As I get older I expect to become wiser. Occasionally it happens. I find that I am able to step back, take a long look at myself and see reality instead of an amalgamation of neurotic symptoms. I also am able to assess more clearly what is of importance, the things that I am willing to put energy into and the things I can let go.
Yesterday I watched one of those programmes where celebrities go back into their family trees and find out about their history. The focus of yesterday's programme was Jerry Springer. My expectation was that I would see another tragic Holocaust memory and that genetically his family tree would reach the end of the line at the end of the train line to Auschwitz. In this I was not surprised. A large number of his family, his grandparents, aunts, uncles and many distant cousins did indeed meet the end of their lives in those very camps and gas ovens. There was also a surprise for him at the end of the show. The researchers had found an entire branch of his family, cousins, alive and living in Israel. Springer was overcome with emotion and so was I. I found the fact that he suddenly discovered he was not really alone in the world unbearably emotional and even in retelling this to Ralph I found myself tearing up.
I grew up in a world inhabited by only young people. There was no older generation. They had all gone. I had few cousins and felt pretty alone in the world. I couldn't talk to my parents about any of this since I didn't want to cause them any extra pain on top of that which they were already dealing with. All my life I felt as it I was searching for somewhere to belong, some family to belong to. I completely empathised with Jerry Springer's final comments about the importance of carrying on, of a sense of continuity, in Yiddish, 'hemshekh'.
As I reach the grand years of my 60's I am aware of the growing importance to me of being Jewish. Not religiously Jewish, since I do have a small problem with the Judaic concept of God, but Jewish in my bones, in my heart and in my present history as it impacts on me today. It's difficult to explain how very important this is and how much a part of me this legacy is. It is certainly strengthened by my parents' history, but it is not the totality of what I feel. I actually feel that my soul is Jewish, my way of approaching the world, all that is good and all that is not so good about me is informed by that fact.
I am overcome with sentimentality when I try to quantify what this Jewishness is. Is it just my biting humour? No. Is it my ability to see foreboding doom in most situations? No, not really. Is it my overwhelming guilt in the face of pleasure? I hope not, but yet, I cannot say what it is. I know that it gives me a sense of yearning for something not quite expressed. A sense of specialness, not in the sense of being a 'chosen people', but in the sense that I believe it gives me a unique way of being in the world that encompasses warmth and family and creating communities around me. I have a real need to welcome people into my life and into my extended family. The more, the better. It means that I am pretty much WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I don't believe I have too much guile or deceit about me and I think this is part of my genetic make-up. Does that make any sense? Not sure it makes sense to me, but never the less, there it is.
It also means that I feel a bit rootless in the world. I am not a citizen of anywhere except when I am with those I love, then I fully belong. I love being Jewish. It is probably one of the most important things about me. It does define me in some way. But, and this is a huge but, I am also defined by thousands, if not millions, of other things. All the facets of my Jewish personality are also mine. They are also part of my Cynthia personality. My talents are wholly mine. The fact that I am an artist, in the kitchen, on canvas, when I write, knit, sew, paint and in my work is down to me. Those things I get to own. I developed them, I created them and yet, and yet, the Jewish me means that I have the strength to create all these different things. It gives me such a strong sense of identity that even though I grew up in such a small family and small community, I was able to expand and build my world into so much more.
Sometimes I wish I could go down the path of religious observance. It would be so much easier to relate to a world of North London Jews, eating latkes on Chanukah and lighting candles on Shabbat, but I don't. I am my own sort of Jew. This means that in order to open my arms to others, I just have to bring them into my flock - to open my heart to a wider world and take joy from that.
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