On Half-Jewishness, Childhood, Family and Self-Identification

Happy New Year for Jews and half-Happy New Year for half-Jews and Mom sent the Challah in the mail and Shana tova. Just writing and saying “Shana Tova” or “L’Shanah Tova”…the feeling of slight familiarity and slight strangeness in writing the Hebrew…is an indication of my upbringing.

Mom — Laurie, Secular Jew

Throughout my childhood, Hebrew words came out of Mom’s mouth four times each year. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the fall (two days). Hanukah in December (eight days). Passover in April (one big family seder in her childhood home in Arlington, Virginia or in a relative’s home in Maryland). The other 354 days were non-Hebrew days. I never went to Hebrew School. I never studied the Old Testament. Most of our Jewish family lived in the Washington, D.C. area, where Mom grew up. My aunt, uncle and cousin in St. Louis.

Dad — Daniel, Episcopalian childhood, Non-Religious Adulthood, Somewhat Agnostic Senior

My dad was an altar boy in the Episcopal church in West Virginia, but I can’t remember stepping foot in a church with him during our childhood. If anything, it was clear my dad noted hypocrisy and contradictions in many people. He was skeptical of various groups of people. Like many highly educated folks, my parents didn’t turn to religion as a source of comfort, and they had geographically separated themselves from their families.