I grew up nominally Jewish, raised by two nightclub musician parents who were the outliers in their respective families. My childhood home was not a Jewishly connected one. We were not Zionists. My sister and I did not go to Hebrew school. My parents could not afford to join a synagogue, or even to live near other Jews.
I did not begin to explore Jewish communal life until my mid-thirties. I liked what I found, I stayed, and have made the Jewish community the focus of my socialization and my work since then.
But it hasn’t been easy.
Without those deeper roots that so many of my friends and co-artists have enjoyed, my Jewish geography is limited. Without the income and steady synagogue contracts to support them, my travels to Jewish conferences have been quite limited, and my travel to Israel nonexistent.
To be fair, as someone who had a mobile childhood I’ve learned to travel light and I tend to hold most people at a friendly arm’s length. As someone who did not grow up learning how to function in community, I’ve struggled with how to be in Jewish community. And I’ve struggled to figure out what to think and feel about Israel. Because I never learned to feel about it as my colleagues do.
Israel is not my home. My home is America.
Israel is not my vacation spot. Nor is it my refuge of last resort. I live in America and will die here, and I have never had any choice but to be okay with that.
Still, it’s hard to watch my Jewish friends and colleagues feel quite comfortable, sure and deep-rooted in their shared experiences and their shared love sometimes. Like this video that popped up in my feed.
Some truly lovely people that I’ve come to know at the aforementioned conferences got together and made the video, part of some programming in support of Israel during the current crisis. They’re singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem.
I’ve been asked a few times to sing Hatikvah as part of my work in Jewish music and education. And I’ve done it. But I’ve never felt comfortable doing so. Not because I don’t think Israel should exist — I do. But because there’s an expectation that’s different from singing anyone else’s national anthem.
When I was a Girl Scout, visiting a camporee of Canadian Girl Guides as their guest, I and my new friends were asked to teach each other our national anthems, as a measure of respect and honor, so we could all sing both anthems each morning at flag raising. It was fun teaching each other our respective national anthems — I must admit I liked Canada’s better, finding it easier to learn and more musical — and to this day I am able to sing “O Canada” from memory and enjoy the sweet memories of that summer. But I am always aware that I am singing someone else’s national anthem.
That’s not how singing Hatikvah feels. There is an unspoken expectation that when a Diaspora Jew sings the song, there is — there’s supposed to be — an added sense of fellow feeling, as if Israel could be my home anytime I decide to move there. We call moving to Israel from elsewhere in the world “making aliyah” — going to a higher place — because that’s how the world’s Jews are taught to see Israel.
All the worlds Jews, it seems, except for me. When I’ve been asked to sing this song, I’ve always felt like I’m slightly outside, looking in.
Israel is special, but it is not mine. I feel no sense of entitlement, and no sense of safety, knowing that I could emigrate to Israel and be welcomed without question as a Jew. Because while that may be true, it’s like saying that I can’t possibly belong anywhere else quite as truly. And so far, that has not been my experience. Call it white privilege, call it my birthright, call it social acclimation or whatever else you want. But America is my home, and Portland is my Jerusalem, and I believe I’m meant to stay here and do what I can to make things better and more fair for all of us here.
Jewish exceptionalism makes me as nervous as American exceptionalism does.
I’ll admit it’s probably because I grew up always a bit outside the inclusion of the exceptional group, whatever their identifier. To belong usually requires one to stay put, and I couldn’t do that when I was young. By the time I was able to do that, I didn’t quite know how.
Let’s go deeper: as my ADHD diagnosis is compelling a long, uncomfortable backward look, I am faced with the truth of belonging in my family. And my family, consisted of four people who loved each other, but we seldom behaved as a family; and when we did it felt like a fiction, an attempt at being something we couldn’t be. I supposed I’ve carried all this unbelonging, this outsiderness, with me my whole life. But I’ve also carried an overwhelming desire to belong too. When the two things I’ve carried the longest sit in opposition to each other and there’s no way to understand that or deal with it, you tend to choose the easier path because your life is a.ready filled with more input than you can handle, and handle alone. So I chose not to dig too deeply. But it has certainly made a difference in my life, and the older I get, the more it shows, at least to me. I make no excuses or apologies for any of this. It’s just my truth and I live with it daily.
Last night I was supposed to participate in a concert of peace and healing for the Portland Jewish community. Issues with my hands have made guitar playing difficult and painful for the last month or so, and I was forced to bow out. But if I had been there, I would’ve been expected to stand and sing Hatikvah with the other musicians, and to sing it as if I believe it with all my heart.
Let’s be clear: Israel exists, and must continue to exist. I believe that wholeheartedly.
But Israel is not mine, and it would feel weird to sing — or speak, or behave — as though it is.
So I hope that in the near future I won’t be asked to lead a group in singing Hatikvah. Because I must admit that I’m not up to the challenge.
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