How Do We Define Ourselves?

Identity is such a personal thing. It helps to define who we are, it gives us a place to stand in the world, it connects us to others, it can set an agenda for our purpose in the world, it can direct us to the kind of work we choose to do or validate our worthiness as a result of the work we have chosen. There are so many different aspects of who we are and how we express ourselves in the world. I am a wife of 46 years, a mother, a daughter, a grandmother, a caregiver, a designer and Jewish fiber artist, a teacher, a mentor, a Reiki master, a cantor, and a rabbi. Each plays a role in the sum total of who I have become. And of course let us not forget I am a child of G-d as well, as is each one of us.

But lately I find myself responding and thinking of myself foremost as a child of Holocaust survivors. This was certainly the foundational seed, along with love and hope that began my growth and development. Surrounded by a community of survivors, in Stockholm Sweden, post Holocaust; it was the framework and the mirror that reflected and reminded me of that reality. Years and layers of experience, learning, experimentation, mistakes, growth, and expansion enhanced a fundamental core bequeathed by my parents, my ancestors, and HaShem. So today I am a sum total of it all. Yet in a world that now faces rising anti-Semitism, with both a non-verbal and verbal onslaught of attacks, it is this that I identify with the most. It taps into tribal identity, paranoia, and fear as well as a cellular level of trauma buried within my DNA.

Who am I? I know I am a Jewish woman who has been dedicated to sharing a loving partnership, to family, personal transformation, and work that supports others in their growth and journeys. Yet I can’t help but be reminded, in this toxic, dangerous, and rageful environment, that danger exists, not only in this country but intensely among our European neighbors. The EU Fundamental Rights Agency has spent years surveying the growing tide of harassment and attacks and have watched the numbers increase among a dozen European countries. In the past year it’s gone up 40% in Belgium and Germany, 30% in Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden, and approx. 25% in France, Denmark and Austria. With a vulnerable elderly Holocaust Survivor killed in her flat and a young boy attacked who was wearing a Kippah, France reflects the deep personal nature of Anti-Semitism and 95% of its French citizens see this as a major problem.

With the expansive influence of the Internet, it reflects the largest expression of this hatred and probably equals that of Hitler’s Mein Kampf whose sold five million copies at the start of WWII, in 11 languages. Published in 1925 it took years to spread its poison; today it takes minutes to reach millions around the world. How different can it be in our own country when even our President doesn’t put a stop to the hateful rhetoric of, “Jews will not replace us,” in Charlottesville, shouted by angry and bigoted ‘human beings’ (a term I use loosely). I find myself sadly becoming aware it could happen all over again.

Lamentations the powerful literature of one of the earliest experiences of a Holocaust in our tradition, where our community was dismantled and destroyed and our first Temple brought down, is a haunting reminder of the pain and suffering so early in our formation as a people and yet it ends with the words, “Bring us back to You, Hashem…renew our days as of old,” to a time when walking down the street in my home town of Toronto, Canada with Star of David or Kippah was not a calling card for danger.

It is a scary time; security is fragile, and division is palpable. Who am I now takes on new meaning.