10 | JANUARY 18 • 2024 J
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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