My freshman fall was the first year I lit the Chanukah candles alone. Instead of lining my desk with tinfoil and pulling out a box of matches, I turned my UF Housing-approved menorah over in my hand and flipped the LED light switches for each small bulb. After I placed my plastic menorah back atop the counter, I sat down and numbly stared at its fake, flickering lights. My non-Jewish roommate, whom I already had come to adore, was studying in Marston for her upcoming chemistry exam. All my other friends on campus also weren’t Jewish, and I remember thinking that they had better things to do than to join me while I quietly muttered prayers they couldn’t understand for a faith they didn’t know much about.
When my mother FaceTimed me on the eighth and final day of Chanukah that year, I smiled through the waves of sadness that pounded against me each time her phone was handed off to somebody else in my living room back at home. When my mother passed her phone to my grandparents, I felt lonely. When they handed the phone to my aunt and uncle, I felt hopeless. When they handed the phone to my younger brother, I felt a certain loss—not for any of my family members, but for my inability to celebrate the holiday with them. More deeply than that, I felt the first twinge of losing a part of my religion.
Sharing the values, celebrations, rituals and teachings of Judaism with my family was a large component of my practice. I was one of three Jewish students in my year throughout middle and high school and had no real Jewish community to surround myself with outside of my family. From the time I was a small child through the end of my senior year of high school, we attended every High Holiday service at our small temple together. Each fall, my family and I would gather around our dining room table for Rosh Hashanah and celebrate the New Year over my mother’s brisket and great-aunt’s sweet challah bread. Each spring, we would pass around the seder plate and recount the story of Pesach (Passover). In my first year away from home at UF, my family decided to add a ‘twist’ to the traditional retelling of the story of Passover and performed the entire tale as a scripted comedy. My mother sent me videos of my brother acting as Moses, using his salad fork as his staff, and bunching up table linens to ‘part’ the Red Sea.
This was hilarious, and of course I smiled as I watched my family being brought to tears from laughing so heartily. Still, I couldn’t help but feel those waves of sadness pushing towards me once again. While my family was connecting with one another and to our faith six hours south of Gainesville, there I sat on my dorm-provided anti-rocking chair in pajamas, eyes misting as I surveyed the piles of worksheets I had yet to complete for the day.
When I returned home that summer, I ended up speaking with my grandfather about my concerns. While I knew that it would be too expensive to travel home for each holiday, I knew I didn’t want to repeat my solitary religious observation. He asked me if I attended services at the Hillel or Chabad, two Jewish community centers at UF, to which I replied that I hadn’t. I didn’t have much luck making friends in my small temple back home, and I hadn’t had many Jewish friends growing up, so I hadn’t bothered engaging with the Jewish communities up in Gainesville for fear of alienation and disappointment. My grandfather, in all his wisdom and stubbornness, insisted that I go to at least one service once I returned to school the next semester.
When the High Holidays rolled around my sophomore fall, I visited UF Hillel for the first time. I walked through their front doors with tempered expectations but was immediately welcomed by Rabbi Jonah with a warmth that washed away all of my concerns. Byattending Hillel’s services and programs, I regained a sense of belonging that I hadn’t known I was missing so desperately. I made new friends during Friday night Shabbat services and dinners and even reconnected with friends from back home who I didn’t know were students at UF. I also have managed to have a sinus infection at least once a semester, so at least once a semester I’ve reached out to the Chabad for a matzah-ball soup delivery (a free service that is available to all UF and SFC students).
Now wrapping up my third year at UF, I attend Shabbat services sporadically with friends and make sure to sign up for High Holiday programs as soon as they’re announced. Judaism is an intrinsic part of my identity, but it is not a trait of my personhood that I speak of often. I enjoy speaking about my relationship with Judaism during moments and in environments where I feel it is appropriate, welcome and/or necessary. I hold immense gratitude for the UF Jewish community and Jewish community leaders for helping mend my experience as a Jewish Gator. For incoming and current students who are feeling a similar loss of identity while in Gainesville, I implore you to engage with cultural organizations on campus because there are plenty of communities in The Swamp where you belong.
UF PRISM 