The Jews of Jamaica are disappearing, but few outsiders know that there are Jews in Jamaica in the first place. Today, most of the island’s ancient community lies in one of Jamaica’s many Jewish graveyards. These graveyards are hidden, tucked away in unknown places. One is behind a bottling factory in the worst slums of Kingston, but its graves date back to the mid-seventeenth century. Vandals have visited one graveyard, its tombstones engraved with the Magen David and Hebrew letters have been shattered and destroyed for their valuable brick and marble, and is home to a large herd of goats, who keep the grass short. Today, there are only about 200 Jews in Jamaica, and their number shrinks by the year.

The man who tells me about the graves and the shrinking population is David C. Henriques, brother of the lay leader who speaks at the bimah. He says it with wry, self-deprecating humor before the combination Shabbat and birthday party begins. He sits in the back of the Synagogue, though his status within the community indicates he should sit in the front. He clutches an umbrella like a cane and the way he grips the wooden handle forces his body to slump forward, making a small belly appear larger, and frowns, causing him to appear more intimidating as the shadows of Shabbat candles flicker across the wrinkles of his face. He wears a simple white shirt and dark, nondescript pants. A yarmulke sits comfortably on the back of his head.

He looks like a typical Jewish curmudgeon, the same man you see kvetching about the Mets at the local bagel shop in Long Island, with white hair and a severely receding hairline. But when he speaks, he speaks not with a typical New Yorker accent. Instead, he speaks with a lilting Jamaican accent, peppering his speech with ‘mon.’ David Henriques is an anomaly, though not on the island of Jamaica. He is the former president of Congregation Shaare Shalom, and like everyone else I have met tonight, he wants to tell me about the history of Jews on the island. Henriques, however, says it with a grim twist: the great history of the Jews of Jamaica is dangerously nearing its conclusion.  

Once, Jamaica sustained a Jewish community of thousands, beginning in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1492, Spain issued the Edict of Expulsion that forced Jews— referred to by history as Conversos, Crypto-Jews, or Portuguese— from their homes in the Iberian Peninsula following their forced conversions to Christianity in the 14th century. From there, the Sephardic diaspora of these Conversos spanned the globe. Banished from Spain, they turned to two places: Protestant cities marginally more welcoming of Jews such as Amsterdam, or the New World, where the Inquisition could not reach them.

Jamaica was an island ruled by the Columbus family, friendly to Jews. The explorer’s granddaughter married a crypto-Jew, Portugallo Colon, the Marquis of Jamaica, who gave Jews protection from the Spanish and their inquisition when asked. Jews began moving en masse to the island in 1530, coming from other ports in the New World, or Amsterdam in the old. They settled in Port Royal, at the mouth of Kingston Harbor, and Spanish Town, just upriver. They built a thriving community of merchants and made an island far from home, home. By the late 1600s, Jews owned land, were successfully trading and selling goods, and helped the English remove the Spanish presence from the island once and for all. They negotiated with pirates, petitioned kings for letters of patents, and, in 1831, and became citizens will full rights, gaining freedom from historic political disabilities.

For the next 350 years, congregations have come and gone, Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews alike have immigrated and emigrated, fire, and earthquake and hurricane have destroyed, and the Jews have rebuilt, as Jews are wont to do. This ancient and historic community has never been threatened with population loss like Stephen Henriques describes, until now— or, rather, until 1962, when Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain.

It is almost impossible to find concise data regarding the population of the small but historic Jewish community in Jamaica. In the 19th century, the Jewish population of Jamaica grew to more than 2,500. Since then, the population has declined. In 1901, 2,400 Jamaican Jews. In 1957, 1,600. At the turn of the 21st century, there were 300 Jews in Jamaica, and today, the community states there are about 200 or so practicing Jews, though they admit that estimate is generous.

The most significant drop in numbers came in the 1960s and 70s. In 1957, there were 1,600 Jews in Jamaica. In 1970, there were approximately 600. 1000 Jews did not die in those 13 years. There are two obvious, easy explanations for the rapid decline: the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, and British Independence in 1962.

Except, that’s not an easy explanation at all.

Jews didn’t leave the island following British independence. They were not British citizens— they were Jamaicans. Because of intermarriage and assimilation, the Jews of Jamaica are not a separate entity, like white Jamaicans who descended from the Plantocracy and ruling powers of slavery. These Jews are black and white, born and converted, married to Jews and non-Jews. The Jews of Jamaica were Jamaicans first, and they were eager to develop their home island following British independence. They served in Jamaican political office, produced the first national artists, captained industry, supported the arts, and founded schools like the Hillel Academy, a large, non-denominational international school that has produced some of Jamaica’s finest scholars from all backgrounds. There is no evidence to say Jews left the island because of independence, nor is there evidence to say they left due to the founding of Israel.

“We’ve had members of our congregation at the highest levels of government in Jamaica, both under British rule and since independence,” says Paul Matalon, Vice President of the United Congregation of Israelites. “We’ve had representatives in the parliament. My father was the Deputy Prime Minister of Jamaica, Minister of Security, Minister of Education, Mayor of Kingston. He was very political. We’ve had ambassadors to Washington, ambassadors to London.” His voice is hard to hear over the sound of blasting fans and the traffic of downtown Kingston, but he is still willing to discuss the state of his community, even though the Thursday afternoon air is humid, and the white of his dress shirt is starting to darken with sweat.

