3B
Wednesday, March 16, 2016 / The Statement
“What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly
anything in common with myself and should stand very
quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.”
-Franz Kafka, 1914, diary
I have noticed that Jewish people at the University of
Michigan call Jews, collectively, “The Tribe.” It sounds
kind of to me like one of those secret societies at an Ivy
League where you have to destroy a Rolex to enter.
This is not the Jewish identity I am used to. I am used
to one where I’m alone, sometimes lonely and sometimes
not. But always by myself. It’s ninth-grade gym class,
the first day of high school, I haven’t made any friends
yet, and a bunch of boys behind me yell “Jew” at me as I
walk alone. I’m a reporter on my school newspaper and
my editor tells me to get to work and “stop playing with
my dreidels.” Even on Birthright, I’m preparing to say
the Shabbat prayers and I don’t know the right words or
rhythm, and someone later tells me I’m not technically
Jewish because my mom is not.
I’m not part of The Tribe. I don’t know how to get in,
and I’m not really sure I want to enter.
Throughout high school, when people lobbed Holo-
caust jokes at my expense and told me to get a nose job,
I dreamed of going to a school where I could have end-
less Jewish friends. We would bond over our unruly
hair, love of smoked salmon and stingy fathers. A sort of
millennia-long bonding, springing from our very shared
DNA, would make us an unbreakable group of brunette
girls in North Face coats.
It didn’t happen. I’ve felt disillusioned by the Jewish
community on campus since day one. When the divest-
ment movement started late in my sophomore year, I
felt unable to agree with people who overwhelmingly
believed that Jews are a stigmatized minority on cam-
pus. There are three buildings on Hill Street alone dedi-
cated to Jewish students. Jews comprise 18 percent of
the student population, according to Hillel, not to men-
tion their prosperity nationwide. Yes, anti-Semitism still
exists. But I can’t connect with people who truly believe
that Jews face similar barriers as Black, Muslim, Asian
or other people of color on campus and globally.
I don’t have many Jewish friends. I can only find a
few with the same values and interests as me. All of my
friends have hooked up with and dated more Jewish boys
than I have. I want to go to Hillel and be Jewish, but then
I go, and I don’t recognize anyone, and they all recognize
each other. My friends are Indian, Pakistani, Chinese,
Korean, just plain white or a mix of those things. By and
large, though, they’re not Jewish. Sometimes I entertain
them by making fun of Jews, and they’re not sure if they
can laugh.
I don’t know how this happened. My great-grandfa-
ther was beheaded for fighting against the Russian gov-
ernment’s policy to kill Jews. His son Leonard found his
body. Leonard immigrated to America in his teens, and
died in Los Angeles on Yom Kippur, the father of an Ivy
League college professor and a newspaper editor. A long
way from Russia.
My grandfather eloped with a girl from China. My
father married a Catholic girl who is still in denial that
I’m going to raise my kids to be Jewish.
Then it comes to me, in 2014. I’m walking down Hill
Street in a crop top meeting my friends to get drunk. It’s
Friday night. Shabbat. I see a girl about my age and her
family walking to Chabad. She’s in a long skirt, her hair is
as dark and unruly as mine. I’m dating a Catholic whose
parents don’t know I’m Jewish. I barely know the Shab-
bat prayers. I eat bacon. But she’s probably the descen-
dant of Jews chased out of Eastern Europe, like me.
We have the same genes. But I’m on the other side of
the street.
A Filtered Life: My Jewish Identity
B Y R A C H E L P R E M A C K
“We are at a moment in history where technology,
globalization, our economy is changing so fast.
This gathering, South by Southwest, brings
together people who are at the cutting edge of
those changes. Those changes offer us enormous
opportunities.
— President BARACK OBAMA delivering the keynote address.
on the record: south by southwest
“South by Southwest’s growth mirrors Austin’s
growth, which mirrors my own growth. I think
it’s all kind of intertwined. I think to many Austin
people feel that way, so I’m really proud of what
they’ve accomplished.”
—Film director and Austin native RICHARD LINKLATER on the festival’s
growth over the years.
“You just kind of go down and fall into stuff. If you
see a venue playing music, just walk in, because
a lot of that stuff is free. Literally, every indie
musician is down there. You never know who you
will see.”
—Music critic and Pitchfork contributor MARCUS MOORE on the ubiquity of
musical talent at the festival.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA