Meet Jonah Snyder
I have known Jonah Snyder for a while now. Officially, we’ve been in each other’s lives since we began 5th grade at Sycamore Greene school together, but we really only became friends our senior year of high school, when I returned from my semester at Alexander Muss High School in Israel. I was selling a guitar, and he was buying. He didn’t end up buying my guitar, but we got an amazing friendship out of the failed business transaction. A great deal of the time that we spent together was heavily based on coffee and talking about everything under the sun on my old brown couch Our friendship now still hasn’t changed much on two separate continents.
Jonah is finishing his bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry in just two weeks from Northwestern University, and then he will be starting as a first year medical student in the fall at Northwestern as well. He’s a pretty impressive guy, and he’s also one of Cincinnati’s own! A former Yavneh student, Sycamore graduate, Temple Wise congregant, us American Israelites don’t have to think very hard to relate to him.
Jewish identity is a broad spectrum, one that I’ve been trying to gauge since I discovered free will (if I discovered it, that is to say). I’ve met people who don’t own TVs and people who have never heard of Shabbat, and I’m none the wiser to what the limits of this spectrum are. A very frum question that people often ask is “where are you holding?” meaning, they want to know if and how much of an observant Jew you are or not. It’s a quick question to stress me out. But, let’s see… I hold quite strictly these days, keeping Shabbat and Kosher along with other mitzvot that I won’t bore you about, but when I am asked, my mind just goes either completely blank or completely defensive. However, I gained some insight when speaking with my old friend.
Jonah is a very reasonable man. If someone asked me to describe him, reasonable would be one of the first words that popped into my head. Any time (and probably too often, if you ask him) I need some advice on something that I know I’m not looking at with my head screwed on just right, I know who to call (not the ghostbusters). So it’s no surprise that when we got on facetime this time around to talk about his Jewish identity, he was also very reasonable.
Like many others, leaving our cozy high school communities, we were confronted with a lot of identity-freedom. Something we’ve both come across as a gift is the choosing of Judaism since we’ve gone off to college. Now that we’re a bit more grown up, and when we introduce ourselves, we’re actually introducing something– saying that he’s a Jew has a whole new meaning. And it’s our obligation to figure that out for ourselves, as we can no longer rely on a higher Jewish population everyday in school.
Our experiences have split off after a relatively similar experience growing up. Both Sycamore graduates, he went to Wise and I went to Adath, I went to Livingston and he went to Guci… more or less the same, but when I first arrived to England in 2022 I hadn’t discovered the North London Jewish community yet and I wound up being pretty alone carrying my Judaism out here across the pond, far away from the comforts of the JCC. Jonah, on the other hand, has wound up living with seven other Jewish guys, and he’s in a Jewish fraternity at Northwestern.
But that doesn’t exempt him from coming to terms and defining his own Jewish identity. This is the time that we’re all trying to figure out what it means to be Jewish outside of home. He says, and I agree, that life feels very different when you’re surrounded by other Jews. It uplifts us, challenges us at times, and consistently keeps our growth churning. I think it’s no coincidence that he’s ended up living with only Jewish guys.
Speaking from my own experience, being surrounded by Judaism only heightens my need to figure out my Jewish identity more. I did end up finding my way to North London and wedged my way into the community here. Surrounding myself with Jews in a capacity like I’ve never even witnessed outside of Israel (until I became more frum, and then I started noticing frum people everywhere), I have begun a new chapter shifting from the secular/cultural life that I had grown up in towards this religious and traditional reality that I now know. At university, I was branded the (Zionist) Jew at the beginning of my second year, so I don’t shock anyone there when I inevitably mention something about being a Jew in at least every one of my classes (I really can’t help it). Surprisingly, I feel the contrast the most when I am surrounded by non-orthodox Jews that knew me pre-baal teshuva days, where I can see the lingering looks as they watched me slowly stop wearing trousers and bringing packed lunches or suggesting only Kosher restaurants. It is a difficult balance, remembering who you were and holding value in it, while at the same time holding torah mitzvot. I barely have half an answer for you right now.
Religiously speaking, Jonah is on a different path at the moment. Self-described as the “classic agnostic Jew”, he believes in a God in some way or another and strongly connects to his Jewish roots. If someone came up to him and asked what being Jewish meant, he would say that he comes from a people who keep traditions and celebrate what we can, which I think frames Judaism quite well, observant or not. I asked him if he would call himself a cultural Jew, and he was happy with that definition, so if anyone was shopping around for a good self description, feel free to take Jonah’s!
Briefly, we discussed antisemitism and Israel. Jonah, although never shy to say he’s a yid, is not in-your-face about his Judaism either, so he hasn’t experienced much antisemitism in Evanston. I went to visit him this summer and I can confirm that one of Cincinnati’s best is being kept in good conditions out there. In a way, it actually reminded me of Sycamore. I felt safe and surrounded by my community. Just over this past Shabbat, a friend and I went on a walk in Hendon when a car pulled over and started shouting at some other frummies walking by. It seems like antisemitism and Jewish pride comes as a package deal over here, but lucky for Jonah, I’m happy his light is able to shine onwards, unobstructed.
As for Israel, we’re both in agreement that Judaism is more or less done for you in Israel, and you just have to be the pita bread that soaks it all up. And, of course, the history. We both adore being able to walk around on the same steps that our ancestors walked on. In fact, one summer Jonah and I literally bumped into each other in the shuk in Jerusalem. On a personal level, Jonah and our friendship doesn’t seem to make much sense from the outside. Like I’ve already told you, he is the epitome of reasonableness and I seem to run on pure emotion sometimes, and he has pointed out a few times that our relationship certainly comes easier because we’re both Jewish. There is just a feeling of endless love that exists without explanation. I have no clue where either of us will go from here, whether we move on the spectrum and start “holding” differently or whether we’re in entirely new cities later in life. I’ll always be able to call him and start bothering him the moment Shabbat comes out.
