Factoring Religion Into My Future

Hello, friends.

This school year has been tough, and not just for me. I came into senior year fully expecting a challenge (I am writing a thesis on antisemitism in Franco's Spain), but I also expected a fond year of farewells at  the school I have come to love (Tribe Pride!). Instead, I find that stress is often the order of the day. As seniors, we are constantly asked, "What are you doing next year?" "Are you going to grad school?" "Do you have a job yet?" "Did you get into XXX program that you applied to?" Combine that with a lengthy thesis and me biting off more than I could chew with an extremely difficult senior seminar in Spanish last semester (oops), and it has made for a somewhat emotionally unstable Allyson. Senior year is exhausting, and we are quickly approaching one of the first major decisions we will have to make as we enter the real world: what to do next. What many people might not think about as they consider their options, though, is religion.

As should be clear from my first few blog posts, attending college in southern Virginia has not been the easiest experience. Sometimes it feels like I am constantly assaulted by talk of Bible studies, members of Christian clubs handing out pamphlets in our student center, or middle-aged Christian men trying to give me Bibles on the Terrace. I purposely chose to apply to colleges outside of New York, because I recognized that if I didn't I would probably never leave my home state because I love it that much. I just wanted to get a broader experience of our country and the world.

As I prepare to enter the next stage of my life, though, I find myself considering Jewish community in a way I never have before. Can I handle several more months or even years of feeling alone, like an outsider, because of my religion? I imagine that I will settle down in New York eventually (how could I not? Aside from all its other awesomeness, the New York City area has the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel), but in the meantime...can I handle feeling alone, at least religiously?

This question comes particularly poignantly to me because of my deep infatuation with Europe. This strange obsession started at a fairly young age, long before I had ever set foot on that continent, but it has persisted even until today (and I am a European Studies major). During my college experience, I have spent four months studying abroad in Florence, Italy, and another three months working for the Welsh Assembly in the United Kingdom. My hopeful plan has always been to spend a couple of years across the pond after college, explore Europe and really fulfill my yearning to feel like a true member of a community over there, before coming back to the city I love most: New York.

But my experiences in Europe, while wonderful, have not necessarily been religiously fulfilling. Italy is clearly a Catholic country, and the part of the United Kingdom I lived in (Cardiff) had a vaguely secular/Anglicanish feel. I did not find much discrimination while I was there, save for a particularly strong anti-Israel rant from someone in Wales that came very close to antisemitic, but especially in Wales, I found a lot more curiosity than judgment from my friends and coworkers when they found out I was Jewish. I managed to make my experiences in Europe Jewish in different ways, by visiting various synagogues throughout Italy and researching Welsh Jewry while in Wales, but I was not a member of a familiar, Reform Jewish community. Would I be able to enjoy myself there for longer than a few months at a time?

Many people in the United States heard about the horrific murder of a rabbi and several Jewish children in France last year, but you may not be aware of just how pervasive antisemitism still is in Europe today. Synagogues are under strict security, some with 24-hour guards, others not allowing visitors to attend services until they have registered their passport number in advance, purely to protect its Jewish congregants from attacks. I met a Moroccan Jew last semester who lived for many years in Spain, and will not wear a yarmulke there today for fear of being targeted as a Jew. Even Germany, where antisemitism is an extreme social taboo because of its Nazi history, there have been more rumblings in recent years against Jews. It is frightening.

I may not know where I will end up next year, but ruminating on this subject has given me the strength to admit that I could still manage a few years away from New York. It will not be easy, but then, what is? I am not ready to settle down yet, and there is still so much I want to do and experience abroad. Perhaps I will study interfaith relations in Rome, try out book publishing in London, research the Jewish communities in Poland, or something else altogether. But figuring out how to live my Judaism while there will always be part of the conversation.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

Tu B'Shevat: Not Just for Jews

Hello, friends.

Tonight begins the minor Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish holiday of trees. It is kind of like Arbor Day, but has taken on more of an environmentalist, naturalist meaning through the years. When I was looking up ways to honor the holiday, I learned that some Kabbalists (those who ascribe to Jewish mysticism or Kabbalah, a type of Jewish practice that became popularized several years ago when celebrities like Madonna started sporting red Kabbalah bracelets) actually hold a seder for the holiday. I can't quite get behind that, it doesn't feel right for me. Others try to eat certain natural grains and vegetables that are common in Israel, as the Jewish holy land.

