Am I even Jewish?

As my time here continues, I question my Jewish identity more and more. Do I consider myself Jewish?- Absolutely. But unfortunately, not all Jews  think I’m Jewish. On this Reform Jewish program, the vast majority of people think that I am Jewish, but still, it’s unsettling to have others tell me that I’m not Jewish during a lunch conversation. In my opinion, I would not be here if I were not Jewish. My parents made the choice to raise me Jewish and I feel like even though my mom is not Jewish that I have not been brought up any differently because of that. 

Of course, I would love to be accepted by the Jewish community as a whole. It makes me feel so bad about myself whenever people tell me that I’m not Jewish. In a way, it reminds me of transgender people. In no way whatsoever am I an expert on transgender people, but I think that I can draw a few similarities between myself and them. Transgender is defined as “denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.” People that are transgender are the gender that they believe they are, but in the eyes of less liberal people, they are not always seen in the same way. In the case of transgender people, they are always referred to with the pronouns and by the name that they choose. I don’t see why it can’t be the same for Judaism. If I see myself as a practicing Jew, why can’t religious people also acknowledge that I’m Jewish.