Adrift

I saw a movie once where a drug addict decides he needs to get clean. The scenes that follow show him struggling to get himself into a program to help. At one point he is openly frustrated and the intake lady says to him something to the effect of “you did drugs for so long but woke up today and decided to get clean so the world needs to just stop for you?”

I note this because I know that my movement away from Jewish institutions and organizations is my own fault. But I’ve been trying to find my way back for a long time now and I rarely seem to get any closer.

I’ll start at the beginning. I attended Orthodox Jewish schools in Brooklyn through 8th grade. This was somewhat odd since my parents were both atheists from the former Soviet Union. Our local public schools were not great and I think they imagined they did not have a choice. There were no “Reform” or “Conservative” Jewish schools by us. I didn’t even know about the existence of different branches of Judaism until college. Jews were Jews and that was it.

My grandmother and her sister, who helped raise me, were somewhat more observant. They spoke Yiddish to each other, not Hebrew. They had never been able to be openly Jewish in Belarus, the country of their birth, or Ukraine, the country of their adulthood, so knew few customs. The calendar with the Lubavitcher Rebbe on the wall in their kitchen and Shabbat candles some Fridays was about the extent of it.

The Orthodox schools were anywhere from 50–70% Orthodox kids but certainly not all. I didn’t feel weird that we were not observant at home.

I took to it, hard. I was a Bracha Bee champion. I lit Shabbat candles on my own. I petitioned my parents to start keeping kosher at home. They responded with drawing o-u on our food. I had a lot of unsupervised time and I’d use it to drag my best friend to a nearby shul on Saturday mornings when we were 11 or 12. We’d get invited to lunches afterward and she’d whisper “please no” in my ear but I’d always accept on our behalf. I loved it.

There was my Bat Mitzvah…at the Golden Palace, a Russian restaurant in Brooklyn. I knew how to read in Hebrew from school so I only had a few lessons with the Russian-speaking, recommended-by-other-Russians, rabbi. Years later I’d learn that people generally had Bar/Bat Mitzvahs in synagogue during Shabbat services, with a community they’ve been a part of for years, and then the party follows later. This was news to me. Everyone I knew had the actual service at Russian restaurants or catering halls.

Jewish high school was largely out of the question since that seemed like taking a step toward being more religious that my family was not looking to take. I was ok with it, I figured Judaism would always be there.

That was largely not so. I went to a handful of Hillel events in college but with no family grounding, I started to fall away. My husband was the first Jew I ever dated. He was born in Israel and, like many Israelis, relates to the Jewish faith as something he picks up via osmosis. At least his family did most of the holidays, unlike mine. Otherwise he has even less Jewish grounding and knowledge than I do. We got married on a Caribbean island and had to ship in a rabbi from Miami. He arrived wearing a hat that said RABBI and when he tried to make a sexist joke under the chuppah I stopped the ceremony to let him know that wasn’t happening.

When our daughter was born, we were living on the Upper West Side and applied to only one nursery school, the nearby Jewish one. We felt comfortable and at home there. Sure, we were political conservatives and most of the other parents were not. But we made good friends and never felt lectured to by the school administration or the larger organization.

This was in 2012–2013. By 2016, the place would completely flip. Like many Jewish spaces, the election of President Donald Trump would cause them to become overtly political in a way they hadn’t been before. Friends who were members of the organization, some right-leaning but some moderate and even liberal, felt like they now belonged to a political organization instead of a religious or community one.

But by that election, we had already moved to Brooklyn. We were seeing much the same there. Our sons attended a Jewish school attached to a very left-leaning synagogue. We shrugged off their politics. We had made good friends at the school. Sure, the rabbi was a leftist activist, but how much did that really affect our lives? The teachers were the warmest, kindest people and our sons were getting so much out of it.

Then in 2018, Jews started getting assaulted daily on the streets of Brooklyn. If there were a moment designed for an activist rabbi, this was it. Our activist rabbi did not say one word.

After the first few attacks, I wrote in Haaretz “When Donald Trump was elected president, Jews were concerned about anti-Semitism. Synagogues sent worried emails about what the election meant for Jews. Quotes about the Holocaust were repurposed to represent our current moment. After a swastika was painted in Adam Yauch park in Brooklyn, a crowd filled the park to say we wouldn’t stand for this in Brooklyn.”

They all stood for it. There were no marches, no speeches, no action. You could not pin the attacks in New York City on Trump supporters so they simply did not care.

In October of 2018, eleven Jews were killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The following Shabbat was #ShowupforShabbat, a show of force by Jews going to synagogue all over the country, and our family attended. The rabbi eloquently spoke about the shooting, it was easier for her since the shooter had been on the far-right.

Being in a room of Jews all feeling the same pain was powerful. Then the weekly Bar Mitzvah boy went up to the podium and gave a speech, to a room full of very wealthy New Yorkers, about income inequality and how Donald Trump didn’t even care that some people had far more than others. I listened to this knowing that the teachers at the nursery school attached to the shul could not afford to send their own kids there.

