10 | JANUARY 18 • 2024 J
N

essay

22.5andMe: Am I Jewish enough?
T

he other night I had
dinner with a colleague
whose dad is from
the Middle East and used to
warn him as a child, “You
are going to hear bad things
about the Jews.
They are all
lies.” We talked
a lot about the
current moment
after Oct. 7 and
the response
that followed
the massacre
in Israel,
both of us shocked by the
emboldening of antisemitism
in American and European
cities and especially on
university campuses,
including where we work.
I told him about the high
school history book my
sister brought home when
I was a kid, with graphic
images from the Holocaust
of emaciated prisoners and
mass graves, and how I never
fully grasped that this could
have been my own family had
they lived in a different time
and place.
He told me about his
experience when he went into
a store with his mom and saw
an old man with numbers
tattooed on his forearm,
and naively asked, “Why do
you have those?” The man
gently explained it to him.
I remember seeing those
forearms. It wasn’t that rare.
Growing up, I was always
aware of my Jewish heritage,
but never thought much
about it. Never really had
to think about it. My mom’s
side, who we mostly spent
time with, was vaguely

Christian, so we celebrated
Christmas and Easter, which
was really just presents and
chocolate bunnies. My dad,
though he never said it, was
probably an atheist, like a
lot of Jews. His god was Carl
Sagan.
In our house, we didn’t
observe anything Jewish —
unless you counted Barbra
Streisand, who both my
parents were obsessed with,
and even dragged a 9-year-
old me to the movies one
insufferable New Year’s Eve
to watch Yentl, which might
have been the most Jewish
thing we ever did as a family.
The first time I even
seriously thought about
being part-Jewish was at my
great-aunt Louise’s funeral
in 2008, when her son gave a
eulogy and told the story of
my great-grandparents, Betty
and Samuel Jacobs, who
fled persecution in Eastern
Europe during the late 19th
century.
A month later, my dad
died of cancer. It had been
an unexpected diagnosis
and a quick end. In the
hospital, the nurse asked

him what religion he was. He
said, “Well, my father was
Christian, my mother was
Jewish. I think I’d rather be
Jewish.”
I remember visiting
Grandma Nette’s house
during the holidays. Though
I don’t recall any specific
Jewish traditions, I do
remember the crystal bowl
of hard lemon candy that she
kept by the couch and that I
liked to stuff in my mouth.
The same antique Louis XIV
couch sits in my living room
now, passed down like DNA.
But I’ve dug through its
cushions and haven’t found
any more clues as to who I
am.
The second time I really
thought about it happened
after Charlottesville. I was
visiting my friend in Chicago
when we saw on the news
the men with tiki torches
shouting, “Jews Will Not
Replace Us.”
I felt the need to say
something. But what was
I allowed to say? This was
a strange new feeling for
someone who had never
asked permission to say

anything before. Part of me
wanted to scream out, I’m a
Jew, too, in solidarity with
my tribe. Except was it really
my “tribe”? I had so few
cultural references. I’d never
experienced antisemitism.
Maybe my grandmother or
my father had, but nobody
talked about it, just like
they didn’t talk about being
Jewish, which in itself
probably meant they had.
I felt lost.
“Why don’t you claim your
heritage,” my friend said. He
was half-Korean and after his
mother’s death had leaned
into it.
I shrugged.
“Because I feel like an
imposter,” I said.
Not to mention, I disliked
identity politics. There were
already too many people
who exploited their identity
to gain some kind of victim
status.
“Besides,” I joked, “nobody
cares about the Jews.”
Except maybe those men
with tiki torches. What in
their lives had made them
blame everything on Jews?
Weren’t they also playing a
version of identity politics,
the white kind, to cultivate
a sense of victimhood based
on fictional antisemitic
conspiracy theories?
As lost as I felt, I wrote a
Facebook post a few days
later. I tried to choose my
words carefully so that I
could express solidarity
without appearing to exploit
my status as a member of a
historically oppressed group,
but, in the end, I just told the
truth:

PURELY COMMENTARY

Clint
Margrave
The Times
of Israel