Yesterday

girl in quarters

It’s the first time this has happened in this way. During the day yesterday an entire sentence took me over entirely. The facts aren’t new, of course. But the statement was startlingly clear:

My dad is entirely Jewish. My dad is not at all Jewish.

(I know that the second “dad” isn’t my “real” dad, and that religion is cultural/contextual, or that Judaism is matrilineal, or whatever it is people feel compelled to remind me…so please don’t!)

The half of me that is 100% Ashkenazi—my dad’s half—is in fact not at all. I’ve always known my mom is half Ashkenazi, half Scandinavian.

My dad is the half that makes me 75% Ashkenazi Jew. Except that he doesn’t.