Naomi thrust her arm forward and punched on the stereo.
Unfortunately, she’d forgotten that she’d been listening to an audiobook.
“Deconstructing Reform Judaism. Chapter Six.” The serene narrator’s voice filled the car.
Shit. For a moment, both women sat very still, but as soon as her wits returned, Naomi leaned forward to turn it off.
Unfortunately, Clara had two arms free to Naomi’s one. She was surprisingly strong for being so little.
“Stop fighting me. Your hands should be at ten and two, lady,” Clara said, a little breathless from their scuffle.
The audiobook kept playing, the narrator unknowingly continuing a lecture about Purim.
For several uncomfortable minutes, they both sat listening.
“So,” Clara said, voice light, “are you, like, religious now?”
“No,” Naomi protested, too loudly and too quickly. “I’ve just been thinking about this stuff more lately. You know, spending time at the synagogue, and I’m writing all these lectures and I can barely remember anything from Hebrew school anymore, and it’s annoying me.”
Spending time with Ethan was dragging up memories of singing B’yachad at summer camp and the candle lighting at her bat mitzvah and the sweet, crisp taste of apples dipped in honey playing across her tongue. She just wanted to remember—so that she could then promptly go back to forgetting, of course.
She couldn’t lay claim to a lot of rituals or traditions, but these bright, precious moments kept flashing in her brain. Naomi had grown up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Boston where Jewishness made her an outlier. She’d never forget the first day of sixth grade, standing at her new locker and hearing Carter Wentworth mutter “dirty Jew” under his breath. Her whole face had gone red, assuming he was calling her a name, but when she looked up, she realized he was talking to his uncooperative backpack. He was using the phrase to name something annoying, something that pissed him off. She’d stared at him, shock freezing her.
“What? Are you Jewish or something?” he’d said when he caught her looking. Naomi would never forget shaking her head and running away, hoping people didn’t find out. Even thinking of the memory now made her feel sick.
Sturm was a Jewish last name, but not as obviously as some others. It was easy enough to keep her family’s religion under the radar, but even when she was a kid, her cowardice had filled her with shame. She’d make excuses every time she missed school for a holiday they didn’t get off because closings were built around the Christian calendar. Would slump down in her chair, just a little, when her history teacher talked about the Holocaust and Elie Wiesel. Her guilt gave her stomachaches.
So yeah, she’d been ashamed, but not enough. The terrible truth was, it had been easier not to be outwardly Jewish. Easier to fit in with the girls on the soccer team who did Secret Santa. Just like it was easier, now, not to have a crush on a rabbi.
“I usually listen to podcasts on my commute anyway,” Naomi said, knowing she’d been quiet for too long. “This isn’t that different. It’s like any other subject. I’m just trying to learn. I have a lot of questions.”
“You know,” Clara started, “if you have questions about Jewish stuff, I can think of someone you could to ask.”
“No,” Naomi said, putting extra emphasis on the word.
“I’m sure Rabbi Cohen would be happy to—”
“I don’t want Ethan to know about this. Not that this”—she gestured at the speaker—“is even a thing. But he’d get the wrong idea. He’d think I was only doing it to impress him or to somehow fit in.”
“Neither of those things is a crime, you know,” Clara said gently.
“I don’t try to impress anyone, and I certainly don’t lobby for membership to groups that don’t want me.” Her life, her identity was built around a code. She couldn’t break it now.
Clara turned off the podcast. “Wanting to belong is normal. There are lots of places, lots of people, that make you work for it.”
“You don’t understand.” Everywhere made Naomi work for it. Every academic institution she wanted to work for wanted her to jump through hoops. Every reporter interviewing her wanted Naomi to fulfill their stereotypes.
Clara reached over and squeezed Naomi’s free hand. “Okay, but I want to.”
“My mom’s a Quaker,” Naomi said, barely believing she was going into this whole thing.
“Oh.”
“I don’t know how much you know about Judaism...”
“Not a lot, honestly,” Clara said.
“Well, Reform Judaism considers a child of an interfaith couple to be Jewish if one parent is Jewish. So in my case, because my dad’s Jewish, and because I was raised Jewish, Reform Judaism allows that I’m a Jew.”