Joan Marcus and Nora Marcus-Hecht

She/hers

How has your view on Judaism and its role in your life evolved?

Nora: As a kid in grade school, I didn't like being Jewish. I felt like I couldn't relate to my peers and didn't like feeling different. I also struggled because I didn't believe in the Christian God many classmates believed in.

However, in the last few years, my perspective has shifted. It wasn't until the pandemic, when I was missing a sense of community, that I realized I could get that from Judaism. So it hasn't been until the last couple of years that Judaism became a very important part of my life or significant to my identity.

Joan: I grew up in a largely Jewish suburb of Boston, Brookline, Massachusetts. And I didn't think much about being Jewish because it was so deeply interwoven into my life. My family was not religious. My grandparents on my mother's side were communists and had intentionally given up an organized religious practice. My family did not belong to a temple, it was absolutely cultural. But I mean, being Jewish was just very much like breathing.

When I moved to upstate New York, I realized that being Jewish took more effort than it did in my hometown. So my family and I joined a Humanist congregation and learned more about Judaism. However, things changed after the Squirrel Hill shooting, and I started to feel unsafe as a Jew in this country. It made me contemplate what it means to be Jewish in this world and where I could go to feel safe.

My husband and I even talk about retiring abroad, and we recently heard a saying that a Jew always knows where their passport is. It's true; being Jewish is a significant part of my identity, and it's something that I think about more now than ever before.