One common practice in the United States around this holiday is to plant a tree in Israel. Not to actually go to Israel, but to purchase a tree from an organization that plants it for you. I decided to do so this past week, I think for the first time ever. As I was exploring the comany's website, I noticed that you can send a certificate announcing the tree to someone. I immediately realized I should plant the tree in honor of my Abuela, my mother's mother, who passed away a month ago. I had options for what the certificate should say, and went with a fairly simple, "Planted in honor of Maria, May her memory be a blessing, Planted by Allyson Zacharoff." My mother was moved by the gesture, and it immediately got her thinking about planting a tree in our own backyard to remember my grandmother, and then she mentioned sending along a similar certificate to a non-Jewish friend of hers who recently lost a loved one.

I had forgotten about the practice of planting trees in Israel when someone dies. It is rather a Jewish thing to do, but clearly meaningful even to those who do not practice Judaism, like my mother (though for all the effort she puts into preparing the Seder plate, making charoset, etc. we often tease her by saying that she really is "a good Jew"). I think it has to do with a human desire to feel like we will survive beyond our own life, and death. Having children is certainly one way to attempt to ensure longevity, knowing that one's physical genes (or, in the case of adopted children, one's own mannerisms, beliefs, etc.) will continue into the future. Planting a living thing, like a tree, seems to be a similar way, perhaps in an even more meta sense, of ensuring that something survives because we lived, something exists now that would not have existed if we did not live on this planet for some time. It seems like a human urge, not just a Jewish one.

This holiday also happens to coincide with Shabbat, the weekly Jewish holiday that runs from Friday night at sundown to Saturday night at sundown. I will be trying out Friday night services at the temple here in Williamsburg for the first time. It is officially an unaffiliated congregation, meaning that it does not ascribe to any specific Jewish movement's theology, but the rabbi is Reconstructionist. The only other time I tried services with this congregation was for Yom Kippur this past fall. Maybe it was missing everyone at home, or something else, but I could not stick it out for the whole service. I felt out of place, like I was not gaining anything from being there, so I quietly made my exit after maybe an hour and a half. But I am going to give it another try--that service was in a local Christian prayer space, because of an anticipated large crowd for Yom Kippur (still, here in Virginia, a "larger crowd" meant less than fifty people), but the regular Shabbat services are in the very nice, very small, synagogue right across the street from campus. Maybe it will feel different.

Anyway, have a happy Shabbat, and maybe plant a tree tomorrow.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

Getting Controversial: Looking at the HPV Vaccine

Hello, friends.

My first few posts have been mostly upbeat, in which I have presented positive examples of how interfaith can work well in the world. But I want to really look at any religious topics I find intriguing, and so I am going to now venture into possibly contentious territory. We all choose our religion, or choose to remain a member of the religion we were raised in, for a reason, and presumably because we agree with most of our particular faith's beliefs. So everyone is not always going to agree on everything. The important thing to remember is that there are productive ways to discuss these topics, even when we do not hold the same viewpoint. I am not afraid to say to my friends on particular topics, "I see your point of view, but I disagree."

One of these instances came when I was discussing the HPV vaccine with a close friend of mine, a very religious Catholic college student from Virginia. For those who do not know, HPV can cause cervical cancer, is usually transmitted through sexual contact, and about ten years ago a vaccine came out that, taken in three shots over a few months, could actually prevent girls from getting HPV. Most of the girls I knew in high school got it. Basically, by getting three shots, one could AVOID GETTING CANCER. But my friend here told me that in her religious community in Northern Virginia, the girls were told they should not get this vaccine, and so she had chosen to abstain from getting it.

I was baffled, and shocked. How could something that might prevent her from getting cancer be a bad thing? She went on to explain the reasoning behind this point of view, which I will make my best attempt to present here.

