ABSTRACT
I was born in Brooklyn, New York. When I was six years old, my parents, brother, and I moved to Manhattan. I attended the local public school from 3rd to 6th grade and a private school from 7th to 12th grade. I attended undergraduate and graduate school in upstate New York and completed my doctoral internship in Maryland, right outside of Washington, DC. In all of these settings, Jews surrounded me. New York has a history, a particular flavor, that makes being Jewish perfectly fine and in fact is often celebrated. This is the case even with the great diversity that exists in New York. Thus, while two out of three of my closest friends in grade school were not Jewish—one was born in Pakistan and one in Burma, and my best friend in high school was perhaps one-eighth Jewish—I felt surrounded by people who accepted and/or “understood” Jews. They understood Jewish cultural expressions and Yiddish words; they knew the major holidays, history, experiences, and perspectives of Jews. Being Jewish is not some unknown, foreign experience to most non-Jews who grew up or spent significant time in New York City. The feeling of being “the other” did not occur until I moved south for my first academic position. It was then that I felt almost compelled to seek out other Jews.
