Homeland and Peoplehood

Homeland

A lot of people give up a lot of who they used to be when they convert, especially to Judaism. Judaism has the uniqueness of being more than religion. One of my friends took a Native American studies class once taught by a white lady. And that's fine, until she said that she was ethnically Native. Because that's not, uh, how it works. You have religion, nationality, ethnicity, culture. They overlap sometimes if you're lucky, and you have some option on most of them....except ethnicity. Maybe once, long, long ago, Judaism was an ethnicity. It's not anymore. Lucky for me because I got to join this crazy people and feel more complete, and G-d willing, that feeling is mutual.

So in this Year of Jew, that I'm having. I'm blessed to live in the homebase of that peoplehood. Israel, Jerusalem even. My dad jokes that our village is the center of the universe, but for a lot of people Jerusalem is. I love it here. I love the cats and the big rocks. I love the Jews. Even the shitty ones who are sexist and entitled at least look like Santa. But I never gave up who I was before. I didn't stop being Irish. I kept my parents' names. And while the desert is growing on me, I guess, my soul still calls out for heather and grass and a language that is almost entirely vowels. Maybe the vowels from Hebrew ended up in Irish.

A lot of people feel like they've come home when they land in Israel, literally for my roommate, since she was born here and crap. And it's home. I was worried I'd be sad missing my weather and my holidays, but I've just been so full. So full of religion and prayer and community. And I really meant to bring that with me. This is the first time I've been abroad since Spain, and you know what? It's fucking hard to Jew on the go. Like practically. Because Fire.

One of my strongest Catholic memories is holding a candle at the tender age of about six, and the eleven-year-olds had made the holder and hot wax was dripping onto my hand and I didn't know what to do because I didn't want to go to Hell. The first time I went to a synagogue they literally called up the youngest kids to light the candles. My first Havdallah in college someone handed me the candle and we were in this really fancy house and I had no idea what was going on and I had to catch the wax in my hand and it all came back again. Basically, you can't religion without fire. FIRE! Especially during Chanukah. Because fire.

So I schlepped a chanukiah all the way around the world. And then realized that you can't light things on fire in hostels. And I schlepped Tefillin all the way around the world and realized that you can't really turn on the light, or open the window, or unlock your locker at the crack of dawn in a room filled with hungover gentiles. Plus, you're not allowed to wear them in the bathroom.

Which is where I spent much of the trip. See on day one in the green, green land something turned my entire GI tract inside out. I had one Guinness. No whiskey. And no fish and chips. At one point during the week I soiled myself a little.

A classmate insensitively asked me once, if I and none of my family for generations had been to Ireland, then how DID I form my Irish identity. It's not like Judaism exists outside of Israel...for thousands of years. I formed it with stories, and Gaelic phrases, drinks, shamrocks, a series of people yelling “Jesus, ma”. Surnames. Humor. Movies, Songs. Food (mostly potatoes and cabbage), Dancing. Friends who had been.

Recently, a teacher even, in a tone I would find contentious, during a conversation about conversion, asked if he could convert to Irish. Without hesitation...or an answer, I said yes. Then I remembered that my best friend, who devoted most of her life to Irish music and dance, and makes pilgrimage to the Emerald Isle about once a year, has not a scrap of Irish ethnicity in her. Suck it. Peoplehood.

So for the first time in generations, after dreaming of Ireland my entire life, I went there. And it was like coming home. Except, literally. The stories were the same. I went to a Ceili on New Years Eve, because my friend sent me there, because she worked there and one of her teachers was leading the thing, and it was just like at home.

So for my life, I've been told and reading and learning about this Disapora. About famine and rebellion and uprising. I teared up when the plane landed. I openly cried when I got to sit in a cafe, by a peat fire, and hear people speaking a language on the brink of extinction. I successfully obtained milk using that language.

While I was gone, one of the campuses of my Seminary was swastika-ed. Whenever I'm abroad, I'm forced to decide how open I want to be as a Jew. My roommate, born Jewish, from families that moved countries, I suspect not just for fun, prefers to keep it on the D-L. If I made it out of high school, I can be me anywhere. So while I didn't practically Jew, I Jewed hard all over that Island. And I was met with pleasant surprise. And I think, that if I don't take that risk then what's the point of it all? And who will know we exist and how will they join us in fighting all the bullshit in the world.

And so on the last day, I woke from a dream of a shetland cow nuzzling me in my father's yard which was my yard then. I can't even describe this cow-love to you. And maybe that dream was significant. I am no more or less Irish from my pilgrimage. The same way I am no more or less Jewish from having lived in Israel. And obviously, after a week of travel all I wanted was to come home to Jerusalem because I just can't hostel anymore. 

But even before I left, I was sad. As we defied death in the airport shuttle through the Jerusalem hills, I realized that there wouldn't be sage or rosemary or half feral cats everywhere. So in the Year of Two Homelands. I spent the first half dreaming of Northern winds, and heather while secretly falling in love with wild spices and tectonic stones.

So my roommate and I got back. Died for a few hours. Recuperated for a few more. Then lit the menorah up three days late, played dreidle (I destroyed her sabra-ass for the record), and watched the Rugrats special.

But seriously, here's some pictures of moss, lichen and grass that I'm really proud of.