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