By Chloe Baker, Senior Opinions Editor
How do you play Jewish geography when at first glance, you don’t have anything in common with those you are playing it with?
Since I was a kid, I have always loved icebreaker games. Part of this love comes from the inner journalist in me. I love questions, questioning, getting to know people and forming connections with them. Although icebreaker questions can sometimes be quite shallow, like ‘what’s your favorite ice cream flavor’ or ‘what kitchen utensil do you most identify with,’ others, like ‘who is one person dead or alive you would want to have dinner with and why?’can lead to more understanding on who the person’s role models are and where their interests lie.
In August 2023, I found myself in Stern College for Women’s Koch Auditorium, excited but nervous for the beginning of a new chapter – college. Coming off of the highs of seminary, where I excelled socially and made many friends, I came in excited to meet new people and have new experiences, despite how sad I was about what I deemed to be the ‘best chapter of my life’ being over.
Because I am social and friendly, I never thought I would have a hard time making friends. Yet, as I found myself in Koch Auditorium, awkwardly standing around, speaking to people who were only half interested in our conversation, and just as nervous as I was, I encountered an icebreaker question that I now hate getting asked, more than anything.
‘Where did you go to high school?’ These seven words have become a vulnerability for me. I never thought this question would be such a defining factor in how people viewed me, and that it would carry as much weight as it does.
I loved high school. I was part of student council, on the softball team, an editor for the school paper and a singer in the choir. I attended events and left my mark on my school. I never thought twice about the school I attended until I came to Yeshiva University. My answer to those seven words that became dreaded are, “I went to public school in high school.”
During that orientation at YU, those words changed everything. Suddenly, the person across from me, who thought I was exactly like them based on my outer appearance, began to take less and less interest, not just in our conversation, but in me as a person. If we couldn’t play Jewish geography and find out what people or which institutions we had in common, what could we do? What was the point of continuing this conversation if it couldn’t get us anywhere?
“I went to public school in high school” became the separating factor between me and most of my peers. This tension caused me to develop a defense mechanism. “Yeah, but I didn’t go to public school my whole life.” “I actually went to Jewish day school for many years.” “I went to sleepaway camp when I was a kid too.” I developed these defense mechanisms because I didn’t like the way other people perceived me, now that they knew I went to public school.
People either thought I wasn’t frum, or that I was an ‘NCSY flipout.’ Neither of these options are true.
I did not grow up frum, but I did not grow up secular either. I attended Jewish day school for years, a Jewish sleepaway camp, my family always attended an Orthodox synagogue, and I grew up very connected to my Judaism. It was almost as if admitting that I went to public school completely erased any trace of my very significant Jewish background. Admitting I attended public school has subjected me to questions such as ‘how do you know how to read Hebrew?’ I have often been described as ‘coming from no Jewish background.’
I came to realize that in the YU world, where you went to high school is often viewed as identifying way more than where you received your education and diploma. For many, it is an indication of the community they come from, their social or economic status or how ‘frum’ their family is. Basic sociology teaches us that opposites in fact, do not attract, and that people like to associate with those they have things in common with.
But where do we draw a line?
In this insular YU community, it amazes me how much emphasis is placed on where one attended high school, which, in the real world, has absolutely no meaning. No matter how significant high school was for me, or how much I enjoyed it at the time, I have long moved on. It has now been three years since I graduated. So much has changed. Why am I still tying myself down to, or making my identity attached to an institution I once attended?
This is a question I ask of you all, the readers, who maybe find themselves guilty of placing way too much emphasis on where they went to high school, or who look at those who attended public school differently than those who attended Yeshiva day school. Why are we so trapped in our ideological or hashkafic differences that we cannot continue a conversation with someone who we deem has nothing in common with us, because they do not come from the same community as us?
While I still hate being asked this question, it is not something that I let define me. With time, and increased involvement in school activities and student life, I have made many amazing friends at YU and carved out my own unique path here, just as I did in high school and seminary. I have found people who care way more about other, more important things than just where we attended high school or what communities we come from. I have not let myself fall victim to this institution’s insularity, and I can confidently say that I love it here.
I love it here, and I feel at home, but I shouldn’t have to feel like I always have to defend myself and overcompensate for things when I speak about where I come from.
Jewish geography is not everything, and we have way more things in common with each other than we think. Playing Jewish geography with someone you think you have nothing in common with is paradoxical.
After all, isn’t the commonality found in the first word of the game? We are both Jewish, and that should be enough.