Full Breed

The Cher song “Half-Breed” used to strike me as truly foolish. This was partially the fault of the music video, which features the songstress on a pony in some sort of Native American garb. What irked me more, however, was the song itself. It is about a woman—possibly Cher—who feels accepted by neither the Native American nor the Caucasian community as a result of her multi-ethnic status. This musical musing used to seem a bit like a self-pitying cliché. Then I got to college.

I am Jewish. I was raised as such in a predominantly Irish-Catholic town. When my mother sent me into elementary school with latkes for Hanukkah, it was the first time many of my classmates had tasted them. I wore a Star of David necklace where other girls wore charms depicting Christ. When a boy in my calculus class made a crack about Jewish frugality, I was the one who spun around and interrupted the lesson with a rant about the idiocy of anti-Semitism. In September, I was actually cognizant of why there was no school on Yom Kippur. In December, I was the recipient of the awkward “Happy Holidays” greeting. While I do not want to reduce Judaism to stereotyped facial features, I will say that my appearance further set me apart. I embraced all of this. Being one of a few Jewish students made me different, but was very much a part of my identity.

The truth, however, is that unlike others at Columbia, which has more than a handful of Jewish students, I wasn’t really raised religiously. My father’s family is Jewish, but my mother converted before I was born, so I celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas—though the latter was solely for materialistic gain. I didn’t grow up keeping—and do not now keep—kosher. I didn’t go to Hebrew school and know nothing beyond “Shalom.” I haven’t stepped inside a synagogue for years. While I was familiar with the stories from my Hebrew pre-school and Passover Seder—and the musical delight that is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—the first time that I actually sat down and read anything from the Hebrew Bible was for Literature Humanities this year. I am fiercely proud of my heritage, but for me that is more of an ethnic pride than a religious observance. In conversation with peers who did do any or all of the above, though, I sometimes feel like I am not Jewish enough.

While the instances in which I have been accused of being “fake Jewish” have been few and far between, and while this dilemma rages on in my head more than it plays out in reality, it has led, if not to an identity crisis, then to mild confusion. It isn’t that I’m not Jewish—I’ve seen enough people deny their heritage to fit in to the religious majority to know that that isn’t what I want to do or who I want to be. I don’t consider myself to be half-Jewish, because I was brought up fully Jewish, just secularly so. However, technically 50 percent of my background is “Jewish.” Half of my heritage is thus also a religion, so because I am not religious, I tend at times to feel like an imposter, or worse, an outsider.

To look at my situation in another, more positive light, however, I consider this: even two people who were raised as observant Jews will have had differences in upbringing. No two people, even with the exact same ethnic compositions or religious practices, have had the same experiences with either their heritage or their religion. The boy who attended Sunday school every week, the girl whose entire family is fluent in Hebrew, and I are all Jewish, but our experiences with our religion and ethnicity are incredibly different. I am proud of my heritage. When asked if I’m Jewish, I answer “yes” without caveat. However, what that means for me is different from what it means for somebody else. Which, quite frankly, is how it should be.

One of the reasons I chose Columbia University was because of the diversity of the student body. What I didn’t realize when I filled out my application, however, was how deep that diversity ran. It doesn’t just mean that there are different races and religions on this campus, although that’s true. This campus is home to the Buddhist Meditation Group, Bahá’í Club, Thai Students Association, and African Students Association. Those four are a random sampling of a list so long it would surpass the word limit for this piece. The ethnic variety between demographic and organizational groups is beneficial to Columbia’s campus and its community, but to view it as the only diversity is to barely scratch the surface. There’s diversity between individuals within those different groups too. And within the individuals themselves. Ourselves. Touché, Cher. Touché.

The author is a Columbia College first-year.

Tags: Opinion, Emily Tamkin, Diversity, Jewish Identity