Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust by Leanne Lieberman

Instead, I refused to go to temple and Hebrew high school and Jewish youth group. I could burn my bat mitzvah certificate, destroy Mom's collection of Yaffa Yarconi CDs, purge my parents' library of books about Jewish record holders, Jewish contributions to the Atomic Bomb, Yiddish jokes. I tried to imagine a ritual for becoming un-Jewish. I guess you could also say naturalize or normalize. I didn't know a word for becoming un-Jewish, so I made up a list: de-convert, de-judify, de-Jew, de-religicize, de-belief, de-brief. I didn't want to belong to another religion, I just didn't want to be Jewish anymore. No, wait – a nose job was as typically Jewish as Dad saying, Oy. I could get my hair chemically straightened and get a nose job. I would go to public school, change my name from Yanofsky to something like Richards or Smith and stop being oppressed by the Jewish holidays. It wasn't like my family kept many of the laws or traditions anyway. I didn't want to be part of a persecuted people. Why couldn't I be part of a religion that focused on peace instead? Or at the very least, why couldn't Jewish holidays be like Easter and Christmas? Fluffy bunnies and Santa Claus, not death and persecution? 'Why would anyone want to belong to a religion that was all about loss, grief and persecution? If I wanted misery, I could watch the evening news. CM Magazine: Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust.

Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust by Leanne Lieberman