Jewish Identity
USY on Wheels Bus A 2014- Amanda Phillips
Goals
- Reflect on each individuals’ Jewish identity and what defines them both Jewishly and non
Jewishly
- Explore the controversial issues of tattoos through the Conservative movement and
traditional texts
Intro Activity (in pairs)
What is it that makes you YOU?
A. Would you still be you if…
1. You had a different name?
2. You had a different face?
3. You had different fingerprints?
4. You had a different religion?
5. You had different parents?
6. You were raised in China?
B. What about if...
1. You lost your memory?
2. You changed schools?
3. Your tastes changed?
4. You changed your religion?
5. You disowned your heritage?
6. You changed the way you dressed?
Andrew Lustig Text OR YouTube video
A. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJe0uqVGZJA
B. Text (see below)
1. Can you connect to or relate to the words in Lustig’s poem? Which parts and why?
2. Lustig claims that while writing the essay he asked himself “Who am I” and then started
writing. Take a minute and think- how would you write about your Jewish identity?
3. What do you think makes Lustig himself after reading/listening to his poem? What are the
similarities/ differences between him and you?
4. He says that growing up his Jewish identity was his own choice. Who/What has played a
role in helping you create your Jewish identity?
CONCLUSION: Andrew Lustig used his poem as a way of self -expression to illustrate his Jewish
identity and who he is. What are other ways that people (both religious and secular) express
themselves? (Lead the Wheelniks to get to the answer: tattoos)
*After they list of some forms of self- expression, hold up a few pictures of tattoos and ask what
they think of them. (see below, need print separately)
Show pictures of tattoo people
Jewish Identity 1
Picture Questions:
1. Do you think any differently of these people because of what they have on their bodies?
2. How do these images reflect tzniut?
3. Does Judaism allow for us to get tattoos? Be buried in a Jewish cemetery?
While asking these questions, have Wheelniks look at the source sheet to discuss the laws of tattoos
in Judaism
Source Sheet Questions:
1. What issue did the text raise?
2. What do you think about the text? What is the situation regarding those who have tattoos
from the Holocaust? Is it clear that they are blameless?
Read the Tattoo articles (only might get through one article)
Article Discussion Questions:
A.
1. Ms. Sagir says that because of the tattoo she is able to tell her grandfather’s story. Is this the best
way to tell his story? What significance does having that tattoo mean to Ms. Sagir and her
grandfather?
2. Do you also think that it is shocking to see the numbers on a young person? Would you ask why
if you saw such a thing?
3. Do you think that tattooing the numbers creates a stronger bond for the family?
4. Do you think that it is better to get this type of tattoo rather than one similar to the ones we saw
above?
B.
1. Do you agree with the statements made and the opinion of the author?
2. Does the tattoo or could it possibly preserve the horrific memories of the Holocaust?
CONCLUSION: Our Jewish identities are still growing and everyone characterizes themselves
with different trait and through different ways of expression. Here we saw some creative art
forms both with the tattoos and Lustig’s poem as well as read some controversial topics on
tattoos related to the Holocaust. Encourage Wheelniks to continue to think about what makes
them who they are throughout the rest of the trip and post summer
Jewish Identity 2
“I am Jewish”
Andrew Lustig
I am the collective pride and excitement that is felt when we find out that that new actor, that
great athlete, his chief of staff... is Jewish I am the collective guilt and shame that is felt when we
find out that that serial killer, that Ponzi schemer, that wife beater... is Jewish I am the Jewish star
tattooed on the chest of the teenager who chooses to rebel against his parents' and grandparents'
warnings of a lonely goyim cemetery by embracing that same Judaism and making permanent his
Jewish identity I am all the words in Yiddish I've been called all my life that I still don't
understand. I am going to all three Phish shows this weekend. I am my melody of Adon Olam. I
am my melody of Adon Olam. The words may be the same but I am my melody of Adon Olam.I am
not getting Bar Mitzvahed. I am a Bar Mitzvah. I am a concept foreign to the rest of the world. I
am not Judaism. I am sleep-away camp .I am your grandmother who's seen Chortkov and
Auschwitz, who's seen '49, '67, and '73 and whose tired of trying to make peace with those
people who just want to blow up buses and destroy her people. I am the 19 year old who's seen
Budrus, Don't Mess With the Zohan, and Waltz with Bashir and who thinks -- who knows -- peace
is possible .I am the complicated reason you take the cheese off of the burger you eat at the
Saturday morning tailgate. I am constantly struggling to understand my Jewish identity outside
of religion. I am the Torah and not the Old Testament I am a Kepah and not a Skull Cap I am a Jew
and not an Israeli5,000 years old... not 60A religion, not a country I am never asked if I have
horns or a pot of gold, if I rule the world or why I killed Jesus. I am asked where my black hat is, if
I really get 8 presents on my Christmas, why my sideburns aren't super long, and if I've really
never tried bacon. I am asked what a Gefilte Fish is. I say, "I don't know. I don't like it. Nobody
does. But we eat it because its what we do. “I am asked if my dad's a lawyer. I say "no... my mom
is... my dad's an accountant. “I am asked if my grandparents were in the Holocaust as if it were a
movie. "Yeah, they were. But luckily they were also on Schindler's List." I am on JDate and
not Match.com because, well, it's just easier that way.I am that feeling of obligation to buy the
Dead Sea salt at the mall kiosk because you know the woman's Israeli .I am an IDF sweatshirt and
the Chai around your neck. I am a $100 Challah cover you will never use and a 5 Shekel piece of
red string you will wear until it withers away. I am your Hebrew name. I am your Israeli cousins.
