The face of Judaism

All my life people have told me I don't look Jewish. I always borrow from Gloria Steinham and tell them, "This is what Jewish looks like." (When Gloria Steinham was 40 years old people were amazed at how great she looked and she famously said, "This is what 40 looks like.") Even other Jews buy into the stereotype: when I took my blonde haired and blue-eyed daughter to visit my grandmother at the Jewish Home for the Aged, lots of people asked my grandmother if I had been adopted (hmmmm, ironic in retrospect).

The reality is, I am the face of Judaism. And so is the girl pictured above, Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro, celebrating her bat mitzvah recently. She was born Fu Qian in a Chinese province and was once of the first American children adopted from China. You can read more about her story in a recent New York Times article.

We're preparing for Ariel's bat mitzvah in a couple of months. In 12-13 years we'll be preparing for another one, for our Jewish Chinese daughter, who along with her blue-eyed sister will sustain the traditions of thousands of years. Today we got an appeal from our synogogue to help sponsor Ethiopian Jews in Israel.

My grandmother passed away when Ariel was a baby, so she'll never get a chance to meet Kavanna. If I could do it over again, I'd tell her cohorts at the Home for the Aged that Judiasm has no color. Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro is proof of that. So are the Ethiopian Jews. So am I. And so is Ariel.

I loved reading Cecelia's story. It is the story of love, of identity, and in a way it is the story of all Americans.

Have great weekends, everyone.