Identifying as a Jew on campus

By Melinda Mindy Ribner

It may have been in my second or third year of undergraduate school when I began wearing a Jewish Star of David and identifying myself publicly as a Jew. At the time, I was not affiliated with any synagogue and was not learning Torah. I knew lots of Jews, but I didn’t know anyone who identified in public as a Jew or wore a Jewish star (“Magen David”). Choosing to wear one visibly at that time was actually a demonstration of considerable courage and faith on my part. Yet I also felt that I had no choice so the world could see me as a Jew.

It was the late 1960s and ‘70s, and on the very day that my parents dropped me off for my freshman year, we were greeted with a nude protest on the front lawn of the main campus building. We walked through the group with our heads down. My parents were speechless; I don’t recall ever talking to them about what we witnessed. I was confused but also inwardly excited by how outrageous, and unconventional college life would be.

I remember feeling like a farm girl from Idaho next to the sophisticated students from New York City. I grew up very sheltered, attended a high school with only 60 people in my grade, and was involved in Jewish extracurricular activities. I didn’t have many dates, as my father would not allow me to stay out past 10 PM. Now here I was in college, living on my own.

My roommate that year was a beautiful Jewish woman from Long Island, N.Y., with long, bleached-blond Cleopatra-style hair, who sported mini-skirts and pearls. She looked more like a model or movie star than a college student. In our few limited conversations, she distinguished herself as a worldly sage who clearly knew more about life than I did. Much to my chagrin, she spent only the first two or three nights in the room with me. I had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Occasionally, she stopped by briefly for a change of clothing. By January, however, she dropped out of college completely to travel with a graduate student she had been living with. So I basically had a private room.

In those early months of college, I was confronted for the first time with promiscuity, drugs, tear gas, and a variety of alternative lifestyles and ideologies. I so much wanted to belong and participate in the visionary awakening taking place on the college campus. I was attracted to the universality, expansiveness and spirit of egalitarianism of the ideology being promulgated in and out of classes.

I was excited, even thrilled, to meet and dialogue with the kinds of people I would never have met in my small private high school. I was amazed that I even had conversations with charismatic leaders of Communist/Socialist anti-American revolutionary movements right in the college meeting center. But when these radical socialists began to denounce Israel, I knew I could no longer associate myself with them; bashing Israel was a red line— then and now—that I would never cross.

I became confused about who I really was. My values were challenged. Was I simply a product of my parental, societal, or peer values, or did I have a more transcendental, more essential inner self? Why was I born? What was my purpose? What is life? I was haunted by deep existential questions. Life itself felt like an existential question. Even though I was popular in college and had dates most nights, I was lonely and troubled. Taking courses in sociology and philosophy only added to my anxiety and discomfort. Therapy offered me no relief. In my despair and loneliness, I called out to G-d and began to meditate on my own.

My inner life was rich, deep, and intense. I talked to G-d, and then I listened deep inside. In an effort to diminish my personal anguish, I sought to attach myself to G-d. G-d became the only source of inner strength for me in a world that I felt was going mad.

In the midst of my loneliness and despair, I sought out a campus rabbi. He advised me not to think so much and to take up a physical activity, like swimming. He also recommended some Jewish books that addressed the existential questions that so deeply troubled my soul. I became ecstatic meditating on these teachings, and no longer felt so alone; still, I had no one to talk to about what was taking place within me.

One day, I happened to listen to a folk song that implied that it was cowardice not to tell the world that G-d is your healer, G-d is your strength. The words were something like: “You come to G-d in secret, G-d heals you, gives you strength, and yet you hide that experience and are afraid to tell the world Who healed you.” It was at that moment that I decided to wear my Jewish star; I knew that I had to let the world know that I believed in G-d. It would be an act of cowardice and inauthentic of me to pretend otherwise.

The Jewish star was my signal to G-d, to myself and to others that I believed and trusted in G-d, as a Jew. No matter what has happened to me—and I have experienced many extraordinary challenges and hardships—the Jewish star has always reminded me that G-d was, and is, my strength and my refuge.

Some days when I wore the star, it felt dangerous to expose it. Nevertheless, I continued to wear it. I still wear it today.

In time, I found wonderful Jewish teachers, books, practices, friends and students who have helped me fulfill my soul’s purpose. I began teaching Jewish meditation in the early 1980s and have continually done so since then.

I feel called upon to share this story now because I know that a spiritual story can open gates for people. There may be people who are suffering, anxious and confused by what is happening in the world or in their personal lives who will be encouraged by this story—encouraged to listen to their own souls and deepen their relationship with G-d and Torah. What they are looking for can be found.

- Melinda Mindy Ribner, a spiritual psychotherapist in private practice, is the author of Kabbalah Month by Month, The Secret Legacy Of Biblical Women, and other books.