A Stranger in a Strange Land

Growing up in a small town in Wisconsin which boasted a century-old Jewish community, Shabbat morning services were kind of a big deal.  My relationship with the community was built upon Torah readings, poorly but passionately sung Hebrew melodies, and the smell of herring at kiddush.  The weekly d'var torah (sermon) was our communal learning, and together we thrived in our small but dedicated congregation.  I never thought it odd that my sister and I were the only two kids in shul every week, and my sense of normal was very much shaped by the members who were at least two generations older.  As far as I knew, it was normal to go to shul every week and pray for a minyan (the required quorum of 10 to proceed with the service), normal to make changes to the service in order to suit the needs of our membership (like counting women for the minyan), normal to feel obligated to attend because my absence would be felt by every other congregant.  Spurred by my parents, my education, and my community, I was dedicated to my shul and loved it wholeheartedly.

Outside of the synagogue or my home, normal was being the only Jew around.  Unlike some young Jews in similar situations, I wore my religion like a badge of honor.  I gladly answered my classmates' and teachers' questions about my practices, dutifully did the extra work to make up for missed days of school around the High Holy Days, and enjoyed the respect that accompanied my uniqueness.  In a city overwhelmingly full of Catholics and Protestants, I loved being different.  To me, that was normal.

In college I enjoyed a slightly larger Jewish community, but even then I was still different.  I was nearly the only observant Jew in the music school, and the only consistent college-aged congregant at the shul a block away from campus.  Again I was surrounded by non-Jews in school and an older community at the synagogue (albeit younger on average than at home), and I knew I was right where I belonged.  It didn't bother me that I didn't have a close-knit group of Jewish friends with whom to share a Shabbos dinner or go out on Saturday nights.  In fact, I was markedly more comfortable in non-Jewish circles and preferred the feeling of adding to the diversity of a given group.

When I first moved to campus I was excited to participate in the Hillel (an organization for Jewish students on college campuses).  Surrounding myself once a week with other members of the Tribe was comforting.  Inside jokes passed freely among us, the kinds of jokes that our non-Jewish friends could never really understand.  We played Apples to Apples: Jewish Edition and laughed openly as we juxtaposed gefilte fish, Albert Einstein, and Jewish mothers and debated which one fit better with the adjective "misunderstood."  Yet while I was comfortable there, it was a decidedly atypical part of my sense of Jewish community.

There was, however, one unifying feature of all my Jewish interactions in Wisconsin: we knew we were all part of a much smaller community within the general public and as such, we made a point to include one another.  For what it was worth, many of us stuck together despite the unspoken feuds between various sects or followers of particular traditions.  Together we were part of the larger, global Jewish Community, and many of us honored that, at least among the Jews I knew.

In this neighborhood in Brooklyn, things are different...vastly different.  In fact, in New York City in general it seems easy to take our religion and practices for granted.  I'm still getting used to seeing Jews regularly in the subway, on the street, and in Ikea.  As I get used to this new reality, I also have to come to terms with the fact that being Jewish doesn't automatically grant you access into the Jewish community.  Apparently, when being Jewish is not unique and your existence doesn't threaten and isn't threatened by anyone else in the general public, there is no strong need to stick together just because you had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah in middle school.

Even in my search for a modern Orthodox synagogue in the neighborhood - where modern Orthodoxy has been pushed aside by the much larger and more conspicuous Charedi (ultra Orthodox) population - it's easy for my presence to be overlooked or ignored.  I'm just another Jew; nothing special about that, right?  Besides, the synagogue isn't the only place around here where you spend time with your Jewish neighbors, so even the importance of participation in the service is diminished.

I have to keep reminding myself that what I am witnessing and experiencing is more-than-likely specific to my neighborhood.  In fact, I spoke with a man (modern Orthodox) who works in the neighborhood but lives in a different one altogether, and he described this area as being uniquely unfriendly at times.  People have their own lives, their own personal bubbles, and according to him it's not unusual for them to be standoffish even to those they see daily as they run their errands and go about their lives.  Additionally, I may find that in synagogues with younger membership I will be more immediately accepted.  Who knows?  My experience is exceptionally limited for the time being and I can't let my current opinions define my entire outlook.

The hard part is that in order to find those synagogues where I will feel more comfortable, I might have to travel into the the neighboring areas or even into Manhattan.  This brings up a whole slew of issues to take into consideration, a discussion which I will reserve for another blog post altogether.  In the meantime, I'll use the upcoming Jewish New Year and the Days of Awe to think more deeply about what my Judaism means to me in my new environment, and perhaps to redefine my concept of "normal."