What is a Jew?

 

According to ancient tradition, you're only a Jew if your mother was a Jew. Nowadays, many believe that you can claim Jewish heritage with a Jewish parent on either side. And for Taglit (or Birthright), the program that sends young Jewish adults on an all-expense paid trip to experience Israel, you just have to SAY you're Jewish (They claim that you must have at least 1 Jewish parent, but, like, they don't check). What of converts? What of Jewish-born agnostics and athiests?

 

Judaism means many things to many people. As the saying goes, ask 3 Jews what being Jewish is and you'll get 4 answers. For some, what matters is the religion - the ritual, the prayer, the weekly (or daily) visits to the synagogue. For others, going to synagogue is not a religious affair, but a social one (an old joke: "Mr. Shapiro goes to synagogue to talk to God, Mr. Mendelson goes to talk to Mr. Shapiro). Others still don't go to synagogue at all - to them, Judaism is a culture, or an ethnicity, or even a quaint set of family traditions. Some find meaning in the history of the people - and there is a LOT of history.

 

My Jewish identity was forged in large part by my relationships with my mother's parents, my Bubby and Zadie. They lived 20 minutes away from where I grew up. On holidays, or during their regular weekend visits, I would experience their Judaism up close before they drifted back home, back across the generational gap. Zadie, a soft-spoken and devout survivor of the holocaust, and Bubby, a brash and witty college-educated Hebrew school teacher, were very different from each other, but each fiercely and uniquely Jewish.

 

We don't learn much about Poppy, the patriarch of the Haber/Feygenbaum family, whose passing is the catalyst for the events of our play. We know he was a survivor of the Holocaust, and we know that he was kind, and funny, and a pillar of the community. But much of what we learn about Poppy we can only guess from the impression he leaves behind on his three grandchildren. Like an old footprint in the mud, we can only guess at his true weight, his true shape, from the hole he has left. For Daphna, Liam, and Jonah, this hole is fresh, raw, and aching. Poppy's funeral was only hours before the beginning of our play. As each character asserts that their their memory of Poppy - their version of Judaism - is the one that is true and correct, we watch them struggle to come to terms with what they need more than anything: to grieve.

 

My Bubby passed away last year, and my Zadie five years before that. The hole that they left in me was enormous, but that footprint could never do justice to all that they were, and all that they meant to everyone around them. But, months and years later, all that I can do is look at that footprint, those memories, and cherish them. I dedicate this show to them. I hope you all can find as much meaning in it as I have, and I hope you enjoy the show.

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Michael