In her type of strict Catholic religious beliefs, as with many other passionate Christian denominations (and in Islam, Judaism--basically many of the more conservative groups of any religion), members plan to refrain from sexual contact prior to marriage, hypothetically marrying another who has done the same. In this way, two virgins marrying one another, there would be little chance of contracting HPV. With the widespread presence in the media, television, movies, etc. of rampant sex outside of marriage, groups like hers believe that the HPV vaccine is just another way of taking away the consequences of having sex with multiple partners.

While I admire her belief in a more modest lifestyle, as I do agree that there is definitely too much of a sexualization of American culture, this reasoning about HPV does not hold with me for several reasons.

1. There are always exceptions to the ideal of two individuals who have never had sex marrying one another. Your spouse could be a widow or widower and have contracted the virus from his or her previous spouse. Or you might fall in love with someone who "found G-d" later in life, and supposedly find full acceptance in religious communities: he or she might have contracted the virus as a younger sexually-active person. Or, G-d forbid, one's spouse could just lie about being a virgin.

2. We live in a beautiful world, but sometimes horrible things happen...like rape. It is not easy to talk about for many people, but the possibility of being raped (especially as a woman) is a very real one. If a woman is raped, it would be horrible to then find out, on top of the trauma caused by the assault, she has HPV and gets cancer that could have been prevented by simply going to her doctor a few times. I wonder if religious groups who do not get the HPV vaccine think about this.

3. HPV sometimes does not fully manifest or even show symptoms for years. So someone could be unaware they have it, then pass it on, as in the case of a widow/er.

In the end, it still seems like a no-brainer to me...get shots, hopefully avoid cancer. I do not think the scientists developing this were trying to encourage people to go out wantonly and have sex with more people, nor is this a free license to do so. Whatever prompted the discovery of the vaccine, it does not change the fact that it has benefits--for those who choose to be sexually active before they get married, and those who choose to wait.

Now go out and love one another. Have a good closing to Shabbat, however you are spending it today.

<3,
Allyson

Unconventional Community

Hello, friends.

I don't know about you, but my most memorable religious experiences growing up were the ones that involved feeling like a part of a community. My family has belonged to the same synagogue since I was born, so I completely grew up there and even went to Hebrew School there until the end of high school. So when I came down to William and Mary, my initial instinct was to search out whatever ready-made Jewish community I could find down here. I attended Hillel Friday night dinners as often as I could and tried joining the Hillel softball team (that lasted about twelve seconds) during my freshman year.

But something was missing. In the midst of a very Christian-dominated campus, I felt out of place, even in the Hillel. Maybe I was just too accustomed to attending services with congregation members I had known my whole life, or maybe I just don't quite fit with the members of Hillel down here, but something didn't stick. After freshman year, I basically stopped trying to get involved in Jewish life in Williamsburg. I kind of wrote it off, figured "I'll find a synagogue later, when I'm older, when I am living out the typical Long Island suburban life and I'm surrounded by Jews." My dedication to Judaism never went away, nor my desire to learn more about my religion, but it seemed almost impossible to be a strong Reform Jew in this little Christian corner of Virginia.

That doesn't fly for me anymore. Since spending last summer in New York City with fifty other Jewish college students debating religion and life, I have discovered that I want to own my identity even more, no matter where in the world I am or for what length of time. I decided to fully participate in Yom Kippur this recent fall for the first time since high school. I let my professors know I would not be in classes, warned my roommates about the restrictions I would have for the day, and I had my parents ship down fresh NY bagels in preparation (for which they get tons of kudos). This was not about any aversion to the holiday. It was simply about my feeling of being alone, really alone, while participating at my college. But this year, my senior year, I did it anyway.

I invited seven people over to break the fast with me, and they all came. I taught these friends (none of whom are Jewish) about the religious significance of the day, and about my own personal attachment to the holiday. And every single member of our group tried (and enjoyed!) the lox. Coming ten days after this five people from this same group of friends attended the campus-sponsored Rosh Hashanah dinner with me, this experience really taught me one important thing: sometimes the community I find may not be the one I was originally searching for. This same group proved its character once again when they all attended and participated in my nightly Hanukkah candle-lighting sessions (shh, don't tell my RA) in mid-December, even lighting the candles and reading the prayers in English after I had read them in Hebrew.

Just seeing my friends come to these religious events to support me was incredible. I will continue to seek out a Jewish community wherever I end up, because there is certainly immeasurable value in shared experiences, but I do not even know if these girls realize just how much it meant that they all willingly participated in these holidays with me.

