My Confusion and I

20th of January 1942 was the day when a group of people, that had turned into animals, established the final solution. The solution how they would get rid of anyone of jewish heritage for no other reason than that they were jewish. 50 years later, on the day, I was born. I am far from the only one that can claim to be a living proof that their solution didn't succeed and even if I was the only one I would have exactly the same responsibility to make sure that this horrible part of our history will never be forgotten. When I talk about the holocaust I do not only talk about the jewish people, I talk about my own history, my family and a part of who I am. As a 3rd generation survivor I cannot say that I understood what the victims went through, doing that would be disrespectful and nonchalant. It is impossible to imagine hell on earth if you never experienced it and thank G-D I haven't. However, as a 3rd generation survivor I can be a witness of my grandparents stories. I have th...

I was born Jewish. By saying this I mean that I was born having parents that practice the Jewish faith. Because of this I was raised to believe in God, follow certain rules and participate in several different festivals. My parents never told me God existed but it was pretty much implied by the way they encouraged me to go to the synagogue to pray and say all types of blessings before Friday night dinner and lighting candles. Even my name is Jewish so lets face it, there was no way I could grow up without considering myself Jewish. As I grew up it was simply just a given thing. I was Jewish and therefore should believe certain things and behave a certain way. Lately my thought process has changed though. Not because I don't like some of the Jewish traditions but because I (after a very long time) stepped out of my comfort zone and religion wasn't a thing handed to me anymore. I got the freedom to explore how I really feel about religion and what I've learnt is that ther...

Tonight it's Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement for us jews. This day is for us to repent our sins and ask G-d for forgiveness if we've done something wrong this year, which we all have even if you think you're perfect. One thing we are also suppose to do is to ask the people around us for forgiveness which leads to a bunch of Facebook statuses and text messages saying "I'm sorry if I've done something to upset you this year". I tend to ignore these messages for one reason; If you don't know what you have done, why the hell are you apologising for it? As a child I was taught that if you say you're sorry you should mean it and by meaning it you're not planning on doing it again. This mentality then creates an issue with apologising collectively because you don't actually know what you have done wrong which means that you're not going to change it, not because you don't want to but because you simply don't know that it is upsetting...

Let me tell you a story. It's not long but it's an important one. It starts with 3 innocent boys on their way home from school and it ends with 3 bodies being found a couple of weeks later. This isn't a nightmare, this isn't a made up story. It's the truth about Gilad, Naftali and Eyal. 3 innocent boys that got kidnapped and killed. What for you might ask? Because there are people in this world that don't behave like humans and feel the need to kidnap innocent people and kill them. No words can describe the grief we're feeling. I didn't know these boys but knowing they had done nothing means that it could have been me, my friend or even my brother. But it doesn't matter if I knew them or not. They were a part of our nation, our religion and a part of our hearts. Even if you don't believe in God they were a part of our prayers since the day they got kidnapped. The whole nation is mourning the loss of Gilad, Naftali and Eyal. We are asking for ...

A little bit over a week ago 3 innocent boys where kidnapped in Israel. Some might say they were on occupied territory, some might say they were in Israel. To me it doesn't matter. These boys had not harmed anyone. They were simply trying to get to somewhere by doing what they usually do, hitch-hike, when they got taken away without anyone knowing where they are. 3 mothers, 3 fathers are waiting for their sons to return. They are going everyday without knowing if their sons are alive. Personally, I can't imagine that feeling. I don't think anyone can but there is one feeling I can have about the situation and that feeling is frustration. As a Jew I very often have to defend Israel. People often ask me if I agree with Israel killing innocent people and if I think it's ok for Jews to live on the West Bank. I usually answer them with my opinion because I'm not afraid to say what I stand for but in this situation my opinion about what Israel does doesn't matter. T...

This year jews around the world (mostly in America) will experience something that only will happen once in our life, thanksgiving will be at the same time as Chanukkah. For me this won't change anything, I will still light my chanukkah candles and give my gifts away and then move on with my life enjoying the atmosphere of friends and family getting together just to relax. One thing that has struck me is how people seem to be obsessed with this coincidence and they have therefore invented a new name for it: Thanksgivukkah. It seems like they've invented a new holiday and are trying to combine these two holidays into one and make the traditions work together but personally I really don't believe they go together if you don't realise what it is that we're actually celebrating and combine them in a valuable way. For me Chanukkah is the holiday when kids get their gifts and compete with each other who got the best gift, even if this is not the purpose of the holida...