As a white, jewish, american, living in a suburban area where the majority of people are jewish, I never really thought about why I was jewish. I always celebrated Shabbat every Friday night, I went to temple on the high holidays, and I had a bar mitzvah. All of these things just seemed very normal to me, and seemed like something that everybody did. I knew that there were people out there who did not have the same religious beliefs as me, however, I didn’t really think that it mattered.

   I was shielded from the fact that some people do not like jewish people and try to hurt them. I have noticed that parents tend to shield their children from things that they believe can hurt them. When I was younger, I had no idea who Osama Bin Laden was, or what happened on that fateful day on September 11th, 2001. My parents shielded me from this, only letting me know about it after Osama Bin Laden was dead. While I did not understand this, when I was younger, now I believe that without them doing this, I would grow up always being fearful.

   When I got older, however, it was not as easy for my parents to shield me from the hate that people, who were jewish, were facing. I started to read the newspaper, and tried to become more familiar with what was going on so that way I could defend myself from others who did not agree with my religion.

   All of this preparation for how to defend myself if a situation were to arise did not help, however. When I was 16 years old, I decided to engage in a debate with a friend, who was christian, about jewish beliefs. We discussed how we believed our lives were affected based on our religion and whether one religion, either christianity or judaism, was easier to live with. We became deadlocked, each believing that our own religion was easier to live with.

   In the course of the discussion, my friend brought up a question that I had not prepared for: “why do you identify as a jew? Do you really feel a type of comfort being jewish?” I was shocked by these questions. I had never thought about why am I jewish or if I was comfortable being jewish. I ended the discussion and tried to think about why I was jewish.

   Now, after reading different CST articles, I was able to come upon an article that really addressed why I am who I am. Bobbie Harro, author of Cycle of Socialization and Cycle of Liberation, mentions that we are who we are because, “these identities are ascribed to us at birth through no effort or decision or choice of our own” (47).

   The fact that we do not have any decision of our own in choosing our identities seemed a little troubling to me. I always thought that I had complete control over my life and could be whatever I wanted to be. Now, however, I am kind of happy that I did not have any choice with what religion I followed. I feel like it would just be too big of a thing to choose because I believe that religion can define a person’s life, especially starting when one is younger. Through our religion, we learn of different stories that teach us lessons about how we should act in life. I also believe that at the time in which we would need these life lessons, we would be too young to make a thoughtful decision. Thankfully, we do not need to think about making these decisions as they are already made for us.

   I love being jewish and I believe that if I was not jewish, I would be a completely different person. I will always think about what makes me who I am and will never regret who I became.