I am so thankful that I finally found my little, supportive religious community in the middle of Williamsburg, VA.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

Chaplains leading the way?

Hello, friends.

I often brag to my friends at college in Virginia about how very interfaith Long Island is. "We got both Christian and Jewish holidays off from school growing up! Everyone knew about all the Jewish holidays, not just Hanukkah. Of course everyone up north would marry someone of another faith!"

Before anyone starts to criticize these statements, I need to clarify that I know these are exaggerations. Gross exaggerations. I know that. I also know that there are many different parts of Long Island, and that the Island (which in terms of population, if we include Brooklyn and Queens, falls somewhere around the same number of people that live in Switzerland) has great variation. But I was fortunate enough to be raised in an excellent area where the essence of these statements is true. Wherever there is a Christmas tree up here, there is a menorah. The school choruses sing both Christmas and Hanukkah songs. Still, sometimes, when I am at college and feeling like the only Jew for miles, I begin to doubt whether I am remembering my childhood all too positively.

But then I came home for winter break this year, and two exciting things happened. They might sound trivial, but to members of an interfaith family, they had an enormous impact.

The first happened back on Christmas Eve. Our close, immediate family--consisting of four Jewish members and three Catholic members--were at our local Catholic church for my maternal grandmother's funeral mass. It was a sad day, made somewhat easier by the fact that the church was beautifully decorated for the holiday season. My Mom had spoken with the priest prior to the service, in order to clarify what parts my Dad and I could be involved in, and she was told that we could read during the mass. The priest thus knew we were Jewish. After my Dad and I read aloud in a church for the first time ever, the priest gave his homily. He spoke about how we had reached the darkest time of the year, when the least amount of daylight brightens the northern hemisphere, using it as an analogy for the sadness we felt at my grandmother's passing. He then continued, "But there is light, too, at this time of year, when we light our candles, our trees, our wreaths...our menorahs."

My father and I immediately turned to one another and mouthed, "Menorahs!" In a setting where we might have felt out of place, mourning alongside my mother in a church, the priest made us feel included with just that one word. He certainly did not detract from the Catholic meaning of the service in any way; he simply acknowledged that our family exists. That we are a legitimate, loving family unit that supports every member in whichever faith he or she ascribes to. I thanked him afterward, it had such an immense impact on me.

The second thing happened this week, as soon as I stumbled out of bed on Monday morning, when my Mom called down to me from her study. "Allyson! I got a 'happy birthday' e-mail from the Rabbi!" My Catholic mother. I have never even received a birthday e-mail from the Rabbi. Perhaps he is just starting to do this in 2013?

My Rabbi knows my Mom fairly well. As I was growing up, she was heavily involved in my religious education. She took me to Hebrew School, met with the Rabbi and Cantor during my Bat Mitzvah preparations, even learned to read Hebrew when I did. She was present for it all. My Rabbi knows that she is Catholic, but she is still, in her own way, a member of our Temple community. Whereas when the Rabbi joined our synagogue in 2002 he would not perform interfaith marriages, he has since changed his stance, hopefully after seeing families like ours that work.

Just as the priest did on Christmas Eve, the rabbi made my day by helping legitimize the way we live our lives, as a family of different faiths but one love. I am truly, truly inspired by both of their actions this past month.

Now, go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

Constructive Conversations

Hello, friends! This is another re-post of a blog entry I wrote for the CLIP blog about my experiences this past summer, in 2012. I plan to explore some of these issues in greater depth in future posts, but this appropriately gives a large overview of my struggles with Judaism this summer.

As many of my fellow CLIP interns learned this summer, I grew up as the Jewish child of an interfaith marriage: my mother is Catholic and my father is Jewish. We chose a Reform synagogue for my family, and like many other temples on Long Island, it is a very welcoming place for interfaith families. I was raised completely Jewish—I distinctly remember disliking Hebrew School when I went to Torah Tots when I was a toddler, I later had a Bat Mitzvah during which I chanted from the Torah, I went through Confirmation until I graduated High School, my primary research focus at William and Mary is contemporary antisemitism in Europe, and I have even considered becoming a Rabbi. I went much further in my faith than did the majority of Jewish young people that I knew growing up. Judaism for me has always been a religion, and a beautiful, accepting one at that.

