There's No Place like School

Yep, I'm back! It's been awhile, but with all the crazy things going on in the world, especially after what's happened this pass summer (i.e. major celebrity deaths, (in)famous professional quarterbacks on new teams in a split second, etc...), I felt maybe it would be a good idea to gather some thoughts on more subjects as they eventually happen and express my mind about them as well as other random happenings in my wonderfully unique life. So with that, I welcome you to the continuation of my blog. Let's jump right into the mix.

A couple weeks ago I was asked to write an article for the KOACH e-zine, which is released monthly (on the Jewish calendar, of course) from KOACH every Rosh Chodesh. Each issue focuses on different subjects that have a have significant connection to Judaism in general. This issue's theme happened to be 'Back to School,' so when a friend of mine asked me to write an article on it, I had to jump at the opportunity especially with the thought of returning to Bloomington, Indiana to reunite with some great friends in anticipation of an action-packed semester fresh in my mind. There's something magical about going back to a place so familiar such as the IU campus and the college town all around it. So with all the anticipation of getting back to everything while gearing up for my third year at Indiana University, I think I pounded out a pretty solid article.

See above at the top of the last paragraph for the link. Otherwise, I cross-posted it here if you're lazy. Enjoy!

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When I think of the words "back to school," these are the first thoughts that pop into my mind: the movies Billy Madison and Garden State and my general surroundings of my Jewish community.

First, there's the obvious: In the movie Billy Madison,there's an almost iconic scene where Adam Sandler's titular character, Billy, sings naively about going back to school as he starts school entirely over from the first grade, before the bus he intends to get on drives right past him.

"Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that I'm not a fool. I've got my lunch packed up, my shoes tied tight. I hope I don't get in a fight. Oh, back to school…"

Although hilarious, that scene really speaks to me. Starting a new year off at school is a big deal. There are always major expectations that are set for the year, as well as tons of first impressions to make week in and week out of college. And that's just one year. The main idea here is to be yourself and work hard at what you pursue academically as well as socially. For better or for worse, you may not end up like Billy Madison, but you'll make an incredible amount of progress as a person, and that's what counts.

When making a transition from summer to school, no matter where you live, there will always be some, if not a lot, traveling and schlepping things around, so much so that you truly don't know where you belong anymore. That's where my important connection to Garden State comes in. While I was in high school, some of my older friends were infatuated with this movie because of their emotional connection to some of its main characters and their memorable quotes. Now, after seeing the movie a couple times with family and friends, I can understand why. There's an important quote uttered by protagonist Andrew Largemen (portrayed by Zach Braff) that I, along with a lot of my friends, can deeply relate to when making a transition from the summer home or away to going back to school.

"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden, that idea of home is gone. It just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start; it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is: a group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

I think that feeling really hits home when we graduate and get ready for other things in life such as college, grad school or a yearlong trip anywhere. When I was with my friends on Nativ, a lot of us shared that same feeling of missing home, wherever it was, even if it didn't really exist anymore. The fact was plain and simple: we were never really going back home because we were starting to move on. It was depressing, but it was also comforting to know that none of us were alone. And the beat goes on. Even today, I get messages and status updates on Facebook and Twitter from friends explaining how much they miss everything in my college town. And I know I feel the exact same way when summer is starting to wind down. To me, on the greater scale, that's family.

And of course, there's the Jewish community. I am currently winding down my fourth summer on staff at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, where I was also a camper for four years. Since my last year as a camper, I've learned about the incredible importance of Jewish community, and it has stuck with me ever since. Throughout my time at Indiana University, I have become more and more involved with Hillel on campus and the Jewish community in Bloomington. That, along with my own circle of Jewish friends, helps create a new sense of home for me, as well as them. And I'm hopeful that that sense will continue very far into the future. That, in its truest essence, is family.

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That's all from me for now. I'll be back with more relevant things to write about hopefully soon. An exciting year awaits us, and who knows what will happen? We'll just have to see and enjoy the ride.

What's Missing?

Throughout my experience in this class of Exploring Today's Jewish Identity, I have been quite fascinated with how much we have delved into each subject of class, and with each topic I've found a need to explore more everyay. I feel like we've explored so much of the contemporary Jewish Identity, but at the same time, there is still so much left to do. With any major topic as broad as say, Halakah, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or even the Holocaust-let alone the theme of Jewish Identity-I feel like I've only scratched the surface of everything Jewishly. However, I probably know a lot more than I think with my experiences in the Jewish world, coming from a strong background and representation of the Jewish world from Camp Ramah, USY, Nativ, and here at Hillel. I have experienced a lot in my Jewish life, and I know that I'll always yearn for more; to do more and to know more in my Jewish life as well. I'm not quite sure what I want to do in my life after school, but I know for a fact that I want to incorporate Judaism into my life personally, if not professionally as well. I know also for a fact that I'll forever hold on to my Jewish aspect of my personal life from my past experiences and knowleges. Those alone have helped shape me into who I am and what I do today, and I'll never stray away from it, no matter what I do in life.

The Holocaust

Even though a small blog entry about Holocaust representation barely scratches the surface of what there is to explore about it, I feel a need to expand upon it as much as possible. Throughout my life as well as the lives of all my peers up until our adolescence, we as a younger, newer generation of Jews view the Holocaust as symbolic event to remind us to always never forget the vile crimes of Hitler's Nazi Germany, the death camps, and the six million Jews murdered. Our generation forms a strong connection to this representation through all of the stories told of survival. What was quite surprising when we all learned about the actual history is that these strong connections from said representations weren't always there. It's shocking to know that it wasn't until almost 20 years after the Holocaust that things weren't set in the right direction in the aftermath of such a horrible atrocity. Up until the Eichmann trials in 1961, Jews were seen as just a statistic of all the victims of the Nazis.

When Eichmann was captured by the Mosaad, or Israel's secret service, it set off a chain of events that eventually turned into a complete and more much more cohesive representation of Jewish identity of the Holocaust, that culminated with 1993s Schindler's List. It was here that our generation really learned about how to understand the meaning of "never again," and it has stuck to us, and stayed true ever since.

I have visited many monuments that are dedicated in remembrance of the Holocaust. I have been to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel as well as the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, that reserve an entire square to look like the empty, eerie, barracks of a ghetto, with an underground museum under the entire memorial.

However, nothing can ever-or will ever, for that matter-hold a candle to the real thing.

Throughout my entire life, I have always imagined that the settings of all of the concentration camps in Eastern Europe were set in gloomy places with black and white nightmares of swamps and scary woods. But the summer of 2005, when I arrived with friends-new and old-at such places as Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, and Madjanek, not only was everything in full blown technicolor. But in beautiful open fields, wooded areas and plateaus with sunshine and blue skies with not a cloud in the sight. Nothing was ever what I thought it would seem, and that was the most mind shattering thing for me. As I was sitting at one of the large memorials in Poland overlooking a green valley behind it, I couldn't help but think: how could something so horrible happen in a place that was so beautiful and serene?

Emotions ran high during that week and a half long trip. But it was that entire experience alone, that completely stood out in my summer, moreso than my first ever trip to Israel straight from there. This was because we as a group explored not just the persecution and extermination of Jews in Poland, but their lives and traditions that they had held onto throughout their time in Poland. We often visited and davened in some of the ancient synagouges that still remained in tact after the Holocaust. And when we spent our only Shabbat in Krakow we did as much as we possibly could with help from our staff to celebrate ourselves as Jews in Poland, we celebrated with the absolute, utmost ruach that we could use to the very last piece. As we left that weekend, I felt that we didn't just see how Jewish life was in Poland before and during the Holocaust, but we lived it through our experiences of always holding true to our traditions. That powerfull experience alone stands out in my mind as one of the most powerful in my life, and will always ring true to me for the rest of my life.

Jews in the Christian Image

I was on a bus heading back from Tel-Aviv to my kibbutz that I was residing at during my second half of the year of Nativ, when I got the call from my mom. My family had just come back from a huge event at a local Evangelical Mega-church and were honored at a special benefit for Israel. I couldn't help but be suprised and beam at such a wonderful experience that she kept describing to me. It was at that moment that I truly began to appreciate Christianity for it's support of Israel.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is a very important organization due to the fact that it is a major entity that unites Christians and Jews in the utmost support for Israel. The reason behind all of this support is that Israel is a holy place for both religions. The IFCJ's major goal and vision here is to build bridges between Jews and Christians and develop better relationships between each other through their combined support of Israel, in order to "reverse their 2,000-year history of discord" by replacing it "with a relationship marked by dialogue, respect and cooperation."
I like how much this site stresses the importance of support of Israel regardless of religion or religious denomination through its biblical connection. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein does a great job of describing that importance through his video on one of the tabs on the site in his story about his first trip to Israel, when his roomate, an 86 year old black baptist minister broke down at the fact that he was able to walk in the land of Israel before he passed away.
Although the site stresses the importance of supporting Israel moreso than the vision of building better interfaith relationships between Jews and Christians, I think the IFCJ still does a lot of justice to it's cause by making the connection between the two through Israel-it is the holy land for both religions after all. Through this, IFCJ makes a great team not only for Israel's support, but for support between Jews, Christians, and whichever other religions that pursues a positive coexistance and relationship between one another.

