A wandering Jew

One of the great privileges of my life has been to live and study in communities around the world. While I went to these places to study something specific-language, culture, politics, environmental communications- I inevitably found myself learning Jewish lessons as well. Particularly lessons of how to find, or build, a community… when I’m the only Jew for miles.

Growing up in the Reform movement in the 1990s, the music of Debbie Friedman, Jeff Klepper, and Rabbi Larry Milder significantly shaped my understanding of being a Jewish person. Rabbi Milder’s song “Wherever You Go” was a particular comfort to me in my 20s, as I prepared to study abroad for the first time.

I was going to spend the fall semester of my junior year of college in Spain, from which the Jewish people were famously expelled in 1492. I can count and, therefore, knew this event took place more than 600 years ago. And yet, I felt this niggling concern that it would be difficult to find a Jewish community in Barcelona. But Rabbi Milder’s song assured me that: “Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish.”

The rabbi may have been a tad optimistic.

I spent my first few weeks in Barcelona searching for synagogues, only to be met with disconnected phone lines and dead ends. I spent Rosh Hashanah of 2012 walking around the city alone. It was a meaningful chance to reflect, but I ached from the absence of community.

When I moved to Scotland for graduate school 12 years later, I was determined to have a more connected Jewish experience. I found a Reform synagogue outside of Glasgow and bought my High Holidays tickets before even booking my flight. The problem was, I did not live in Glasgow. I lived in a small town in southwest Scotland called Dumfries, which unbeknownst to me, was about 2.5 hours away from the synagogue on public transit. If I wanted to attend services, I’d need to carve out at least two days and book a hotel.

I made the trip for Yom Kippur but just couldn’t make it work for the other Jewish holidays. However, unlike in Spain, I did not feel alone. And that was due to an entirely different community: my classmates. Thanks to the incredible friends I made from India, the Maldives, Egypt, Ghana, China, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., I did not spend a single holiday alone, Jewish or otherwise.

We celebrated our holidays and festivals together. We ate homemade matzah ball soup and lit candles for Shabbat and Chanukah. We had dance parties for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We had a massive potluck and made dumplings together for the Chinese New Year. We celebrated Diwali with syrupy sweets and art projects. We stayed up late with our friends celebrating Ramadan, enjoying sweet black tea while they broke their fast.

We held each other as war broke out in the Middle East. We walked arm in arm when anti-immigrant protests and racist rhetoric made some of us afraid to go out alone.

When I think of being Jewish in Scotland, here’s the image that comes to mind: One night, my friends and I-a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, and a Catholic (no joke!)-spent Shabbat evening together, making dinner and talking about friendship, love, and G-d/gods. as I showed them how to braid challah, we compared stories of creation, homework interpretations, and celebrity crushes. When the evening ended, we walked home together down cobbled streets, pausing every so often to look at the stars.

Jenna Cohen is a marketing and communications professional living in Chicago. She recently earned her master’s degree in Environment, Culture, and Communication from the University of Glasgow – Dumfries.