Ripple Effect: Belonging 

When I was nine years old my family moved to Israel.

I was your quintessential Jewish American girl suddenly living in Beer Sheva, a small city in southern Israel.

I couldn’t be further from belonging in that setting. It took me years to figure out my identity in a place where people were not like me.

I swiftly got rid of my accent so I would sound like everybody, but you can sound and look like everyone and still feel alienated, as if you don’t belong.

The fact that I was taller than everyone and had a face full of freckles didn’t help.

In the end, those kids who I was trying to belong to turned into my best friends. They are the people I know I can always count on to be there for me.

Belonging is a tricky thing, because it really has less to do with the people around you and everything to do with you, what you think others think of you, and how much you care about that.

When my children were born, I worked, and took very little time off to be with them. That made me different from other moms around me, not to mention that these moms wanted to talk endlessly about their new babies.

There I was with a new baby, but also, a job I loved and wanted to talk about as well. I felt incredibly disconnected from the other moms. I felt judged by them. I recently found out from one of those moms that I was respected and admired by them, but I did not feel that at the time, at all.

I watch my Homies struggle to belong in a world that couldn’t be further away from the world that they came from. They do it with grace and grit. They do it with struggle and perseverance that has taught me more than anyone or thing in my life.

I moved back to the United States from Israel 14 years ago, once again not finding my place. Ironically, in America now I was too Israeli. This was after years in Israel being too American.
Where did that leave me to belong?

When my first student who had been released from incarceration got into college, she felt extremely lonely, alienated, and could not find her place. She complained that she did not belong there. No matter how hard everyone around her tried to convince her, it really didn’t help. She did not feel that she was in her place. She could not find her people.

I tried to tell her to be patient. Belonging is a curious seed. It can sprout immediately, but sometimes more than others it needs a while to grow. Most times you need to work on belonging, it usually is not easy.

My student told me she is too different from the people in the community college she was at. I told her you don’t have to be like them to belong. Your people can be your people, even if they are different from you. She told me “Nobody sees me.”

I remember my heart sank when she said that.

“Nobody here likes me. They all hate me,” she added.
“That’s ridiculous,” I told her. “Have you spoken to everybody to know that they ALL hate you?”

“No,” she said, “but I just feel it. I can tell they all look at me and judge me for being incarcerated.” I remember saying, “Nobody knows that you were incarcerated. It is not written on your forehead.” She answered, “It is in my heart. I can feel it.”

There wasn’t a lot I could do about that.

I realize now that belonging is really so much more about us and not about the people we are trying to belong to.

I also realized then that she needed so much more than we had thought about. And that we did not set her up for success.
She eventually left that college. This was an important lesson for me moving forward and learning how to support our students who get into college.

This past weekend I experienced an epic moment of belonging.
I never doubt that I am respected or loved. But there is always a part of me that doesn’t belong. It’s that half breed American-Israeli thing I have going on, the workaholic, and the over-extended thing about me as well.

Then came this quarantine and in it my youngest child’s Bat Mitzvah.

The outpour of love we received was beyond anything I could ever imagine: encouragement, flowers, edible fruit enragements, gift cards, care, generosity, and the spectacular venue on the beach where we held her Bat Mitzvah via Zoom.

The gentle, delicate love of our clergy.

The Bat Mitzvah teacher, who observes the Sabbath, yet early Saturday morning walked over to wish my child good luck.

Hundreds of people on Zoom and Facebook live. Over 700 comments on the feed. All this and more was 50 tons of belonging hitting me on the head.

I have spent so much time focusing on others accepting me, when it really is about me accepting them. When you are the outsider, you want people to see you, but actually the job is on us to see them.

My student was so sure everyone knew she had been incarcerated. She never saw their story or the things they were carrying on their back or in their heart. I am sure they had things going on in their life, and that most of the time, they were not thinking about her at all.

We need to learn that our difference is not a weight pulling us down, but can be a wind that pushes us forward.

A different student of mine who is now in college talks endlessly about the fact she was incarcerated and uses it to her advantage.

That choice is on us, not on the other.

This weekend I was struck by the dozens of people who stepped up and hugged our family, reminding us how deeply we are loved and how profoundly we belong.

I know that my compassion for those in the margins is because I have been the different one so many times in my life.
I know how it feels.

It is time to rearrange the narrative. We don’t need to fit in by being like everyone around us. We simply need to learn to be comfortable being different.

My beautiful daughter had a Bat Mitzvah that was different from any other.

It will make her unique and special and she probably will belong more than if she had the one we had planned.

My heart is full and overflowing with gratitude.

Different is the new normal.