I was also adopted at birth. The names of my parents—the ones who raised me—appear on my birth certificate, and I have never had contact with my birth parents. I grew up in a strong, loving household on Long Island, knowing I was both adopted and Jewish, but never seeing them as linked, and certainly never seeing them as a joint problem.

But then I came to CLIP, and discovered that many of the Jewish students I was meeting conceive of Judaism as both a religion and a race, a race that is only passed down through the maternal bloodline. This confused me immensely. What does religion and faith have to do with bloodline? How could anyone say to me that someone who never entered a synagogue in their life, but comes from a “pure bloodline,” is more Jewish than I am?

My blood is no different than anyone else’s.

Blood has never mattered in any part of my life. As one of the only blondes in a family with both Jewish and Puerto Rican members, it may be visually obvious that I am adopted, but we all usually forget that I was not “born” into the family.

The tension I felt between my interfaith upbringing and my situation this summer encouraged me to reflect deeply on my own views, as I strove to understand how I could like my fellow CLIP participants so much as people, yet feel so much like an outsider due to the disapproval of my family’s lifestyle that is far too common in communities across the spectrum of Jewish practice and observance. As I have often said, some days I was inspired by them and wanted to become extremely observant of all 613 mitzvot, and other days I did not want to be Jewish at all.

These allusions to race confused me to say the least, especially since (as one of the other interns informed me) many centuries ago the Jews traced their religion through the paternal bloodline. The intense discussions we had during our Wednesday seminars were particularly interesting in complete contrast with the other four days of the work week, when I was working for the Center for Spiritual Life at NYU, a new multifaith initiative at the university. During my time at NYU, I was speaking with chaplains, imams, rabbis, students of different faiths, so many people committed to creating a stronger world through religious understanding.

I was very lucky to receive such incredible support from Justin and Jay, the leaders of our group. With them, I debated these emotions I had in great depth so that I could attempt to understand the varying perspectives in the group in order to best communicate how I feel about the issue. This type of reflection and introspection are unique aspects of CLIP that I loved—meeting Justin for an intense early-morning discussion over coffee, or sitting down with Jay in Washington Square Park for over an hour probing into these issues—it is not often that I find such people who are really willing to invest their time and energy into helping me better understand myself and the world around me. Justin and Jay really made CLIP an incredible experience that I will never forget.

They both understood where I was coming from, and encouraged me to lead a session on sensitive language for the group. When Justin first proposed this (after he caught me crying after a particularly difficult session one Wednesday morning), I was not extremely eager to do so. I would usually just allow people to have their beliefs and not really challenge them so forcefully, from the belief that individuals with opinions I consider prejudiced would not be convinced anyway. But Justin very seriously looked at me and said, “Allyson, it’s not always easy to be a leader. But you have that opportunity now. If you want to run a program on interfaith marriages, we can give you time during one of the seminars to do so.”

In time, I came to realize just how right Justin was to push me in the way that he did. Eventually I ran a program on sensitive language with two of my closest friends in the group—one who does not affiliate with any particular movement, and one who is strictly Orthodox. The three of us offered somewhat different opinions, but we were also all committed to creating a space in CLIP for honest but respectful discussion. Many members of the cohort came up to us afterward to talk about how much they enjoyed the session—and I noticed just how much the conversation changed afterward, and how people were much more careful when they phrased their contributions on difficult topics. This change really made me feel honored to be part of such a conscientious group of people. Especially as I finish up my last year at William and Mary in a very Christian part of Virginia, I value the strong Jewish community I know I will now always have with my CLIP friends in and around New York City.