“Unfortunately, in the 70s, when we had that socialist experiment in Jamaica, the Jews were the first to go. Under Michael Manley, we were almost communists. His allegiance grew so tight to Castro that all the Jews left. They nationalized our businesses, and it was just uncomfortable.” Matalon explains that as education fell apart and the newly-founded Jamaican Government moved towards communism, the Jews of Jamaica grew nervous. Matalon grimaces as he says, “So they left. They went to England, Panama, Canada, the United States… mostly North America.”

Matalon’s explanation of his history and the history of the Jamaican Jews is interrupted by a family of tourists he was guiding earlier. They explain that they’re leaving and they have some family to visit. He shakes the hand of the husband, hugs the wife, and smiles fondly at their toddler daughter. The linen of his clothes rustles as he walks back towards us, his dress shoes clacking lightly on the linoleum of the congregation’s social hall floor. “Sorry about that,” he apologizes with a charming smile. He further explains that most people who visit the congregation are tourists who have family in Jamaica but live elsewhere. Sadly, he says that most Saturdays, the Synagogue doesn’t even have a Minyan— a quorum of ten Jews— for prayer. Matalon’s own family, he explains, also only visits Jamaica occasionally, like the tourists who just left.

“My family lived in Miami. I grew up here; I was born here. When I went away to school, I went to America. I went to Vanderbilt University. My sister went to Emory. My daughter went to Elon.” His expression is wistful.  “My daughter lives in Atlanta now. She loved Elon; I loved it more than her. She lives in Atlanta now, in Marietta. My son is still here in Jamaica, but Rachel didn’t stay. She didn’t come back when she graduated. She wanted to marry Jewish, so she made the decision to not to come back. America is different, but Rachel is American, for all practical purposes.”

And, finally, Paul tells me why the Jews of Jamaica are disappearing. “That’s the unfortunate part about Jamaica; the Jews are migrating, our children are migrating. Do I see our congregation staying open? Personally, I don’t. We have 130 members, of whom 40 practice. Any day that anything goes wrong here in Jamaica, those 40 are gone.”

The Jews of Jamaica are wealthy enough to afford a better life for their children. Unfortunately, a consequence of that better life is their children not returning. Their congregation is rapidly disappearing, and with it, a 400-year-old history disappears, too. And for Paul Matalon, that’s the saddest part.

“It’s distressing that you know that all this history and all this heritage will be gone,” he says. The tone of the conversation has grown somber, and Paul can barely be heard over the whirr and rocking of the oscillation of ceiling fans.  “The more that we can make our community known internationally, the better chance we have. We joined up with overseas organizations to preserve our cemeteries because we don’t have the resources. It’s a tremendous wealth of history, but our history hasn’t been written down, that’s the worst part for me. That nobody’s really written the history of the Jews of Jamaica in the modern time. Or the sad part, not the worst. That nobody has taken pen to paper, to really write, because there’s so much to be written.”

The community is not gone yet. And during Shabbat service the next evening, there are more than 40 practicing Jews present— a lot more. They are gathered to celebrate Norma— affectionately called Norms— Mudahy’s 90th birthday. Norma is small, her skin wrinkled and weather-worn. Her hair is a puff of white, like a cloud against the bright sun. Her eyes are covered by drooping eyelids, but when she makes eye contact, bright, ocean-blue eyes pierce through. She is surrounded by her siblings, her children, and her grandchildren, and none of them have left Jamaica yet. Stephen Henriques recounts her life, her accomplishments, her faith, and most importantly, her dedication to their congregation. She is always one of the ten needed for a Minyan, whether it be a small, Friday night Shabbat or Yom Kippur.

We sing Happy Birthday to Norma and move into the social hall, where yesterday, in an empty hall, Paul Matalon told me the Jewish community is disappearing. Tonight the room is packed to the gills. Here, celebrating their matriarch, one can see how diverse the Jamaican Jews are. They are young and old, black, white, and mixed in between. They all speak English, but their accents vary from Jamaican to American, to somewhere muddled and in the middle. When Norma speaks to thank the congregation, she sounds British, unchanged from her upbringing under Jamaica’s colonial ruler.

Tonight, this diverse group celebrates a woman who has raised presidents and vice-presidents of Congregation Shaare Shalom, who has remained steadfast in her love and support for her community, who has seen the British Colonial rule come and go, who has remained in Kingston despite threats of communism, of revolt, of violence. She has educated her children on the island, nurtured its community, fed its community. She is their collective mother, their collective grandmother. In celebrating its matriarch, maybe some Jews of Jamaica are reminded of how special their congregation is. Maybe, the Jews of Jamaica find a symbol of their community’s spirit and endurance. Maybe, the Jews of Jamaica become even more determined to protect and preserve their community, their history, and their home.

—

On May 18, 1899, my great-great-grandparents, Michelina Mickelsky and Martinus Rusiecki, arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from Warsaw, Poland, via Antwerp, Belgium. They settled in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, to work in the coal mines. In 1911, Michelina gave birth to my great-grandmother, Frances. In 1939, she gave birth to my grandfather, John. In 1963, his wife, Judith, gave birth to my mother, Laura. We are Polish through and through– after all, my mother is only three generations off the boat.

On my mother’s side of the family, our Polish heritage is strong. It is evident in the Catholicism she practices, in the way bits of Polish slip into her speech, but most visibly, in our food.

Regardless of the time of year, a rainy day means pierogies. Kielbasa is our preference, over hot dogs. Horseradish is ever-present on our refrigerator door, despite no one actually enjoying it.  

The home-made cookbooks that my mother received from my great-grandmother fill glass cabinets above the marble countertops. Inside these aging, hand-bound books, are yellowed recipe cards. Sometimes, the words change from English to Polish mid-sentence, as if whoever wrote them couldn’t find the word outside of her mother tongue. Sometimes, the words are indiscernible altogether. On some cards, there are red-purple stains that look (and smell) suspiciously like horseradish, despite no one actually enjoying it.

I never understood how unchanged and genuinely Polish my food was, until I traveled to Poland, and experienced it for myself.

—

Just like I hadn’t been to Europe before, I have never traveled in a group. Nor have I traveled with people my age. We clash almost instantly. I’m here to find my heritage. They’re here to vacation. It’s evident in our approaches to food.

My peers look curiously at our hotel breakfast. They don’t seem to understand why, exactly, there are four different kinds of sausages on offer. I, on the other hand, pile my plate high with Kielbasa, and I exclaim in delight when the first taste of savory, spicy pork hits my tongue.

My peers are anxious to eat the pierogis at lunch, at a crowded, overfilled restaurant tucked behind a bustling, cobblestone Warsaw street. The dumplings are stuffed full and overflowing with mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and meat, and cooked to perfection, their edges just slightly browned. As I bite into them, all I taste is the familiar; a home cooked meal on a Thursday night, my mother wearing an apron that proclaims OUR LADY OF ANGELS CATHOLIC CHURCH, listening to NPR and poking impatiently at pierogies in a sizzling, spitting skillet.

My peers decide to eat American food for dinner. Instead, I am on the hunt for the Polish street food I remember from Church bazaars, the smell of grilled onions and smoked meat filling the air as I jumped on the bouncy houses with my friends from school. I find a stand that sells Kielbasa on white bread smothered in sweet, juicy onions, and slathered in brown mustard.

My peers get ice cream for dessert, but I’m on the hunt for Paçzki, massive, fruit-filled doughnuts that my mother gets for us every Fat Tuesday. The confection is covered in powdered sugar, and I have to hold it with two hands, like a real American cheeseburger.  

You’ll get sick off of that stuff, my peers say, turning up their nose as I lick sweet fruit off my sugar-covered fingers, or I stuff some escaped onions back into my makeshift sandwich, or push potato back into the pierogi, or add another sausage to my breakfast plate. The food is too heavy; it’s too rich.

I won’t get sick. Like a world-class athlete, I have been training to eat this food my entire life.

—

Just like my Polish heritage is influenced by my father’s Judaism, Polish cuisine is also heavily influenced by the centuries-old Ashkenazi Jewish population of Poland.

Before World War II, Poland had the largest population of Jews in Europe, and the second-largest population in the world, outside of New York City. I am surprised by how seamlessly the two cultures blend; from the latkes served with my pierogies, to the Matzo ball soup served as an appetizer for my kielbasa dinner. The simultaneous Ashkenazi and Polish diet of cabbage and onions and potatoes intertwine, coming together like the Ashkenazi and Polish double helix that is my genetic code.

Even the bagel, the most ubiquitously Jewish food, was invented on the streets of Krakow. On a rainy morning in the Cloth Hall of Krakow, I eat the very first bagel. It tastes like every bagel I’ve eaten before– and I’ve eaten a lot. I’m a New York Jew, after all.  

This cloth hall and this bagel have been around since the 13th century. Maybe my ancestor once pulled a wooden cart across these uneven cobblestone streets. Everything in Poland seems like a memory of a past life, of places I’ve visited but never have seen.

—

In Auschwitz, I have apple cake with lunch. Apple cake, to me, is a rarity outside of Christmas dinner. The cake-pie hybrid is crisp and refreshing and tastes infinitely better than the water-without-gas I’ve been drinking. I’m dehydrated from all the tears I have cried.

As we return to our tour, we leave a barrack and enter a courtyard that was used as shooting grounds for thousands of helpless prisoners. In the middle of the gravel, bullet-riddled, brick-surrounded square, I see my mother’s second cousin, Pam.

Speechlessly, I walk over to her. We both have earphones in, listening to our separate tours. I wave. She looks shocked, before hugging me. My professor, Dr. Kennedy, looks concerned, before I say, excitedly, that this is my cousin.

I knew they were in Poland at the same time as me, but I never imagined to see them 4,945 miles from home. They live in North Carolina. I live in Georgia. We’ve only met once, when I was six, at my great-grandmother’s funeral, in Pennsylvania.

Yet here we are, in a death camp, in Poland.

—

When I return to Krakow, I meet my mother’s second cousins in the Old Square for dinner. We find a restaurant, and order soup prior to our meals. It’s like I’m at a family reunion. Pam and her husband, Robert, ask me about my trip, about college, about my plans for the future. They ask me what I thought about Auschwitz. They’re curious as to how I felt– they know my dad is Jewish. They heard my grandfather passed away last fall– how is my mom doing?

We’re served chicken noodle soup. It’s identical to my mother’s, down to the spices and long, spaghetti-like noodles.