I am your Torah portion and your 13 candles. I am your Bat Mitzvah dress and the cute Israeli
soldier on your Birthright trip. I am 18 when I discover that Israel is not actually a garden of
Eden of milk and honey where Jews of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and styles of worship come
together -- eternally happy and appreciative -- to do a constant Hora in the streets of the
promised land.I am still confident it will be. I am the way your stomach forgets to be hungry and
your lungs forget to breathe when the Rabbi commands the final Tekiah Gadolah and an entire
congregation -- a congregation that is not any one synagogue but an entire people -- listens to
what on January 1st is a ball dropping in Times Square, but today -- any day in late September or
early October for the 5770th time is a Ram's horn being blown into for what seems like 10
minutes, like the 8 days the oil burned, and how David defeated Goliath, and how Moses parted
the seas -- it would have been enough, dayenu -- how we won the war, and how your
grandparents survived, Nes Gadol Haya Sham -- Shana Tova -- time for bagels and lox. I am
Jewish.
Jewish Identity 3
What is it that makes you who YOU are?
A. Would you still be you if…
1. You had a different name?
2. You had a different face?
3. You had different fingerprints?
4. You had a different religion?
5. You had different parents?
6. You were raised in China?
B. What about if...
1. You lost your memory?
2. You changed schools?
3. Your tastes changed?
4. You changed your religion?
5. You disowned your heritage?
6. You changed the way you dressed?
Source Sheet:
Torah:
“You Shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on
yourselves: I am the Lord (Leviticus 19:28)”
Mishnah:
“If a man wrote (on his skin) pricked in writing he is not culpable unless he writes
it and pricks it in with ink or eye paint or anything that leaves a lasting mark
(Mishnah Makkot 3:6)”
Shulchan Aruch:
“If the tattoo was done in the flesh of another, the one to whom it was done is blameless
(Yoreh De'ah 180:2)”
Jewish Identity 4
New York Times “Proudly Bearing Elders’ Scars, Their Skin Says
‘Never Forget’”
By Jodie Rudoren
“JERUSALEM — When Eli Sagir showed her grandfather, Yosef Diamant, the new tattoo on her
left forearm, he bent his head to kiss it.
Mr. Diamant had the same tattoo, the number 157622, permanently inked on his own arm by the
Nazis at Auschwitz. Nearly 70 years later, Ms. Sagir got hers at a hip tattoo parlor downtown
after a high school trip to Poland. The next week, her mother and brother also had the six digits
inscribed onto their forearms. This month, her uncle followed suit….
“All my generation knows nothing about the Holocaust,” said Ms. Sagir, 21, who has had the
tattoo for four years…. I decided to do it to remind my generation: I want to tell them my
grandfather’s story and the Holocaust story.”
“We are moving from lived memory to historical memory,” noted Michael Berenbaum, a
professor at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles who is among the foremost scholars
of the memorialization of the Holocaust. “We’re at that transition, and this is sort of a brazen, inyour-face way of bridging it.”
Mr. Berenbaum said that “replicating an act that destroyed their name and made them into a
number would not be my first or second or third choice,” but, he added, “it sure beats some of the
other tattoos that some of the young people are drawing on their skin.”
“It’s shocking when you see the number on a very young girl’s hand,” Ms. Sagir said. “It’s very
shocking. You have to ask, Why?”
Jewish Identity 5
JPost Opinion Article: “Tattooing the Holocaust” By Joseph Bendah
“The amount of people getting such tattoos is small, but it is a growing, controversial trend that
is seen as offensive to both survivors and the greater Jewish community.
Regardless of your views on how the Torah was given, whether by God, man, or divine
inspiration, its prohibition on marking the skin is clear. The Nazis sought to destroy the very basis
of the Jewish people, not only with murder, but also by undermining their faith.
Whether by cutting beards and sidelocks of Orthodox Jews or tattooing identification numbers,
these practices were used to permanently undermine the Jewish foundation.
The tattoos given to those in the Holocaust were forced, in order to dehumanize Jews. If people
had been given a choice in being marked, the number would not be on their arm.
With the practices that Nazis forced upon the Jewish people continuing, this time self-inflicted, the
inhumane nature of the Nazis remains alive. By resisting the continuation, you are making a statement
that the Jews survived, while the Nazi memory is dead.
The act of tattooing a family member’s number to your skin does not keep the memory of the
Holocaust alive, knowledge does. Knowledge gained through reading first-hand accounts and
traveling to the sites, which eventually leads to the ability to educate the next generation.
To those contemplating getting a tattoo of a family member’s number, I want to pose a question: Does
the tattoo truly preserve the horrific memories of the Holocaust if it subsequently offends the majority
of survivors and wider Jewish society? In order to truly preserve your family member’s Holocaust
memory, resist the offensive tattoo, fight the Nazi attempt to undermine Jewish foundations, and
dehumanization of the Jewish people.
Most importantly, spread the knowledge by writing their story down. After you complete the story,
share it with anyone willing to read or listen. Ink used thus will go much further in preserving the
memory of a loved one than ink in your skin.”
Jewish Identity 6
Jewish Identity 7