On Being an American Jew

And the absolute miracle of having been born when I was, where I was

A few days ago, my mother posted this picture on Facebook, and although I must have seen it before, I didn’t remember it, and so it was like seeing it for the first time.

Back row: Charles, Mickey, Albert, Eddie, Front row: Josie, Lake Sr., Lake Jr.

It was a crisp autumn day when she posted it, and on days like that, I am always already missing my Aunt Josie, who was as much of a grandmother as I got, and better than most. And I’m missing her on those days because the slant of the light, the chill in the air, mean the holiday season is about to begin and we’re going to be going to her house for big family dinners. The house in this picture, which her father built, was that house. It’s across the street from Ritter Park and nestled among other houses that were built in a time when the city was on the rise. (It’s fallen and risen a few times since, though happily is has been going through a renaissance for quite a while now.)

They are there because first AI, Lake’s oldest brother, and then the rest of the family, made the journey from Linkuva, Lithuania to the US. The boys (and they were boys at the time) each picked up a pack and peddled through rural West Virginia until they earned their way to better lives. As the youngest, Lake had opportunities his brothers didn’t. A Christian family in Alderson, WV took him in so that he could go to high school, and from there he went to medical school where he became an ophthalmologist. His children went into the family business, grew and expanded it, and then many of their children either did the same, or left the area and went on to other but equally good lives.

Houses in Linkuva near the old synagogue, so very likely at least the neighborhood where Lake and his family lived when he was a child.

The first picture was probably taken in the late 1920s or early 1930s. It’s a picture of a safe, prosperous American family who happen to be Jewish, which was itself an entirely new thing to be. In Europe, they had been Jews who happened to live in Lithuania.

Josie was born in 1918, and so into a time before women could vote, though of course by the time she was old enough, women had been enfranchised. In her lifetime, the status of women would dramatically change in this country, and she would be one of the many women driving those changes, as would the women of our next generation, who have always been civically engaged and worked toward civil rights for all.

And thanks to all of this, I was born into a world where I have been safe, equal, and free in a way that Lake’s mother, Sheva Baila, could not have imagined when she sent A.I. from Lithuania to the new world to forge a path for the family.

Sheva Baila Polan

I’m telling you this because I have a lot of friends referring to this moment in history as “unprecedentedly dark.” But I don’t think that’s true. I think that most people, in most times, have lead very difficult lives under repressive governments that privileged the very few on the backs of the great many. Certainly the Czarist Russia that my family left was such a place. If you were born an American, chances are good that unless your family came as enslaved people or is indigenous to this place, they also came looking for greater freedom and opportunity, and perhaps as refugees from unthinkable violence.

This plaque commemorates the Soviet Occupation, and overlooks the square where dissidents were killed and their bodies left to rot as a warning to others. It’s about a block from the old synagogue, and a handful of miles from the site where more than 400 Jews were gathered and murdered in one day during WWII.

I think what was unprecedented was the freedom, safety, and equality I experienced growing up. It was the nation we had made—all of us, we Americans—and which many of us have been working to make more equal, free, and safe (because it certainly has not been as much so for all who reside here as it has been for me). And while I worry about what is to come, I don’t think it will be something unusual. Rather, I think we must cling to the knowledge that what has been unusual is our ability to work for a more free, just, and equal society unhindered—at least so far—by fears of prison, deportation, or death, and we must keep that memory alive toward holding onto or rebuilding that society as others try to take us away from it.

I am a Jewish woman who has never been denied the full benefits of citizenship because of my Jewishness or my sex. I have never feared I would be targeted in a pogrom (though I have certainly experienced antisemitism) or jailed for being a dissident when I have—often—spoken up against my government. And that is a miracle for which I am very, very grateful. It’s the miracle of being an American. Oppression, bigotry, and violence are not uniquely American problems. But the miracle of a Jewish family—now seven generations in this place—living so long and so safely in one place is a uniquely American story. It’s a story I value, and a safety and equality I wish were extended to all people. Let’s not forget that the privilege of having been born into such a time and place is rare, and comes with the obligation to work toward protecting the progress we’ve made, and working to make more progress, even in hard times.

Shabbat Shalom, friends. Get some rest. We have work to do.