I am a half Sephardic (Syrian) Jew, and a half Ashkenazi Russian Jew,
born and raised, and still living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
I grew up with liberal parents, who taught public school in The Bronx for
over 26 years. They didn’t believe in private schools, carried Channel 13
(PBS) tote bags, and turned their noses up at poor-quality rye bread that
lacked a decent crust.
I listened to Michael Jackson, The Sugarhill Gang, who had the first hip hop
single to become a Top 40 hit, and “Free to Be You and Me”, the classic
album whose basic concept was to encourage post-1960s gender
neutrality, saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with
one’s identity. A major thematic message was that anyone—(of any
gender) whether a boy or a girl—can (could) achieve anything.
My best friend was Puerto Rican; her father owned the corner bodega
where I tasted my very first ham and cheese hero with mayo. And yes, I
loved it. I celebrated Christmas in her apartment with her big loving family
and danced salsa next to the tree.
I went to a Reconstructionist Hebrew School, three times a week after
school, where I was one of two students who didn’t attend private school. I
wore the knock-off, budget version of the fancy Izod shirts with the classic
alligator emblem. They were called Le Tigre, and instead, had a tiger
emblem on them.
I went to a Jewish Y sleepaway camp, where I was a chubby roller disco
queen surrounded by Long Island girls with eating disorders and lavish
bat-mitzvahs.
On Sundays, I went with my family to Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn and ate
exotic Syrian treats like Sambussak. During the week, I ate bagels, lox, and
cream cheese or pollo guisado with Dominicans on 88

th Street.

Basically, I was, I am, a cultural ticking bomb. Armed with a half-fare bus
pass and a number 2 pencil, my upbringing was extremely beautiful,
complicated, unique, and challenging for myself and my poor mother who
watched me crash into ceilings and situations head-on.
In high school, I wanted to wear vintage clothes and a cross around my
neck just like Madonna did. I became an avid hip-hop fan, listened to
Nationalistic Politicized groups, like Public Enemy, attended police brutality
marches, and danced in $5 nightclubs with a fake ID.
My first boyfriend wore a four-knuckle gold ring, and yes there was a period
of time where I deemed it not cool to be Jewish. To be white was one thing,
but if you were one of the Italian or Albanian white girls from Queens, you
could celebrate Christmas with your boyfriend and wear a cool Madonna
cross. In my search for modern Jewish female role models, I came up
empty. My Latino and Black friends joined student unions and celebrated
their heritages that I was not a part of, raised their fists in the air, and I felt
lost along the way.
I wrote my college essay about the problem of segregation on campuses,
ended up staying in New York and going to Hunter College. I wasn’t ready
to leave my beloved city. I dated men who thought they were selling out by
being with a white girl and dated a Jewish guy who was an overzealous
vegan, belonged to the anti-tax league, and banned me from wearing
lipstick with carnauba wax in it.
One summer I went to Israel with my sister, met Jews from Morocco and
Yemen, and went to my first nightclub where everyone wore big stars of
David around their tanned necks. They were hot and cool and proud to be
Jewish. I was enchanted, excited, overwhelmed.

I discovered I liked acting and went to a tiny MFA program in Providence
Rhode Island, met my first White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and suddenly felt
very Jewish. It took me moving out of one of the most Jewish cities in the

world to have being Jewish become, and to this day remain, a core part of
my identity.
I moved back to New York wanting to be Meryl Streep but ended up writing
quirky performance poetry about all this noise inside me.
“Baruch atah Adonai, Viva Puerto Rico Haolam
Hamotzee Lechem Min Haaretz Amen.
I am The Culture Bandit, I eat matzoh in Harlem, thrown out of Hebrew
School because I spent Rosh Hashanah at the Puerto Rican Day Parade.”
My mother askede me to mention that I didn’t REALLY get thrown out of
Hebrew School. It’s Just a metaphor, and besides, anyone who knows
anything knows the Puerto Rican Day Parade is in June.
I discovered there was a voice missing for urban, proud, hip-hop-loving
Jewish girls from New York. I intended to fill it, and it finally became crystal
clear: I could fully honor my Jewish identity along with all the other cultures
I had let in.
I began performing at small, packed poetry venues on the Lower East Side,
and years later was brought in as a keynote speaker for Jewish Women’s
Federations. Yes, you heard that right. After this whole story, Jews, real live
Jews in Federations wanted to listen to ME! To this life.
I began to realize I was not alone in my identity wranglings. Many Jews and
non-Jews alike have had similar journeys. My particular path, my mission,
was to share it, and I did.
And then I thought about how in every social scene I’d been in since a
child, I could spot what I called the rebel Jews. I just hadn’t been paying
close enough attention.
I suddenly remembered on my block of 88

th street in Manhattan, a plaque
stood in honor of native upper west sider, Andrew Goodman, who was one

of three American civil rights activists murdered near Mississippi during
Freedom Summer in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
In the arts, there were the Jewish hip-hop legends the Beastie Boys,
Barbra Streisand who wouldn’t change her nose, and the outrageous Bette
Midler. There were the humorists who pushed buttons like Lenny Bruce,
Jon Stewart, and in every liberal campaign and march I saw names like the
Goldsteins, the Rothsteins, and the Silvers. Jews were loud and proud.
But maybe rebel Jews is an inaccurate term. Maybe I just need to think of
the Jews as the historical questioners, wanderers, rabble-rousers, and
chameleons that we have always been. Maybe I was always living a very
Jewish life after all. Maybe tackling Talmud was not the only way a good
Jew could question.
Yes, there are many Jews that follow the straight and narrow path. I know
because I dated most of them on JDate. But there are many who were
freedom fighters, creators, critics, and thinkers. With frizzy hair, brown skin,
white skin, big boobs, short and zaftig, tall and awkward, all over the world.
I am constantly asked by educators and parents, what we as Jews can do
to help keep “our” youth involved in Judaism and be proud of who they are.
Parents wringing their hands, because they have a child who is just like I
was but they don’t know if things will turn around for them, or maybe more
often they are terrified that their children will turn out like me.
If I may make things even more complicated for a minute, I’d like to admit
that sometimes after all of this, I still question my own wandering. Though
tougher in my resolve, I am sometimes still sensitive to the critics,
especially in the Jewish community who love my sense of pride in being
Jewish, but are then dismayed when I perform pieces in which I swear,
exude sexuality, discuss my past interfaith and interracial relationships.
Yes, there are times, through all this that I’ve shared with you, as ridiculous
as it sounds that with all this rabble-rousing, I still want to be seen as “A
Good Jewish Girl.”

Because you see folks, there is no other way. There is no other way for me
to the proud Jewish woman I am today,, without the Upper West Side, the
Sugarhill Gang, the bodega, the boyfriends, the ham and cheese heroes,
The trips to Israel, the Andrew Goodmans, the Jon Stewarts the Bette
Midlers, the Madonna cross, the Latinos who loved me like family, the
hip-hop, the heartbreak, the guilt, and the humor.
I am far from a Psychologist or a rabbi, but I do know that this path, this life,
this mission, in all its beauty and complexity, has been bestowed and
blessed upon me. And maybe, just maybe… I truly am that Good Jewish
Girl, I never thought I was.