What Does Being Jewish Teach Us About Resilience During a Pandemic?

I hadn’t thought about the connection between pandemic resilience and my Jewish identity until I was participating in an online faculty meeting for the graduate department at USC (where I teach). As an adjunct professor, I don’t often speak up in these meetings, due in large part to a tacit norm that adjuncts are not “real” university faculty. But this time, I couldn’t hold back.

The meeting was about students struggling with their education and their personal lives during the pandemic and how aware and sensitive professors need to be to these stresses. But about thirty minutes into the meeting, one of the PhDs, sniffling and holding back tears, stated, “I am so sad and disturbed for the stresses the students are facing right now. I feel so terrible for their educational and personal struggles through this pandemic.” Then the tears began to flow, “And it is so difficult for me as well. This is so hard.”

That confession opened the floodgates for what felt like a therapy session for the professors. I don’t deny the feelings and hardships the faculty shared, nor do I deny the need to talk about them. But I was thinking something else. I took the plunge that I never take, and I, the adjunct, contributed. “We’re teaching a new generation. Aren’t we supposed to be the ones projecting positivity, while acknowledging hardship? Isn’t there a value in teaching and modeling human resilience?”

It didn’t go over well. I had forgotten that a few years earlier, when I questioned a department head, I was told by my PhD supervisor that I didn’t understand that academia is a feudal system of kings, queens, princes, princesses, vassals and serfs. “Gary, as an adjunct, you are a serf. You can’t challenge a queen.”

“Well,” one of the PhDs answered me, “if you can figure out how to do that now, during the pandemic, please tell all of us.”

I took the safe route in my response. I answered, “My father fought in Guadalcanal, among the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was in the army for four years. He went on to live a productive life. It has always been a model for me as to what people can endure and recover. We can handle a one-year pandemic.”

Later, I kicked myself for not having also said, “And my mother, who was born in America, lost her grandparents and a huge family in the Holocaust, and my grandparents went on to live productive lives as well.” But I knew that citing examples of the travails of Jewish people may not have been embraced in the academy, especially after the accusations this past June leveled at USC Undergraduate Student Government Vice President Rose Ritch about her Jewish and Zionist identity, which forced her to resign. USC’s response to this incident was tepid, careful and late. (It’s very difficult today on the American campus to identify as a liberal while standing up for your Jewish and Zionist identity. I had already experienced an attack the year before from a student evaluation — “He’s so Jewish” — as well as from a very respected Jewish PhD, who proudly told me he was an anti-Zionist and then later claimed he told me he was a “critical Zionist.” I’m a liberal, critical Zionist, too. That’s not what he said.)

I needed to feel free in that faculty meeting to share my thoughts the way participants from any other culture that represents diversity on campus would have chimed in. But I had intuited that Jews are not considered diverse and Jewish culture did not factor into the conversation on diversity. I now believe that I need to defiantly shake off the stigma that Jewish culture can’t inform that conversation and ask myself, “What do I learn from my Jewish identity about resilience during the pandemic?”

Drawing upon my Jewish identity in no way places me above other peoples and what they learn from their specific identities in dealing with this period. But I am proudly Jewish, and my people’s history, experiences, religious texts and stories speak loudly to me — just as anyone’s family background would be their first and foremost source of enlightenment. Here are some examples of where I draw my strength:

I am proudly Jewish, and my people’s history, experiences, religious texts and stories speak loudly to me.

1. The ancient Israelites walked out of hundreds of years of slavery to establish themselves in their own land, with their own language, religion and culture. Whether we want to argue about its veracity is immaterial. The story speaks to me of resilience.
2. Having had our Temple destroyed by the Romans and Babylonians, we became a home, family and communally-based people, finding a way to survive for thousands of years. That story, historically verified, speaks to me of resilience.
3. Having been exiled from Spain, burned to death through the auto-de-fé, Sephardic Jews re-established themselves into thriving communities from England to Turkey, all while preserving their language and culture. That story speaks to me of resilience.
4. The arrival of Jews in the United States from the endangered shtetls of Europe and the formation of a textured and complex web of Jewish communal organizations and philanthropies speaks to me of resilience.
5. The establishment of Israel and the recovery of the Hebrew language, which has led to so much creative output for the Jewish people and the world, speaks to me of resilience.

There are probably at least a thousand more examples.

This pandemic has become a significantly Jewish period for me. My excavation of the depths of my Jewish identity goes beyond the university; I have begun to study Torah weekly, finding the group Zoom process and the learning to be enriching and so relevant to life right now. I’ve pulled out the flashcards that I haven’t looked at in years from the Hebrew Ulpan I took in Jerusalem over several years of business trips. I’ve reconnected with friends all over the Jewish world that I have not been in touch with in years, opening up many Jewish and life conversations between us, so different than the ones we had in our younger days. I’ve taken on a leadership role at my synagogue, something I never would have done before this pandemic.

Without my Jewish identity, I would not navigate this pandemic in the way that I am. Judaism is packed with lessons and paths of resilience. When this pandemic is over, I have promised myself that I will be one of the most visibly identifiable Jewish professors on campus, enjoying the same freedom and pride that any other group would claim, without being intimidated to do so. If I don’t get fired first.

Gary Wexler is an adjunct professor in the master’s in communication program at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.