My background is liberal Judaism—Judaism without skullcaps, regular synagogue attendance, or even the food laws. (Yes, we ate bacon!) But despite our lack of observance, I knew that I was Jewish rather than anything else.
At the age of 13 I had my bar mitzvah service, a coming-of-age ceremony in which I recited a passage from the Torah in Hebrew. I was glad to take part in it because I wanted to align myself with my Jewish ancestors. I was very conscious of the suffering experienced by my family during the Holocaust: my great-grandmother was murdered at Auschwitz; my great-aunt survived Auschwitz; and my great-uncle survived Mauthausen. They suffered simply for being Jewish. I wanted to honor that by standing in the same line of Jewishness.
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