My mother’s second cousin and I lift our spoons to our mouths and moan in delight. “Wow,” She says, smiling at me. We have the same chin, the Danielowicz chin. “This soup tastes just like my mom’s.” It doesn’t just taste like her mom’s soup, or my mom’s soup, or our Great-Grandmother’s soup. It tastes like Poland. It tastes like home.

In this desert, who will you become?

—

Taglit-Birthright Israel (or, in Hebrew, תגלית) is a non-profit that organizes free, ten-day trips to Israel for any person of Jewish heritage between the ages of 18-26. This trip, often called a gift, was founded in December 1999 by a group of Jewish Philanthropists. These Philanthropists, led by Canadian Businessman Charles Bronfman and American Hedge-Fund Manager Michael Steinhardt, aimed to bring Jewish young adults together as a community by sending them to Israel.

Nearly 800,000 young adults of Jewish Heritage have received the gift of a Birthright trip. These young adults come from 67 countries, are diverse in language, age, and religious beliefs. Some don’t know they are Jewish until they are told so, as is the case of many Birthright participants from the former Soviet Union. Some have traveled to Israel many times, speak Hebrew fluently, and don Tefillin three times a day to pray.

The only requirement to receive the gift of a Birthright trip is that you be between the ages 18-26, have not visited Israel on an organized tour in the past twelve months, and have at least one parent that is Jewish.

In December 2017, I met these three criteria. Alongside my brother and 38 young adults from the Greater Atlanta Area, I departed the United States for a free, ten-day trip to Israel, that claimed to change my life.

—

“Take ten steps forward. Do not go further than ten steps. One time, a boy went further than ten steps, fell asleep, and we spent an hour looking for him.”

The instructions we receive as we nervously step away from the group ring in my ears. I do not want to walk ten steps away; I don’t want to walk two steps away. How can I walk away, when you just told me that a kid almost got lost and died? Still, breath hanging in the freezing air in front of me, I walk one, five, ten, steps away towards a small bush and gingerly sit on the ground.

The vastness of the desert is daunting. Who got lost in this desert, walked for days, months, years, before eventually collapsing into the earth and dying? The dirt under my back is hard and unforgiving. I imagine how it must have felt in sandals, or barefoot, the small rocks that have been rounded smooth by millennia of erosion.  

The same voice that tells us not to walk too far, our guide, Ya’acov, tells us to look into the stars and let our minds wander, just as the way our ancestors did when they roamed the desert two thousand years ago.

I look up, and my vision blurs. The scarf that I’ve tucked my chin into is causing my glasses to fog with every breath of hot air, making the stars above look more like headlights in the rain, rounded and duplicated. Gloved-covered hands reach for the frames, wiping them before placing them back on the bridge on my nose.

Before me, a galaxy blooms, the moon illuminating the yellow-orange sand in a wash of pale blue.

—

For the 40,000 young adults that the Taglit-Birthright Israel program delivers to the desert nation every year, thousands more have critiqued the trip. Birthright is often called propagandistic and racist. Much of the criticism of the trip stems from greater disapproval of Israeli government and army, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

A Harvard Crimson Op-Ed from Sandra Korn, a student who went on a Birthright trip, criticizes the inherent political influence of the trip. Korn writes, “Birthright’s idea of engaging with Israel means supporting an illegal and oppressive military occupation, claiming citizenship to a state that deports African immigrants, glorifying ‘the Jewish mind,’ and decrying all Arabs collectively for their hateful terrorist tactics.”

Ellie Shechet, in the feminist magazine Jezebel, provides a different critique of Israel, especially since she had been to Israel previously, and was able to contrast her first visit to Israel as a sixteen-year-old and a trip as a young adult with Birthright. Shechet offers her opinion of the partying, the exhaustion, and the shiny, Disneyland-esque tourism of the trip. She criticizes that Birthright doesn’t provide a comprehensive critique of Israel. Shechet says it is “nearly impossible to come out of it with any kind of unified sense of your own experience, much less a sophisticated take on a society that’s only revealed its shiniest, most digestible bits,” thanks to the “sleepless, jam-packed nature of the trip.”

“Doesn’t Israel want its supporters to be educated enough to hold their own in a debate, even that education brings with it potentially unwelcome ideas and criticisms?” Shechet writes. “From what I’ve seen so far, the answer is no.”

—

I now see why Ya’acov has warned us against wandering too far away and falling asleep. The beauty of the night sky entrances me, and soon, the exhaustion washes over me, and I feel my breathing lull and my eyes began to flutter shut.

I’m startled awake by someone in my group coughing. We’re so near to each other that I know my new friends will find me. I can’t get lost, not when we’re so close.

—

The trip takes young adults across a country roughly the size of New Jersey. Most tours follow a general outline that highlights the history of Israel, from it’s founding in an art museum in 1948, the heritage of the Jews in the Internation Holocaust Memorial and Museum, and the natural beauty of Israel, from the mountains to the lakes to the seas.  

My trip started in the Golan Heights, territory acquired by Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War. The Golan Heights is internationally recognized as Syrian territory occupied by Israel. It is heavily disputed as it contains the Sea of Galilee, the only freshwater lake in the region, as well as most of the arable land in Israel.

As the bus drives through the winding mountains and plateaus, I see landmines, and the members of the Israeli Defence Force detonating them. The bus passes bombed-out homes and shrapnel littering the fertile landscape. Yesterday, the group hiked through a nature reserve and looked in awe at the Galilee glittering in the distance. The next, the group travels to Mt. Hermon, where bunkers are overlooking the Israeli-Syrian border.

