Be Proud of Your Jewish Identity (Even in a Christmas Pageant)

We need to stay true to and proud of our Jewish identity, even while negotiating a multitude of roles.

by Judy Bolton-Fasman for 614HBIeZine
This is not a story about God’s fifth commandment to honor one’s parents, although there is a lesson to be learned from that here. This is a story about forging a 614th commandment – Be Proud of Your Jewish Identity – and it goes back to the time I graduated ninth grade at the Hebrew Academy of Greater Hartford. I was a three-times-a-day praying, kosher-eating, Shabbat-observant, modestly clothed young woman who aimed to fulfill all of God’s 613 commandments. I wanted nothing more than to go to Bais Yaakov High School in Borough Park. This time, my father put his foot down. Under no circumstances would his daughter be associated with Hasidim.

But I was desperate. I wanted to be the best Jew in the world. That meant I would not go to school with boys. This was 1975, and I wrote to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for advice. To my great surprise, he answered me through his emissary Rabbi X. The Rebbe told me that, above all else, I must honor my mother and my father. He also sent along a dollar bill, which I saved for years because it had touched the Rebbe’s hands.

Despite the Rebbe’s sage recommendation and his tacit blessing, my choices remained limited for single-sex education if I were to stay home with my parents. My father had pushed for Miss Porter’s School. He pointed out that Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a graduate. Miss Porter’s would turn me into a refined young woman – the kind of Episcopal-Jew that Dad dreamed I would become. But I could not imagine showing up at such a bastion of preppiness with sleeves below my elbow, skirts below my knee, and collars up to my neck. Miss Porter’s was about sleeveless Lily Pulitzer dresses and immodest field hockey skirts.

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