my Torah portion invoked a very challenging question for me: subscribe to a religion that did not align with my values of acceptance or lose the culture that I cared about deeply.
More importantly, did I even care a lot about my Jewish culture? What was supposed to be a milestone in my life as a devout Jew turned into a moment of confusion. Why didn’t I eat pork or shellfish? Well, it was because my dad told me not to. Why did I even go to synagogue? Again, it was because my dad told me to. I realized I was simply following orders.
Despite this realization, I still could not imagine my life without my rabbi’s sermons, the hunger of Yom Kippur, and Passover seders. I could not place my finger on exactly why these traditions were so important to me, but they were.
Truth be told, I believe that humans are creatures of habit. Everyone is shaped by the family that they are born into. I was shaped by my memories of hiding the Afikoman and dipping apples in honey. Whether or not I had the agency to choose those memories, they are baked into who I am.
Judaism for me has always been about community. There is a tradition of remembrance in the Judaic tradition where we remember the lives of our ancestors: their escape from Egypt, their bravery during the Holocaust, and their never-ending commitment to their faith. As a Jew, I have become a part of that tradition. I have become a part of something larger than myself. This was not something I was willing to give up.
However, that doesn’t mean my perspective on right and wrong should be given up easily. Distraught, I searched for a way to reconcile these two seemingly diametrically opposed beliefs. After hours of staring at a blank document titled “Dvar Torah,” the speech you give about your Torah portion at your bar-mitzvah, countless conversations with my rabbi, and many sleepless nights, I came across a community where I felt at home.
The Reform Jewish movement believes that the Torah is a living document, inspired by God. The Reform community became a home for me because it freed me from looking at the Torah as a set of strict rules that must be followed, and allowed me to embrace the ethos of Judaism: a tradition of remembrance, perseverance, and curiosity. I can set aside the Torah’s mandate to eat milk and meat together, and yet still value both the spirit of question-asking and the resilience that are infused in Judaism.
I realized that I didn’t avoid pork because it was in the Torah, but because it was a family tradition. Following orders was one way to look at it, but I noticed I was building community through a shared religious practice. Judaism is a general framework that each person engages with differently and can mold to themselves. Most people don’t have Tahdig on Rosh Hashanah, but my Iranian grandmother would always make it. Some Jewish groups, such as Yeshiva University, still use the faith to justify their opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, but that doesn’t mean that I must do the same. I learn from and believe in the spirit of the Torah, and have been able to converge this belief with my ethical stance that everyone regardless of sexual orientation ought to be treated equally.
Reflecting on how I grappled with my Jewish identity, and still do to this day, I discovered that the nuanced engagement I had with Judaism was not reflected in common discourse. In the past year since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there has been a growing trend from all sides of the political spectrum to treat the Jewish community like a monolith.
Anti-Semites point to the atrocities the Israeli government has committed as a fuse for hateful rhetoric and actions toward Jews across the globe. Many people unfairly assume that all Jews support every action the Israeli government takes, failing to see the rich diversity of thought, opinion, and tradition within our community.
Indeed, in the year following the Hamas attack, there were more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the US — more than any other year in the last 45 years. There has been a 200% increase in anti-Jewish incidents compared with the same period a year prior. More than 2,000 of these incidents occurred in Jewish spaces.
Let me be clear: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not the embodiment of Jews. Nor, for that matter does he even represent every Israeli, as there have been protests across the country calling on him to resign. That argument is the moral equivalent of contending that every American is embodied by President-elect Trump.
It is dangerous when a sign at a protest in Santiago less than a month after the Oct. 7 attack stated, “death to Israel, f*ck the Jews.” It is infuriating to hear about the Grenoble family in France, whose house got burglarized and vandalized with “Free Palestine,” death threats against Jews, and swastikas on the walls. I am tired of the generalizations people make around the globe about the Jewish diaspora, and the pervasive assumption that all Jews must be held responsible for Israel’s actions.
What makes the Jewish community so special is our incredible difference which is bound together by a common religious practice, even if that religion is expressed in different ways. I have unique traditions, unique thoughts on the Torah, and unique opinions on the Israeli government.
However, clearly, when people disapprove of what Israeli leaders do thousands of miles away from Jewish Americans, bigoted people still take out their anger on us. The Jewish community is now facing a wave of backlash similar to what the Muslim community experienced after 9/11.
Despite Al-Qaeda representing an extremely radical interpretation of Islam, Muslims regardless of their political ideology were unfairly targeted. Indeed, anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States increased by 1,700% from 2000 to 2001.
Therefore, we should not take the rise in anti-Semitism as a shock. Marginalized religious communities have always become political scapegoats in a way that privileged communities never have.
The same generalizations that the Jewish community faces during this time are also felt by the Muslim community, as many people do not separate Hamas from Islam. Indeed, after the first ever recorded decrease in anti-Muslim bias by The Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2022, 2023 saw the highest levels of bias ever, with more than half of these cases coming after the Oct. 7 attack.
It is important to acknowledge that there are important differences in terms of Jewish sentiment towards Israel and Muslim sentiment towards Al-Qaeda and Hamas. For 80% of American Jews, caring about Israel is a core tenet of their Jewish identity. However, we cannot fall victim to this high number veiling the diversity of the Jewish community. For many, caring about Israel also means pushing it to be the best version of itself. For another 20%, Israel is not important to their faith at all.
I have met many people in the 20%. I have also met many people who are a part of the 80%. However, behind those numbers are people. They are people like me who have thought about Judaism deeply. They are people like me whose relationship to Judaism is shaped by our values and lived experience.
Despite the way the world views us, every Jew has a different story. Instead of making assumptions, try to learn those stories instead.
