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I came to college not expecting to be that Jewish. But, I realized your identity and your culture will follow you, and in my case, Judaism followed me. And no matter how I practice at any given time, I'm going to be Jewish and involved in Judaism.
I was raised by my mom who is a strong Jewish woman, and her influence helped me become who I am today. She is the reason why I鈥檓 so connected to my Judaism. She made me feel empowered as a woman and fall even more in love with Judaism.
I was born in Mexico City into a Jewish family that included my parents and grandparents. For my entire life, I鈥檝e had a Jewish support system in Mexico, not only with my family, but with the Jewish community there.
But the beauty of Hillel is that everyone is welcome, no matter how 鈥淛ewish鈥 they feel. Through my experiences, I realized that Judaism was a lot more relatable than what I learned in Hebrew school. In general, I started to feel more proud and more excited to be Jewish.
There are definitely moments within the LGBTQ community where I don鈥檛 feel accepted as Jewish, and within the Jewish community where I don鈥檛 feel accepted as queer. But what I think is really special about Hillel鈥檚 Nice Jewish Queers (NJQ), is that at the same time I鈥檓 really able to be accepted as both.
Being a Jew of Color always puts me in an interesting place. In my experience, when people think about Jews, they think about white Europeans, but there are a bunch of Ashkenazi Jews like me who aren鈥檛 always counted or represented. There may not be many of me in the world, but that doesn鈥檛 mean I don鈥檛 exist.
The place that I've gotten to do a lot of my own personal passion projects in college has been Hillel. It's made me more of an active Jew, to see Judaism more as doing things for other people, with other people, than just an individual practice.
I鈥檝e really connected to Judaism through music. I play the guitar, drums, and trumpet and so music is something I really love. My first time at Hillel, everyone was singing Salaam. I thought it was a very nice song, but I didn鈥檛 know how to sing it or play it. Nowadays, I probably know more music and songs than my other Jewish friends.
鈥淢y first Hillel dinner at school was when I was a prospective student. My host鈥檚 name was Dana, and she, along with the people I met that weekend, are the reason I鈥檓 here. From the moment I stepped into the admissions building to check-in, I felt welcomed and loved, and it continued throughout the rest […]
Music has always gone hand in hand with my Jewish identity. I鈥檓 a classical singer, and over the last couple of years, I鈥檝e been adding Jewish repertoire to my list. Some of it comes from liturgical sources, but I鈥檝e also been singing in Yiddish a little bit. Hebrew and Yiddish music is informing a lot of my thesis studies.