As our guide tries to tell us about the Six-Day War, we hear gunfire and bombs from Damascus, visible in the distance. To our right, Irish and Canadian peacekeepers from the United Nations are stationed. I begin talking to the Canadian about hockey when he interrupts me. Israel is conducting training exercises near the border, and they must observe.

I realize that the U.N. Peacekeepers are not there to observe Damascus or Assad or rebel forces. They are there to watch the Israeli Defense Force. Israel, in this instance, is the threat.

It’s only day two of the trip.

—

There is a rock pressing in the middle of my back, but I am so in awe that I will not move to ease the discomfort.

The moon is so massive that it looks impossibly close, and the condensation on my glasses causes it to twinkle, the light shifting and dancing overhead. The stars are innumerable, and I try to use my rudimentary astronomy skills to pick out the planets and stars I know. I can see Orion’s belt, and if I squint, I can see what I think is either Mars or Venus. For an instant, I think I see a shooting star, but the sound soon catches up to me, and I realize it’s a fighter jet.

Ya’acov calls ten minutes, and numbly, I rise from the dirt and walk back to my group, 47 in total. The group creates a circle, our legs criss-cross, shoulder-to-shoulder.

“What did you think about?” Ya’acov’s comes from somewhere outside the circle, but I don’t know from where.

One by one, my peers begin to share.

—

Five days into our trip, seven Israelis our age join the group. This experience is called a Mifgash (Gathering) and is ubiquitous to the Birthright experience. Like us, our peers are between the ages of 20-26, love Instagram and Snapchat, and sing along to Cardi B on the bus.

Unlike us, our peers are currently serving in the Israeli Defense Force. Some patrol the West Bank, some fight in Gaza. Some work by gathering intelligence for Mossad, the most notorious spy agency in the world. They dress in green uniforms, berets carefully placed on their heads, their hair shorn or tied back into tight braids and buns.

“37 days until I get out,” Lital, 20, says, a grin stretched across her face. “Then, I’m going to Brazil with my boyfriend.”

There is mandatory conscription for able young adults in Israel. Instead of graduation photos, in 37 days, Lital will take pictures of her throwing her beret into the air and cutting up her military ID card. She is trained to shoot semi-automatic rifles. She hasn’t been to college. She knows how to salute and how to run through the desert with a weapon on her back. Her life is so different than mine.

Lital and I become fast friends, along with Alona, 21, who works with Lital in the intelligence arm of the IDF. The first night of the Mifgash, I room with Alona, and my other roommate asks her about violence against Palestinians. It’s not precisely the getting-to-know-you type of conversation.

“I think there needed to be more serious punishments,” She says, before telling us the story of Elor Azaria, a 21-year-old soldier who shot and killed an already wounded Palestinian while medical help was on the way.

“The guy,” Alona tells us, referring to the now-dead Palestinian, Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, “Came and stabbed Elor’s best friend. The soldiers shot him in the foot, incapacitating him, and called for the Magen David [Israel’s Emergency Services]. I guess Elor got mad and then he shot him in the back while he was down.”

The incident that Alona is referring to made international headlines for dividing Israel politically. Many wanted to see Azaria locked away for murder. Others said he shouldn’t spend a day in jail. He ended up spending eighteen months in prison, a sentence which received criticism across the world.

“I think he should have gotten a longer sentence,” Alona says, carefully. “But I also understand it. He was eighteen. His best friend got stabbed. He was angry. We all do stupid things when we’re angry.”

—

“Two days ago, one of my campers died in a plane crash,” Leah says through tears, sobbing into the circle. I walked in on her in Tel Aviv, crying in the bathroom, after the news broke that two families died in a plane crash in Florida. Both the kids involved in the tragedy were campers of Leah’s.

Beside her sits Joelle, who also knew the family. Her gloved hands circle the fabric of Leah’s jacket. I can see the tears on their faces, illuminated by the moon above.

Slowly, the blase comment about ‘having so much fun I had no time to write in my journal!’ dies on my tongue. I know that here, with these people, I must be honest. Not only does my friendship with them deserve honesty, but it seems as though the desert demands it.

—

We hike Masada and swim in the Dead Sea. We sob at Yad Vashem and pray at the Wailing Wall. We sing HaTikvah in the hall where David Ben-Gurion founded the state of Israel and then left stones on his grave. We clutched each other at the military cemetery, Mt. Herzl, as our new friends in the IDF tell stories about their friends who have died while serving. They tell us stories about Americans who have immigrated to Israel and served in the IDF and died. We visit Theodor Herzl’s grave.

We talk about how close we feel to Israel, to our history, to our collective heritage. We cry and laugh and sing. We play endless games of cards on long bus rides and promise to get brunch when we return to the United States. We have our inside jokes, and they go on a t-shirt, which we wear with pride.  

The trip is a whirlwind. It’s how Birthright trips are meant to pass.

Many people will argue that this leaves no time to think critically about Israel’s political situation, it’s colonialism in the West Bank or the state’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

In a hotel, in Jerusalem, a doctoral candidate in Middle Eastern Relations and Policy comes to present the history of Israel and Palestine. He is candid. He cites sources. He provides a detailed, unbiased, view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He shows us how maps have changed. He tells us how many times Palestinian leaders have refused to work with Israeli peace offers. He shows us how Israel has committed war crimes.