That was the last time we ever attended services for Shabbat. By 2019, I had to ask the school why our son was learning about Kwanzaa in class. The school didn’t allow costumes on Halloween or candy on Valentine’s Day, it was a Jewish school after all, but Kwanzaa somehow made it in.

The attacks on Jews in Brooklyn continued for years and the rabbi continued her quiet. It would be years before even the most basic protest was organized. When our membership was up in 2019, we did not renew. I could deal with a lot of things, a lot of leftism, a lot of silly politics. I could not abide silence while Jews were being tormented in our own city.

We also pulled our kids from the Hebrew-school after-school program. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t learning much about Judaism there anyway. When I asked our son “who is Abraham?” he responded “your favorite president?” When wokeness takes over an institution, that institution fails.

A capital-c Conservative Rabbi friend of mine would listen to my complaints and tell me about his prayer group held in a separate space in our previous shul. He’d say that if I wanted somewhere to pray, I could find that place. His implication was that I was not just looking to pray. He was right, of course. I had always envisioned our temple being the center of our lives. Yes, I could find somewhere to pray but I also wanted somewhere to take our kids on Purim and Sukkot, to make them love Judaism, like I had, to feel a sense of belonging and see it as more than just a religion but a community. I wanted to do volunteer work through it, to study the Torah, to find a home.

With no shul and no Hebrew school, we started reading the weekly parsha summaries at home. I would pull up the Chabad for Kids website and give the kids that week’s story. They loved it and always clamored to hear more (admittedly not when we reached the multi-week part about the mishkan.) From time to time we would have Shabbat dinners with my brother and his family. We’d light Shabbat candles when we remembered.

Not having a Jewish space weighed on me and I started looking around for other options. There was a Conservative shul near our home, it was certainly woke too, but the plan was to attend their Purim event and see if it could be a fit. That was in March of 2020. That event never took place.

We were already adrift from Jewish spaces but the pandemic pushed us out to sea. All the shuls in our part of Brooklyn went remote for far longer than made sense. In a world divided into essential and non-essential, the temples clearly marked themselves as the latter. Masking was intense. Vaccine mandates were implemented instantly. A friend of mine was turned away from his Upper East Side shul on the high holy days because his toddler was unvaccinated (and not eligible for the vaccine) and absolutely no exceptions could be made. How could this happen? He never went back. I don’t know if he has found a new one. This is how the drift happens.

In fall of 2020, when public schools didn’t open, we investigated Jewish schools within a half hour from us. The ones nearby were Woke academies. I called one of the ones I had attended as a kid. They had changed names and philosophies. “Are you Syrian? Our school is for the Syrian Jewish community.” I was happy she had said it so bluntly. Other schools did not call us back at all. I get it. No one owes me rehab.

In Summer of 2021, our two older kids went to sleepaway camp for the first time. It was a Jewish one and we read abour their zionism (good!), their joyous way of incorporating Judaism and Hebrew (so good!) and the extreme precautions they were taking to fight COVID, like testing twice before camp and then masking outdoors for the first few days until the 3rd COVID test results come back (ok, whatever!)

Our kids returned with Hebrew sprinkled into their vocabularies and singing Israeli pop songs. If the camp were a shul, we would have become members on the spot.

In December of 2021, those same two kids got COVID. They were fine, as kids overwhelmingly are with this virus. The same month, camp announced vaccinations would be required for everyone for summer 2022. I wrote to ask whether prior infection could be considered as it is in so many places around the world including Israel. Perhaps an antibody test?

They put me in touch with the camp’s medical director who was very kind but told me in no uncertain terms that vaccination would be necessary. I tried to argue that the vaccine reduces a child’s risk of a poor COVID outcome from zero to zero. He told me it was more about protecting the community. It was January of 2022 and he had copied and pasted information from the FDA website that alleged the vaccine was 91% effective for 5–11 year olds and 100% effective for 12–15 year olds in stopping infection.

I couldn’t respond. We all knew by then that vaccinated people could and did spread the virus. Literally no one believed these numbers by that point but Jewish organizations had committed to following the CDC and FDA to the letter. It made no sense. Did they eat sushi? Or burgers cooked to medium temperature? Why were COVID restrictions the one and only thing they followed so closely from health organizations? The Judaism I had grown up with was questioning and curious. This new Judaism was not that. I was taught to challenge authority in those Orthodox schools. Do not just accept what you are told. Question! American Jews largely did not.

I wasn’t anti-vaccine. I had gotten vaccinated as soon as I was eligible. It just made no sense for kids and every day more evidence was produced of that. But Jewish spaces would not deviate whatsoever.

I didn’t want to lose this camp. With no Jewish spaces in our lives, it is all we have.