Messianic Judaism

When I was young, I've always thought the concept for Jews for Jesus was absurd and nonexistant. Little did I know that there was and has been such thing since the 1960s. Even though I know it actually exists, I am still befuddled by Messianic Judaism. If one believes in Jesus, wouldn't one be considered Christian, and not Jewish? If Christainity follows the miracle of Jesus, then what exactly is the point of Jews for Jesus? It's something that won't really ever make any sense to me.
Messianic Judaism consists of a Biblically-based movement of people who, as committed Jews, believe in Yeshua (Jesus) as the Jewish Messiah of Israel of whom the Jewish Law and Prophets spoke, according to the description at mjaa.org. However, the description recognizes this contradiciton and calls itself "Hebrew Christianity" from it's historical descriptions. So why would this entity consider itself anywhere towards Jewish? It is a very confusing subject that I myself won't ever stop questioning.

Exogamy: Intermarriage in Judaism

I'll admit, I am a victim of Jewish parents egging their children to marry Jewishly and to never intermarry. It was a conversation that was frequently brought up with my mother, and at times when I was young, I felt it wasn't fair, and that I could marry whoever I wanted. I realized the importance of marrying Jewish and/or living a Jewish life after marriage as I got older and graduated from camp and my youth group. At the same time, realization was challenged when I got into big relationship at the end of my high school career. As we both knew that marriage for both of our religion's sake-let alone the fact that we were also in high school-wouldn't be an option, but it was still worth it for both of us to take that step of dating each other. And I was so happy to find out that my parents completely supported me at the time-so long as we didn't marry or hypothetically married Jewishly.
However, I won't go without saying that intermarriage has worked in families, a lot of the times resulting in raising Jewish families. A few of my friends that I lived with in my year in Israel were very well Jewishly raised products of
As I checked out interfaithfamily.com, I found some interesting things in regards to working out an interfaith relationship and marriage. I really liked the article on open conversation and arguing within and about an interfaith relationship. I believe such helps within a successive result of how a relationship will play out, and how little or big of a deal it is in the future. But in a hypothetical interfaith marriage and child conception, it should be crucial that the parents and the child(ren) should explore both religions to get a firm understanding on where each comes from.

African American Jews and Jews of Color

A couple years ago, my synagogue welcomed a new family into the community. They were an African American Jewish family that had just moved to Munster and joined my synagogue, and one of their kids was making aliyah later in the year. I remember being there for Shabbat services on one of their first times there. When I met them, I thought it was one of the coolest things I've seen in recent memory, and it was. For a long time I've always wondered what it would be like to have an encounter with African American Jews in general, let alone in my synagogue, and the experience proved to be a great one as I got to take a look at their customs that they brought to our synagogue, mainly what they wore to it as everyone from the family wore fascinatingly bright and large garments for their Shabbat clothes. After services, the entire family came up to give me the most heartfelt compliments about leading a very musical filled Musaf service. I could tell it really struck a chord with the family because that was the kind of ruach or spirit that they were looking for in a Jewish community.
When taking a look at the documentary, Black Israel, it was so wonderful to see so many things that African American Jews brought to the Jewish table. It was a total eye-opener to me in terms of what they did at services, bringing their own unique vibe to it by soul singing along to all the prayers while using various percussion. It was great to see that the Black Jewish community became so involved in Judaism as much as they could and still continue to do so. It may seem very different to whatever social norm that other Jews may be used to, but it's wonderful to see such a unique movement within the Jewish world as well as the African American world.
The family that I met that day years ago still regularly goes to my shul and it always brightens my Shabbat as well as theirs just to get to talk them about anything.