Kol Nidre

I am feeling very Jewish this evening. Ofcourse, tonight is one of the most important nights in the Jewish calendar, Kol Nidre and tomorrow is the most serious holiday, Yom Kippur.

It is interesting because this whole project brings Judaism and Jews to mind atleast every hour of every day. If I am not talking about what I'm doing, I am explaining it or I am interviewing someone or I am thinking of a blog entry or creating a blog entry or updating someone on the latest developments. Never before have I thought about Judaism and/or Jews so consistently for such an extended amount of time.

I am not a religious person. You may wonder: "then how can she feel very Jewish?" No it is not just Yom Kippur and no I am not having some incredible epiphany and no mamita, I am not becoming religious! For me being Jewish has been and always will be about culture and preservation of self and family. As a child, it was not easy being the Jewish minority in a bible belt state. I did not really have Jewish friends my age until I moved to New York and started college. For a young adolescent in the throes of self-discovery, waivering self-esteem, and the world of peer pressure, I did not really appreciate being a "token" anything. As much as I wanted to believe what my parents told me, I could not come to understand why it was "good to be different."

When I moved to NY, suddenly I was one of many. People did not really care that I was Jewish...it was almost a given. I hit the other extreme of religious identity--"blending in," and for the first time, my comfort zone became the cushion of anonymity. Those years passed and so did my need to surround myself with people of similar backgrounds. My interest in those different from me blossomed naturally and soon I was back to living as a "token" something. Instead of making my life difficult, my new situation felt eerily familiar. For me, living in a community of diversity enabled me to constantly re-examine and re-define my values, interests, affiliations, likes, dislikes.

Attending services this evening at the synagogue of my mother and my grandparents was more emotional than anything else. I could not stop thinking about my small family....and how important it was for me to be in this building at this time and on this very important day. While being Jewish in NY made me feel like one of many, being Jewish in El Salvador made my family story truly real and absolutely alive.

Most importantly, my comfort zones collided. I was one of a larger group of Jews, many with similar trans-atlantic histories. Even so, at the end of the service, I filed out with the crowd and together we reentered the world as minorities in a Catholic, Latin American country.

And like I said earlier....the whole thing made me feel very, very, very Jewish.