Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

How old were you when you knew you were Jewish?

This was the question addressed to me by a teen in my synagogue’s confirmation class. I admit, it took me by surprise. It wasn’t at my bris — I do not remember that! But it was certainly before my first day of Hebrew School. I had celebrated Chanukah and had attended Passover seders before then. Then I remembered what I had always thought of as the time I realized I was Jewish.

I must have been about six years old. My father owned a small hardware store and sometimes I would go to work with him. I remember one particular night when I asked everyone who entered the store if they were Jewish! His customers smiled at me and responded, but none of them were Jewish. I told this story to the students and then concluded, “This must have marked the first time I knew I was Jewish.”

The teacher of the class then spoke. He told the class that when he and his wife adopted their daughter, the social worker told them that there should never be a time when their daughter could look back on her life to the time when she first discovered she was adopted. She should be raised with the knowledge that she was adopted by the family. She should never be able to identify an “ahah” moment.

It was at that point that I understood my story. That evening in my father’s hardware store was not the first moment that I realized I was Jewish. I had always known that I was Jewish. Those questions to my father’s customers marked the moment when I realized that everybody wasn’t like me.

Not everyone was Jewish!