We are who we are

I think in 2025, Jews all around the world are experiencing a loss of identity.

For many of us, the places where we come from, or the places where we live in the diaspora, no longer feel safe.

We don't recognize what they have become.

It may no longer feel like home.

The places and cultures that raised us feel so foreign.

Their values no longer make sense, our neighborhoods no longer feel welcome.

Can we talk about how devastating that is?

Even for us olim, who have chosen to make a new life for ourselves in Israel, it's still gutting.

I was in a shop yesterday, and the shopkeeper asked me if I was American or Israeli.

I responded, "Well, in Israel, I seem very American. But in America, I'm perceived as very Israeli."

And I've been thinking about what I meant in the context of this question of identity.

Because no matter what happens to our birthplaces, those events don't erase what has shaped us, culturally, educationally, linguistically...

Rarely, one can't tell where someone else is from by the way they present themselves; what they wear, their accent, and even sometimes how they act (though most of that can be cliché).

My grandparents a"h, who yartzeits are this week, worked hard to get rid of their German/British accents when they spoke English in New York, after the Shoah.

But they were who they were, German/Viennese Jews who were a product of their upbringing, even though they were survivors.

I learned from them that even if you feel betrayed by the place you are born or the place that shaped you, you can't erase who you have become in response to that culture.

I'm going to argue that the preciousness of our people lies in our wide range of perspectives gained from being spread throughout the diaspora.

I'll take it one step further, and postulate that on a pre-messianic level, it makes sense to me, that while we are gathering Jews from all over the world, we NEED all those differences to build the messianic era.

We need the best of the world's cultures, differing skills, and mindsets to create a time of peace and well-being.

So here's how I think about it.

Yeah, man. I'm American.

I'm an American ex-pat.

I'm Israeli.

I'm an Israeli-American.

I carry forward into my life here what my birthplace taught me.

How it shaped me.

What I am pushing against.

What I am pushing forward.

And even through the pain of feeling like we no longer belong...

We are who we are.

So take the best of what there is to offer and wherever you go next- or however you decide to discover that feeling of home again-

and know that you don't have to reject the parts of you that you love-

just because the place or culture no longer fits who you want to be.