When I looked around my class on my first day of Jewish day school, I wasn’t surprised to see that almost everyone had brown hair. At the time, I had just moved from sunny southern California, which was brimming with blondes such as myself. Despite this, I knew light hair would be far and few at my new school, and I ended up being only one of two blonds in my grade of 30 kids. I wasn’t bothered by this. I knew the typical image of a Jewish person is dark eyes and dark, curly hair, and while my hair is curly, my blond hair and light eyes don’t exactly match the job description. 

While my brother and I have been mistaken for twins, it can be hard to see the resemblance to our parents at first glance. Both my parents have brown hair and dark eyes. My dad is a very stereotypically Jewish-looking man. He’s short, with near-black curly hair, eyes as rich as the earth, and a prominent nose. My mother, on the other hand, doesn’t have the “typical Jewish look”. It’s no wonder; she’s not Jewish. 

My mother, with her graying light brown hair and hazel eyes, doesn’t have ancestral ties to Judaism, nor has she converted. When my dad, brother, and I stand by the fully lit Chanukiah on the eighth night of Hanukkah, she takes the picture. When we fast for Yom Kippur, my mother eats away from us. When on Passover we ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” she has no idea what the answer is. My mother isn’t Jewish, and by traditional Jewish law, this means I’m not a Jew–or at least not a “full” one. 

But I’ve felt, recently especially, that that description was faulty. It seemed to discount me, my authenticity, and my Judaism. A Jew “half off”. Four years ago, if someone told me I was a “half-Jew,” I would have shrugged, or maybe even said, “Seems about right”. Four years ago, I didn’t feel as connected to my Judaism as I do now. Yes, I lit the Shabbat candles, but I didn’t know what Havdalah was. I didn’t know what Purim, Passover, Rosh Hashanah, or Yom Kippur meant. If you asked me the first letter of the Aleph-Bet, I would have absently blinked at you. 

So what changed between now and then? Well, the answer has a few parts; I joined a Jewish Day School, which provided me with constant and pluralistic Judaism in my everyday life. I spent my seventh and eighth-grade years coordinating Purim costumes with my friends, sitting on the basketball court for school-wide Kabbalat Shabbat, finding wonder and curiosity for learning Hebrew, and taking a Jewish studies class to deepen my understanding and empathy for our people. This was a whole new world for me, it felt bizarre that I had this extraordinary attribute inside me all along, and that it had taken me this long to truly see it. My family was still reform, but I now knew what that even meant. 

Of course, when those two years ended and I had to continue to a new school, I knew my involvement with Judaism would be tested. But what ended up happening was a swap. A swap of one form of Jewish community for another. 

While I joined BBYO in eighth grade, I didn’t start coming consistently until ninth grade, initially just as an opportunity to see my friends from middle school. Since then, it’s become so much more profound, and I consider it one of my active ties to how I practice Judaism. Additionally, I started taking Hebrew lessons outside of school as an extra language. Maybe my connection to Judaism would survive the severance from my Jewish day school after all.

At first, I considered that my Judaism would waver, but now I see that there was never really a chance of that. With the way I am Jewish, I don’t go to services, I don’t even belong to a synagogue, I don’t know all the prayers by heart, and I don’t keep kosher. But that’s never been what Judaism is to me. Judaism is a community, a passion for auxiliary, and singing for peace and healing. When I wrap my arms around my friends during Havdalah, and we shout out to the world “Shavua Tov,” I know that I’m a Jew. No percentage or fraction could ever define how I’m connected to my religion in my way, unless it’s 100%, 10/10, all in. When I close my eyes during Shabbat, I’m flooded with an overwhelming sense of belonging and connection in the darkness. When I see someone wearing a Magen David, I smile a little extra wide at them; I know they’re family. I want to learn more about Hebrew, prayers, traditions, Torah, and what it means to be a Jew. I want my love to ooze out of my heart and infect others, repairing the world piece by piece. I want my knowledge and love for Judaism to grow as I do, and to pass it on to my kids one day. 

So, when my children are faced with the concept of a “half Jew”, they’ll know to blink and shake their heads; their mother is Jewish, and so are they, in the most fervently vibrant way.