When antisemitic comments on Facebook call Birthright ‘apartheid propaganda,’ they don’t know about that night in Jerusalem. They don’t know that the soldiers we were with criticized Israel. They don’t know about the nights we spent heatedly debating Israel’s foreign policy, whether or not they should give back the Golan Heights for peace or whether or not Israel should de-occupy the Western Bank. They don’t know that Birthright, for the most part, has tried to become better about presenting a neutral, pluralistic view of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

I am more than aware that Israel isn’t perfect. I’m reminded of the young nation’s imperfections in the media I consume and in the news I read. But on this trip, where I have made friends, learned about my history, grown closer to G-d, and became a Bat Mitzvah, is criticizing Israel really the point?

—

“I pick at my skin,” I say, my voice wavering, my hand reaching for my back as I do when I am anxious, though the movement is jutted and aborted. “I pick at my skin when I’m anxious, or bored. It’s a form of self-harm that I’ve done since I was diagnosed with depression when I was fourteen. And I was so worried this entire trip I wouldn’t be able to go in the Dead Sea today because the salt would hurt the open sores on my back.”

The group is silent. Beside me, Mitchell, who I met six days ago, holds my hand, woolen mittens clutching my knit gloves. I have never admitted this aloud before, but the desert demands honesty, and so does my love for my friends.

“But when I walked into the Dead Sea today, I didn’t feel any pain. The salt didn’t sting.” A tear falls from my cheek and wets the scarf wrapped tightly around my neck. “I was having too much fun with y’all to pick. I didn’t have to worry about anything. I was never bored. I’ve never gone this long without picking. And I did that because of y’all.”

In the desert, I am honest. And under billions of stars, holding hands with my new family, I am free.

November 27th, 2017

Dear Anna Zuckerman,

I am writing to inform you that I have made the very difficult decision to resign from my current position as your partner in this endeavor. My last day will be December 1st, 2017.

It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

Since joining your company on January 1st, 2016, I am so proud of what I have accomplished as your partner.

That New Year’s Eve, at David’s apartment, kissing you on the fire escape, red solo cups in hand as the clock struck twelve. You tasted like cider, because you hate beer, and I had drunk too much champagne. There was glitter in your curly brown hair. The tips of our noses were red from the cold, but as I kissed you, I never felt warmer.

I have learned so much and have grown significantly as a person and as an employee during our year together. From starting new projects to learning new programs, I am thrilled with the experience I have had over the past eleven months.

Walking through the park, our hands laced together, squeezing yours tightly. Hiking with you, holding your hand when you tripped over a branch and cut your leg and joked that you needed to amputate. Learning how to be kind to you while we argued over toothpaste caps and what to get for dinner and the exit I missed on the interstate. You wanted to get to our destination, but I was content to wander.

The decision to leave you has not come lightly, I assure you. After many months of talking to my friends and my therapists, I have decided that not returning to you in the New Year is not only best for myself and my future, but also for your continued success.

I told you, Anna, it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It’s the way you spend too much time on your phone when we’re together. It’s the way you need to win every disagreement. The way you always need to be correct. It’s your militant attitude towards the world. It’s your constant need for justice, to see pain brought to those who have wronged you.

It’s a long time coming.
I’m afraid that the twang of my voice and the fact that I jump at constant car alarms and that I’ve never done Molly at 2 a.m. in a club in Brooklyn annoys you. You love the city, the noise, the lights, the people, the energy, and I hate it, and I’m afraid you hate me.

You were born here. It’s in your blood. After all, I’m just a hick.

Remember when you called me a hick? I do. I cried in the bathroom when you made fun of the pictures of me showing livestock in high school, happy and proud of my accomplishments. You called me a hick. You meant it jokingly, but if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, your words are sharp as knives when you want them to be. They can cut.

It has been an honor to work with you, Ms. Zuckerman. The assistance you’ve provided me with and the insight you’ve shared in our field is invaluable to me. I consider you a mentor on both a professional and personal level, and I have learned so much while working for you.

It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

You stared, eyes wide, as we drove through my hometown. You said you couldn’t imagine living in a place where cows lined the winding roads, even though I can’t think of anything more beautiful. It has nothing to do with the bitchy way you told my mom you wouldn’t try her fried okra. It has nothing to do with the snarky response you gave my father when he asked you how your work in activism is going. You assumed they hated you when they wanted nothing more than to know you. But you were drunk. You know how you get when you drink red wine.

It has everything to do with Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend our weekend retreat. I apologize for the short notice.

We were supposed to go to that AirBnB in the mountains. Spend the weekend wrapped up in each other. When you first brought up our anniversary, all those months ago, I knew, even then, we wouldn’t make it that far. I think you did, too.

I will be happy to help fill the position that my absence will create. I have many friends that would thrive in the position of your partner.

I’m lying, Anna. I don’t want you to date anyone else. I want you to be miserable. I want you to be heartbroken over me. I want you to spend weeks in your apartment, drinking shitty tequila and eating Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey until you get sick because you’re lactose intolerant. But I know you’ll just fall into David’s bed. You always fall into his bed when something goes wrong. You always tell me it means nothing because he’s a man. It’s just a dick, you say.
Maybe this time it will mean something.

Please acknowledge this letter as my official notice of resignation. I will do my absolute best to ensure a smooth transition before my departure December 1st. I have been so fortunate to be part of this endeavor. I wish not only you, but the company continued success.

