A Very Jewish Friendship

By Eliana Garfunkel

I often think about how intense my Judaism has been throughout my life, whether it be a reflection of my dedication, or more realistically, a reassurance of my Jewish identity. In either case, even as a pre-schooler, Judaism has never been on the backburner. It was around christmastime, and our small class was having a party. I remember arriving at school with my Hanukkah book and putting maccabee stickers on all of the other kids, never once in my mind thinking that I was doing something different than my peers, because as far as I was aware, all that existed was Judaism and I wasn’t really concerned with anything else around me, I was four. I thought everyone was Jewish. Somehow our microscopic Springfield community felt like the whole world to me. Now, of course, I realize the power of that moment with the stickers. Without a single doubt in my mind, I was representing the Jewish spirit. But what does the Jewish spirit really mean? Is it standing out (and up) for your Judaism when you are the only one? Is it being Jewish within a Jewish community? I may not have the answers, but I do have a friend who also likes questions.

Natalie Borenstein, who is graduating this summer with a degree in Comparative Literature, has been a close friend of mine since the beginning of my university experience at Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL). Like I said, she’s always been a questioner. She was one of those kids who annoyed her parents with the powerful yet simple question: why?

Our very first conversation set the dynamic for our entire friendship–it was something about patriotism. I can’t remember exactly what I said or what she said (something about how I think it’s good to be proud of your country and she said it’s a bit overkill), but I knew we disagreed. Truth is, we disagree about most things. Whether it be food, philosophy, movies, religion or politics, all bases of disagreement are covered. At first I thought it was because she’s just Jewish and we were fulfilling our stereotype of being argumentative. So when we sat down for a cup of coffee no different than all the other cups of coffee that we’ve shared together (and we’re pretty avid coffee drinkers), I was sure I would be writing about our many disagreements on religion. The plain truth is I’m religious and she’s secular. But it’s quite hard to define what it means to be a secular, or cultural, Jew today. We have so many different flavors of Judaism.

In order to get to who Natalie is as a Jew, we have to understand where she comes from. Her family, like mine, are holocaust survivors. Her grandmother, her safta, was from France. A very smart lady. She got her degree at Sorbonne in political science, and she found herself in Israel studying the economics of a kibbutz where she met her future husband, Natalie’s grandfather, her saba. As the French do, they fell in love rapidly, and what they thought would just be a summer fling turned out to be a lifelong marriage. However, Natalie didn’t just grow up around the beautiful love they shared, but also the consequences that the holocaust had on family life.

Being from a family of holocaust survivors myself, I felt incredibly heard when our conversation drifted towards this topic. Not only because I could relate, but anyone who has opinionated friends (and I hope you all do) knows that passionately agreeing with someone who

usually passionately disagrees with you is a magical feeling. I’ve always held the belief that my family was quite serious, but if you’re a Garfunkel and reading this, don’t be offended, because we’re also quite a funny gang. Which was something Natalie and I talked about– Jewish humor! We find that our existence on this earth is so ironic and unbelievable, that the only way to keep on pushing is through laughter… otherwise we might start crying. She can recall her family table in an orchestra of disagreement, flinging facts and philosophy back and forth in a frenzy, yet that evening her saba and safta would come and gently tuck her into bed at night.

The impact that the holocaust has had on the past two generations following the survivors run much deeper than I have the knowledge or space to do so in this article, but what I can briefly mention is how Natalie and I overcome it today as university students in England: by being Jewish. True, it looks very different for her and I both. For myself, Judaism is inseparable from the Torah, even though I didn’t always think that way (but that’s a topic for another time). It’s everchanging, always evolving and I hope it will never stop.

And now we can finally talk about what a cultural Jew means to Natalie… It’s not defined by a complete lack of belief in anything, it’s just not what her Judaism is rooted in. Her cultural Judaism is very based in Israel, her saba being Israeli and all. And the raw, authentic Israeli culture is very prominent, i.e. the yelling at the Shabbos table. She said something very wise in Costa coffee, that “if it (Judaism) doesn’t look like anything, it usually doesn’t feel like anything either”. We walk with our Judaism always, on some it’s more visible than others. Natalie, who’s grown up in the UK and is the epitome of a proper Englishwoman, has also been hyper aware of her Judaism since she was a kid, but not like me. No one around her was Jewish. She wasn’t from Golders Green. In the house, Judaism was confusing and difficult to navigate. Although she was brought up in a very secular society, I would still say she’s quite the Jewish woman. She comes from a family of esteemed musicians, artists and intellectuals that remind us all that no matter how secular you are, your parents are going to put pressure on you to be quite smart. Isn’t that the Jewish spirit? Natalie was classically trained in choir, was top of her class, all the way carrying with her her Judaism in such a deeply rooted way, even if it wasn’t floating at the top.

So when she came to RHUL and all of a sudden there was a passionate group of kids dedicated to forming our own Jewish identity both as a whole and as individuals, it was an invitation to her future. At RHUL she experienced her very first Purim, and personally I don’t think she’s been the same since. Before, Judaism was family. Now, Judaism is an inescapable reality (partially because I’m going to be bugging her for (BzH) a very long time making sure she has an invite for Shabbos).

For us and our friendship it doesn’t really matter if one of us is religious and the other isn’t. We definitely have our own way of doing things, and we certainly do not even attempt to hide our opinions, but at the end of the day what we have is a very Jewish friendship, full of grappling and growth. We’re both just in an adult world with our Hanukkah sticker book, finding out where to place our maccabee stickers.

By Eliana Garfunkel