In January of 2022, our family had had enough of the way COVID restrictions in NYC were specifically targeting children and we moved to Florida. Seeing this as an opportunity for a whole new world for Jewish organizations, we had toured a really sweet Jewish school and thought we had found a fit. But then that Jewish school continued masking long after Florida public schools had stopped. When parents tried to fight to remove masks, the school sent a scathing email to the parents reminding them who is in charge and that the parents are free to find another school.

We gave in and got our daughter the first shot, a few days before her 12th birthday so that she could get the lower dose pediatric shot. For camp, mostly, but also friends of hers were having Bat Mitzvahs in Brooklyn and she could not attend if she wasn’t vaxxed. So much of her life had changed, we couldn’t pull her from her friends and her camp too.

We have not vaccinated our 9-year old son yet. The day our daughter got the shot, the camp sent an email that kids 12 and up would be required to get a booster. Because we had gotten her the shot so late, she would be exempt. This may be her final year at the camp. Getting a COVID vaccine booster for a pre-teen, especially one who was previously infected, is madness and we can’t continue to accept it. Yes, they’re going to camp this summer but the warm, fuzzy feeling of last year is gone. Fundraising emails are insta-deleted unopened. We don’t participate in any of their Zoom events. It’s sad.

In fall of 2020, before we made the decision to leave, I was doing a usual late-night berating of myself that I could not give our kids any kind of Jewish education or community. The next night was the last night of Sukkot and we had not fulfilled the mitzvah of sitting in one. I posted to Twitter and asked my followers where I could find one and how it would work. I knew shuls had them but could I come in without being a member? Was there a specific time to visit? Should I bring something? The answer came back, of course: Chabad. A Chabad friend put us in touch with one near our home.

We visited the next day and they were so deeply welcoming. My husband had a work call and ended up waiting for us in the car. The kindness of the rabbi and his family literally overwhelmed me. They offered us cookies and had our children recite the blessings and shake the lulav and etrog. His daughter told me about their Hebrew school and I would have signed up on the spot. She asked what we were doing for Jewish education and as I told her about our pathetic parsha summary reading, my lip started to quiver.

My husband was wrapping up his call when we left the sukkah and I collapsed into him crying on the streets of Park Slope. I am not a crier, I am certainly not a public crier, but something was just breaking in me. He couldn’t understand what was wrong. I told him I felt like such a loser being unable to provide the Judaism for my family that my ancestors had had to fight for and that should be coming so easily to me yet is not.

I saw an observant friend a few days later and recounted what had happened, my eyes welling up again. “Something ancient is calling to you” she said.

Our sons ended up attending Hebrew school at that Chabad until we moved. If there is a bright spot in my multi-year search for somewhere to belong Jewishly, those months are it. They wore tzitzits and kippahs and they excitedly went to the classes. The Chabad made learning about Judaism so fun for them. It really was amazing and we were very sad to leave it.

The time didn’t work for our daughter, as she got home too late on the Hebrew school days. But she had had a longtime Hebrew-language teacher with a few of her friends. It wasn’t religious education though they certainly did talk about the Jewish holidays. We figured that would suffice until our move.

When we got to south Florida, we figured it would be far easier to find a shul. Our daughter was turning 12 and we made the decision to push her Bat Mitzvah until 13 so we could find the right place and do the service the right way.

The Reform and Conservative shuls we investigated all seemed to openly have woke activism as their primary goals.

A friend had once told me a line that stuck with me: “Israelis largely don’t go to shul. But the shul that they don’t go to is Orthodox.”

I internalized that. And, even apart from the wokeness and the activism at Reform or Conservative shuls, Orthodox services were what I had experienced growing up and what felt most familiar to me.

Several people told us to look at a particular Orthodox shul near us. My husband, who doesn’t feel the same existential dread I do about all of this but was, post-my street bawling taking my Jewish search far more seriously, emailed the rabbi to see about attending. He got no response. I don’t have any animosity about this. I’m like the drug addict in the first paragraph. Just because I woke up one day and wanted something doesn’t mean people should be in a hurry to give it to me. I get it.

Could an Orthodox synagogue even really work for us seeing as we’re not…Orthodox? What, we’d drive there for services after having bacon for breakfast on Shabbat? Also Orthodox shuls don’t tend to have Jewish classes for kids. The kids at the shul all go to Jewish school already, they don’t also need Jewish afterschool. Would my kids have friends there? I have Orthodox friends who don’t feel comfortable in Orthodox spaces. What does that mean for our non-Orthodox family? For the same reasons, the Chabad near our home is very nice but, sadly, not a fit.

I wrote all this because when I tweet about it I get so many responses from Jews going through the same thing. When I meet Jews now “where do you go to shul” is one of my first questions. The answer is so often “we don’t” and the reasons are usually so similar to mine.

Our kids say the shma before bed and I remind them that we are saying the same words our forefathers have said for generations. It shouldn’t be this hard to find somewhere to belong Jewishly but we still have it so much better than our ancestors who said the same words in the dark. I tell them this and then I don’t sleep thinking about what we miss.