Sincerely,

Julia Sweeney
Your Partner

G-d was found in the desert
We wander
Our souls weary and broken
Salt flats cutting into our soles

G-d was found in the desert
Our tongues dry
Our lips cracked, our stomachs empty
Aching, crying

G-d was found in the desert
Of a different kind
The cold winds of a Polish winter
Snow stretching for miles

G-d was found in the desert
In so many deserts
For so many people
For so many years

G-d was found in the desert
Maybe Moses walked here
Where I lay on the pale dirt
A rock pressing into my back

G-d was found in the desert
The night is freezing
I gaze into the stars
A million more than I’ve ever seen before

G-d was found in the desert
Religions are found in the desert
Heritage is found in the desert
And maybe I find myself

G-d was found in the desert, they say, and here, in the desert, I know.

I always hesitated to call myself a writer before this year, which is odd, because all I do is write. All I have ever done is write. From a very young age, I wrote story after story, created whole worlds in my head, wrote fanfiction, and wrote three 50,000-word novels. I wrote a play. I knew, logically, that I was good at writing.

But I would never dare to call myself a writer.

My late grandfather once said, venomously, that all artists were poor. My Nana, his ex-wife, is an artist; she makes beautiful mosaics and paintings. But he is correct: she is poor.

Writing is art. The two have always been equivalents in my head. So it was never a question that I could write professionally, lest I be poor. And I like shopping and take-out too much to be poor.

Then two things happened at once: my play became a finalist out of 18 submissions in a highly competitive writers’ festival, and I took Christine Cozzens’ Creative Nonfiction class.

In a red journal, I take to prompts like a bird to flight. My fingers cramp as I try to scribble every last word my mind springs forth, like an unending well of creativity. I have so many stories to be told, and the rapidly-filling pages of my journal are evidence. I’m a history major, after all. I love evidence.

This is not to say there is no difficulty in Creative Nonfiction. I quite dislike the craft. I’d much rather create characters and draw from my experiences for a dynamic, self-invented plot, rather than dig through my feelings and draw them out on paper. My memory is weak, and in what memories I do have, everything seems exaggerated. I’m a storyteller, a liar, an actress, an inventor: everything I have ever retold is inflated in some shape or form. That leads to a very inaccurate memory.

Still, I am writing, and writing well, and I could not be happier. For once, I felt my confidence in my work was not unearned or exaggerated. Just because I am not a creative writing major, doesn’t mean I can’t call a spade a spade: I am a writer.

I wear the badge proudly, however many sideways glances of annoyance I receive from my peers. I hesitate to take writing classes on campus; students don’t like me, or my ego. They think I’m brash and obnoxious. I can take criticism– when I know, it’s coming from neutrality and not dislike. I feel like an imposter around them. To me, the writers at Agnes Scott College have always seemed egotistical and clique-ish. They have wanted to be writers since the day they stepped foot on this campus. It appeared that, unless I were a major or a Center for Writing and Speaking tutor, I couldn’t dare call myself a writer. I now realize how foolish those thoughts seem.

Now I want to take as many writing classes as I can before I graduate. Before I become an author or a playwright or a dramaturg or whatever I may become, I am first, and foremost, a writer.

My eyes scan the paper once, then once again.

Four sopranos, four tenors, four basses, four altos. A perfectly balanced chamber choir. The same chamber choir I was proud to be a member of since freshman year of high school.

Four sopranos, four tenors, four basses… and three altos.

Tears begin to run down my face. My hands begin to shake. My eyes scan the paper again and again as if the innocent, white printer paper is playing a trick on me.

Surely, there was a reason why my name was missing as the fourth alto in my high school’s elite audition-only choir. After three years in this elite, audition-only choir, after five years of singing with the same director, surely there was a reason why my name, Zoe Katz, was left of the sheet of paper that listed the names of the sixteen– fifteen– members of this elite, audition-only choir.

Zoe Katz, a senior, the senior, the student president of the North Oconee High School Choir Program, a devoted singer who spent thousands of hours rehearsing with the same students, the same director, over and over again. Who spent ten years of her life working towards college auditions to become an opera singer, who spent the summer in a choral intensive in Pennsylvania, was left out of the group that would surely book her ticket into the best conservatories in the country.

My choir director rounds the corner, stacks of paper in her hands. I look at her, openly weeping, hot and angry, my face red and swollen. She sighs. She seems apologetic. “Come in my office,” She says. “Let’s talk.”   

—

I sit in the same grey chair in which I have always sat. I have chosen sheet music for concerts here. I have practiced for All-State and Honor Choir auditions here. I have napped here. I’ve even babysat my director’s children here.

I’m still crying. Renee Costigan, my choir director since seventh grade, looks at me. She still seems apologetic.

“You had a bad audition, Zoe.” She says. Her voice is atonal and pitchy, like a missed note on black keys. She has wild, black, tangled hair and a lazy eye that seems to follow you when you mess up a measure of sight reading. When she talks, spittle forms on her lips, and when her back is turned, focused on the piano or sheet music, teenagers mock her relentlessly about these attributes. I used to defend her or tell them to knock it off. Now, I want to stand alongside my peers and make fun of a grown woman who seemingly doesn’t brush her hair.

I tell her I don’t understand. She knows I have audition anxiety; she’s heard me sing for five years, it’s my senior year, come on, Mrs. Costigan, please, you know me.

She remains resolute. I gave a bad audition.

I tell her it makes no sense. Why have an unbalanced group? Why four sopranos, four tenors, four basses, and three altos? The same sixteen people sang together last year. We received awards and praise. Why the change now? Why fifteen?

“You can still remain involved in choir. You can still be president.” She says as if this consolation prize is not using my time and talents to take advantage.

I look at her. The same face I have looked at for five years, the same face that has smiled at me as I win a solo or receive an award or nail an audition. She had held my hand when I dumped my first boyfriend. She has promised to write me letters of recommendation. Those letters are the key to college applications. The key to my college auditions. The key to my future.

Wetness has dampened the collar of my shirt. I can barely see her face– the face I trusted– because of my vision clouding with tears. It’s my senior year.

Later, I will regret the next few minutes. Later, I will feel pride when I think back to what I am about to do. Later, I will find new passions, evolve and grow not only as a student and as a human, but as an artist. Later, I will feel grateful that I spent my senior year discovering playwriting and directing and European History, rather than agonizing over the approval of a woman who would never matter, in the long run. Later, later, later.

Now, I look at Renee Costigan. With my voice thick, stuck in the back of my throat from mucus and anger, I call her a fucking bitch and leave.

A fucking bitch.

There go those letters of recommendation.

In their usual restaurant, with their usual menus and their usual table, their usual waiter, in her black apron and loose tie, asked for their drink orders, Alan ordered waters, instead of their usual beers.

Laura was pregnant, which was not usual, and as they sat in that restaurant, waiting for their spaghetti with clam sauce, they discussed the name for their baby, soon to arrive, a little boy or girl who would change their lives forever.

This baby kicked incessantly and never seemed to stop moving. This baby who, even before seeing the light of day, was already a handful. This baby was a miracle, as, perhaps, all babies are, and his or her name was a point of contention between Alan and Laura. As, perhaps, all baby names are.

Alan wanted a boy named Harry. It made sense– his grandfather was a Harry, her grandfather was a Harry– they could kill two birds with one stone, and honor both of them with one kid. Laura hated the name Harry. Their son would be Harry Katz, and that was a kid waiting to be teased. Still, she relented.

Laura wanted a girl named Zoë. She loved the name ever since she was a teenager. Alan was against it– how could a computer ever type the two dots above the E? It wasn’t practical.

They were interrupted by a woman one table over. She turned in her chair, a smile on her face.

“I hate to interrupt,” She said, “but my daughter is named Zoe. And she is one of the most beautiful, vibrant, joyous girls to live. Zoe is a beautiful name– did you know it means life in Greek?”

So it was settled. They would name the baby Zoe– if they dropped the diacritic. And a few months later, Harrison John Katz was born.

Three years later, my parents finally got to use the name Zoe. To me, the name Zoe has always been so fitting, so beautiful, that I could never imagine anything else. But I nearly wasn’t Zoe– my parents had an entire other name picked out, for a boy who was never born. They had picked out such a meaningful name for my brother, that surely they would choose one equally as beautiful for their second son.

They chose Greg.

Greg.

Why the hell would they choose Greg? I didn’t know a single Greg. I had no uncles, nor grandfathers named Greg. I didn’t even know any strangers named Greg. To me, the name seemed so pedestrian, so dissimilar to the whimsy of Zoe, that it was almost offensive.

My brother had Zoe (Zoe!) as a backup. And I had Greg?

Even my sister, who was born six years after me, had two beautiful, meaningful given names. If she were a girl, she would be Frances, honoring my great-grandmother who passed away a few months before she was born. If she were a boy, she would be Noah, the leader of the ark, the forefather of Judaism, the man who entered into the first covenant with G-d.

But I had Greg.

Gregs do not change the world. Gregs do not make art, nor write symphonies, nor become president. There are no king Gregs. There are no statues to Gregs. Sure, there is plenty of beauty and honor in the name Gregory, but I wouldn’t be called Gregory. I would be called Greg.

Who would Greg Katz be? Would he be as comedic as I? As attention-seeking? A middle child, waiting for the spotlight, with a flair for the dramatic and an astounding ability to mismanage money? Would he be a good son? A good student? A good person? Or would he be as ordinary as his name?

Would the world be the same, if there was never a Zoe Katz in it?

Thankfully, I am not Greg Katz. Just as my sister is not Noah, nor is my brother Zoe. Just as you are not Will, or Anne, or Sonya, or James.

I am Zoe, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Eve, born of the Hellenization of the wandering Jews. A name, like Eve, is G-d-given, birthed from the ashes, fertilized in the soil of the garden of Eden. I am Zoe, and all the vibrancy and hope that name carries. I have grown into this immense, expressive name, the name of queens, of stars, of the mother of life itself. I am the humidity of the August day I was born. I am the laughter I cause, and the tears that I cry. I am the infinite sadness and optimism and multitudes that exist within me.

But somewhere, I am Greg. A name I once thought of as pedestrian. As boring. As unimportant. I am Greg, who, I learned, was my father’s best friend from college. Greg, who was just as full of life and laughter as I am today. A man that passed away, lymph-nodes cancerous and swollen, too young, taken before his time.

I am Zoe. But more importantly, I was almost Greg.

This essay was written for ENG-208, Intro to Non-Fiction Writing and was selected as an example of the best work in the class. The prompt was to write an essay about your name to introduce yourself to the class.