As I continue to reflect on how I want my own faith life to look like into the future, a journey that started with CLIP this summer, I will always look fondly back my ten weeks in the summer of 2012. I made fifty new friends, had an incredible internship in Manhattan, and learned a lot about Judaism—and myself.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

The original post of this blog appeared here: http://www.clipnyc.com/constructive-conversations-allyson-zacharoff-clip-2012/ 

The Many Paths We Lead: My Journey Towards Acceptance

Hello, friends. This is an exact re-post of a blog that originally appeared on the blog of the NYU Center for Spiritual Life (where I interned for ten weeks) in the summer of 2012. I played a large role in designing the website during my time there, and had the honor of writing the first full post that appeared on the blog.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” –Mother Teresa

That quote from Mother Teresa really resonates with me.  I interpret it as a challenge to really change the way I think about the world and how I interact with people who are different from me. Whether  we differ in race, gender, sexuality, faith, opinion, or anything, I try to live every day by the principle of accepting people as they are. Every person is different, and rather than focusing on whether people fit into my narrow view of the world, I try to celebrate the unique path every person takes in life.

This is a mindset that it has taken me some time to come to. Growing up, I was your typical goodie two-shoes—studying hard, getting good grades, being involved in my religious community, not dating because I was too busy with schoolwork/honor societies/flute/piano/sports/whatever. Leading such a focused life came naturally to me. But it meant that I subconsciously judged other people who didn’t meet the same tight standards. Why should it matter that so-and-so spent more time watching T.V. than studying? Why did everyone not feel the need to live a solitary life in order to get into a good college?

I was naïve. But I was the worst kind of naïve—the kind that believes I am so open-minded and so accepting, that I am immune to faults in that reasoning. Admittedly, I had always been willing to accept people who were different in other ways. New kid at school? Of course they had to sit at our lunch table. A member of our friend group coming out to identify as homosexual? Glad you felt comfortable enough to tell us. A regular attendant at an alternative faith group’s religious services? I’m happy that you found a spiritual comfort zone. But anything I thought broke my strict “moral” standards I couldn’t handle. I never acted on my opinions, of course, but I held them all the same.

Luckily, the events in my life over the past four years or so have shocked me out of this black and white view of the world. Perhaps it was seeing that all of my obsessive studying and my nun-like lifestyle did not get me into that top school that I was shooting for. Or maybe it was the extensive research I have done on contemporary antisemitism in Europe. Or—most likely—maybe it was moving out of New York to Virginia, Italy, and Wales, that really opened my eyes to the limitless number of ways people can choose to live their lives.

I’m not saying I’m completely judgment-free, nor do I ever expect to be so. But every day when I step out of my door, I will continue to make a conscious effort to improve myself. To observe without criticizing. To see through another’s eyes. To love everyone unconditionally.

And I challenge you to do the same.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

The original post appears here: http://www.nyuspirituallife.org/2012/09/04/the-many-paths-we-lead-my-journey-towards-acceptance/

Welcome!

Hello, friends, and welcome to my new multifaith blog, Christmas and Kreplach! I have had a lot of thought-provoking experiences with religion over my four years in college, and I wanted to talk about my life through the lens of interfaith relations in a more public space to encourage discussion about how we can all come together to create a stronger world.

For those who do not know me, my name is Allyson. I was born and raised on Long Island, New York, left to attend college at William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia back in 2009 (Tribe Pride!), and have lived in Florence, Cardiff, and Manhattan at various points throughout my undergraduate career. I ascribe most closely to the theology the Reform Jewish movement, and was raised in a synagogue that was very accepting of interfaith families like mine. My father's family is primarily Ashkenazi Jewish (which would describe the majority of Jews in the United States, it means with ancestral roots in Eastern Europe) and my mother's family is Puerto Rican Catholic.

Leaving the welcoming atmosphere of my part of Long Island and heading to a very Christian part of southern Virginia affected my interpretation of religion very strongly. I also participated in an excellent Jewish internship program in New York city called CLIP (the Collegiate Leadership Internship Program) in the summer of 2012, which, interestingly enough, ended up being an even more challenging religious experience than going away to college had been.

I named this blog Christmas and Kreplach (pronounced crep-lock, a type of traditional Jewish meat dumpling) simply because of my own religious experiences with Judaism and Christianity, but this blog will be a place to look at the interactions of all religions. Please feel free to comment on any posts as you feel appropriate, but this is meant to be a space of respectful discussion and sensitive language (something I will talk about in a later blog post as it relates to CLIP) and I will delete any comments I feel are extremely hateful or offensive. The first two posts will be entries I have already written for other blogs on similar topics.

I hope you enjoy. Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson