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September 2000 Issue, Volume 2

Ch-Ch-Changes

By Jennifer Schulman

David Bowie sang about it. Seasons do it. Cashiers make it. Let's talk about change, ba-by. It's both a blessing and a curse, a life-broadener and world-rocker, it takes what you've grown to know and scrambles it up into the unfamiliar, changing your perspective and challenging your ability to adapt. Just three months ago, I left my home of Boston, my home for nearly nine years, and headed to Washington, D.C. with my non-Jewish boyfriend (and I wonder, is "goyfriend" a word? I believe it should be) to live a brand new life.

I went from living alone to living with not just a roommate, but with a (gasp!) lover. I abandoned Fenway Park for the uncharted territories of Camden Yards. And I left the only Jewish life I'd ever known for an atmosphere that would offer me a very different--if it offered one at all--connection to Judaism.

Growing up, my Jewishness was about as significant to me as the freckle next to my nose. It was an inherited trait, an incidental, and was more or less unacknowledged. My few Jewish friends deemed me "luck-eeee" for eluding youth group and Hebrew school. The chai (Jewish symbol for life), never graced a gold chain around my neck. It was only during the somewhat nondescript holiday celebrations that my family's Jewishness was apparent, with the occasional presence of matzoh balls and my Aunt Ida.

Then one day I took my place as editor of GenerationJ. I was in a religious environment, no doubt, a place full of spirituality and ritual and mezuzot (small parchment scrolls) on every doorway. Hebrew and Yiddish found their way in bits and pieces into my vocabulary; holidays were regularly recognized; I visited Israel, thought about intermarriage, and all meals featuring pork were saved for after office hours. I had unwittingly entered a Jewish life and that Jewish life eventually entered me.

Two years later, I left my beloved Boston (Oh, Nomar, oh Mr. Paul Revere, I'll think about you boys often!) and, with that, GenerationJ, my only portal to Judaism. Suddenly, my relationship, my involvement with the lifestyle was in my own hands. The responsibility to remember and observe was up to me. The task of acknowledging that I am Jew, and defining what that means, had landed in my lap with a thud. And that's where the challenge still exists.

Leaving the city I had grown so fond of for a strange and new one was a fairly big change in my life. Entering someone else's space and opening my own for him to share was a bit of a doozy, too. But leaving the shelter of a Jewish community and venturing into the world alone--with just a handful of beliefs and continuing curiosity--would prove to be the biggest change, my greatest labor, by far.

No longer would there be a community of twelve around me forty hours a week, telling camp stories, debating Jewish issues, reminding each other to prepare for Purim (get your story ideas in early, kids!). The onus was on me and me alone to learn to light candles on Chanukah , to go to temple on Yom Kippur and steer clear of poppy seed bagels when Passover rolled around again. It was up to me, Master of my own Jewniverse (let's include that in the lexicon, shall we?). And I wasn't sure I was strong or centered or motivated enough to do it.

The nomination of Joe Lieberman for Vice Presidential candidate was an unexpected event that quickly unleashed my ambivalence. Such a coup, such a giant leap for our kind, but a frightening one, as well. Any anti-Semitism would be sure to surface, debates would break out at the drop of a yarmulke. I would be forced to take a stance, or at least examine them, as a Jew and an American. And I had no community to help me distill my thoughts.

For the first time in over two years, I was a minority again. Surrounded by my new group of friends, all as gentile as they are gentle, I would be the voice of a people I knew very little about. And, without the support of those twelve coworkers--both my friends and my fountain of knowledge--I found myself alone. I am still reckoning with my opinion of the Lieberman nomination and It is a situation shared by many in my generation: loosening the ties of family that had worked to instill a Jewish identity, shuffling out into the unknown , anxious about whether or not this religious rigor can be maintained without parent-figures wagging their fingers. It is the reason for the epithet, "Judaism's lost generation," as we enter the post-college, pre-baby, find- your- own-temple -kid -'cause -we're- no-longer- paying-for- your- membership years.

My particular situation may be unique, though; after all, I had just gotten to the table when they took my proverbial plate away. I was a brand new Jew. And it's not out of the question that the dogma could still slip from my sensibilities.

But at least I'm among friends in this; other young Jews with me, looking for our place. Perhaps that shared struggle will suffice as my connection to Judaism for now. It may just be strong enough to help me keep the faith. If not, dear Judaism, we'll always have Boston.

Jennifer Schulman is currently living in Washington, D.C., and talking to God in her own special way.

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