How can you be Jewish? You're Chinese!

Yep, that's the look I usually get when I tell people that we are Jewish. I don't know why it is such a surprise to people. Maybe it's because we don't look Jewish? (And what does Jewish look like anyway?) Isn't Judaism a religion and aren't we all free to chose what religion we want to be? Oh....I know - it's that whole race vs. religion thing right? Well, when they put a "J" for Jewish checkbox next to the W, B, H and A on all those silly forms we fill out in life, then you can talk to me about the race thing. (Oh, but if they do that, do I check the "J" box or the "A" box or am I allowed to check both?)

For whatever reason our Judaism is such a surprise, I tell the story quite often, so here it is out in the Blogosphere for all to see. I wish I could tell some great story like I traced my lineage to the Jews of Keifeng or explain it by saying that my neshama was at Mount Sinai and for whatever reason, G-d decided that my neshama should be in Chinese body this time around, but the story is less grandiose.

Remember the movie "The Jerk" with Steve Martin? It started with him saying, "I was born a poor black child..." It goes on to the point where he realizes that this was not really the case and he is something totally different. I feel like that sometimes.

Both of my parents are 100% Chinese. I was born in New York (isn't that where most Jews in the Diaspora are born?) My parents divorced when I was 2-years old and shortly thereafter my mother married a Jewish man. I didn't know until I was around 13 or so that this man was not my father. (The fact that I looked nothing like him or his family apparently meant nothing to me.) Many of my childhood memories are that of a Jewish child in a Jewish household...Shabbats, holidays, typical Jewish Grandmother, typical Jewish Great-Grandmother (who made the BEST gefilite fish and latkes!), etc.

Fast forward a bunch of years to when I adopted LO in China. Since halakha does not consider adoption a blood relation, I knew that LO would need to be converted. And so I went to talk to our Rabbi about it. In the process we learned that my mother had never converted and that she had never converted me. So, not only did LO need to convert, I needed to convert! Since we keep kosher, we go to shul on every Shabbat, LO goes to Sunday school, and all of our non-work/non-school activities are shul related, my circle of friends has often dubbed me "the most Jewish of all". The irony of the fact that I was not "technically" Jewish became the brunt of much joking around. I was angry at first because I felt like a part of my identity that I had always known was actually a falsehood. The anger was short lived because the process of studying our beloved Torah and the several meetings with our Rabbi taught me so much and gave me an even greater love for Judaism than I already had. And so on the 6-year anniversary of the first day that I ever held LO in my arms, she and I did our tevillah and officially joined the people of Israel. Never has anything felt so "right".

Shabbat Shalom.