"Dual Identity"

Shoshana Smith

My name gives me a perceived identity. To a confused few, it’s that I’m black—no blonde white girl has been asked if she’s black as often as I have; to most, my name makes me a Jew. My parents both love to tell the story of my Great-Aunt Ethel’s reaction to the news of my birth. An old-fashioned woman of Kentucky, she’s famed to have said, “Shoshana? Isn’t that a He-brew name?” My father in particular loves to screech this out, while my mother rolls her eyes.

Labels comprise a great deal of our lives; we identify ourselves by them, just as we identify others, and others relate to us through them. The prospect of taking each individual you meet and seeing them as simply that: an person comprised of a plethora of subtly unique traits, while—in theory—an ideal and fair way to look at the world, is in reality an overwhelming task. It’s impossible to not generalize. Even dear friends and family, I know them well enough to know they are all complex people, I sometimes need to sequester them into boxes: white, Chinese, male, female, Jewish, Christian, artist, writer, blonde. And even while I’m doing it, I’m aware it doesn’t do them justice as individuals.

To label me a Jew could create a whole series of misconceptions about me: primarily that I believe in God. However, to simply call me an atheist sells my identity short as well, because I am a Jew. Every member of my mother’s family, down to the dogs, is Jewish, and so by Jewish law, I am part of the community. I am an atheist Jew.

It isn’t an easy concept, for some. In most cases, I try to explain my relationship to Judaism as a cultural thing—there’s food, a language, and a particular “mother-type;” that seems to be enough to create a culture, and most accept my explanation. Some ask me if other Jews accept me as one, even as a nontheist, and the truth is that they do, for the most part. No one understands the idea of the atheist Jew quite as well as the Jews themselves. Perhaps it’s because the “Jewish nation” works so hard to cultivate the idea of being a nation that they are slow to alienate anyone who could be connected. But I think there is something unique about Judaism that makes it more than a religion, and turns it into an identity. Even my very-Orthodox extended family accepts me and my similarly-atheist mother as Jews, even while I’m sure they despair over our nontheism in private.

It is, in fact, non-Jews—most often Christians—who are often eager to tell me I cannot be a Jew. In a recent religious debate with a Christian friend of mine, he said, in the midst of proving a separate point, “It’s like, well—you’re not actually Jewish—”

He never made his point, as I cut him off immediately.

“Of course I’m Jewish.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You don’t believe in God, Shoshana, so you can’t be a Jew.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what I am. By Jewish law, I’m a Jew.”

“But you’re not really.”

“I’m sorry. Are you telling me the parameters of Jewish law? Because last time I checked, you barely knew anything about Judaism before we met.”And so it went. In the end, he dropped the subject.

Few try and tell me so blatantly that I “can’t” be a Jew, but many have implied it, or expressed doubt in my connection with Judaism in light of my atheism. After all, how can it be that I affiliate myself with a religion, while at the same time believing God is a social construct created both to keep people in line, and serve as an emotional crutch? But the truth is, the majority of Israeli Jews identify as secular, and a good portion of them consider themselves agnostic or atheist. And yet, still Jewish.