Lernen, lernen... yes but how ?

It was my last year in middle school and I was 15, I had to decide which high school I'll have to attend in September, and I had absolutely no idea... my favorites courses were languages (spanish, english) and earth sciences ! The dream of my life : I wanted to become a volcanologist ;). Or I wanted to study english and become a teacher, and for that I decided to pursue my studies in Australia... of course I was too young and my parents disagreed !

At the end, the only option I had was to think about what were my interests, and as I loved travelling and I could easily use foreign languages, I decided that working in tourism business would be nice ! I went to Catering-Hotel management School since this isn't really tourism, but people told me I could still work as a Receptionnist (It turned out that I left the first year of my 2-year-program Diploma because I learnt very little about hotel management, and more about cooking and dinig room service... and it was a very strict private school, far from home... nothing that I liked ;)

During summer vacation I went to the Alps with my father like every August, my sister and nephews and cousins joined us for a whole month, it was fun and I met new friends. Among the new friends I met, there was a Jewish boy who was 7 year older than me, and for some reasons he showed me a lot of attention and we got closer. It was for me an opportunity to get to know more about Jewish people and Judaism and it was what one calls "a summer love" and didn't really kept in touch with him after that.
After vacations, back to the city and school and daily life... daily life ? not for me anymore ! I wanted to know everything about judaism now that I met this boy so I asked my father to let me use Internet at home to do researches for school... I never used Internet for school ;)

One day, I decided to go to the jewish neighborhood on saturday and wait for a Jew in the streets and ask him about any class of jewish studies. I was afraid to talk to a stranger and I didn't even know what to say exactly. I think I waited for the entire afternoon, on a bench, until someone crossed my path... and I saw a man, dressed in black, I wasn't sure yet if he was jewish or not so I ran and asked him "excuse me sir, but... are you jewish ?", at the answer "yes" I realized it was my chance to speak or maybe look totally stupid without saying a word... so I told him that I had an interest in judaism and wanted to know where to learn about it. He asked me if I was Catholic, which I answered with hesitation "I guess, I mean my parents are..." then he asked me if I was willing to convert to Judaism, "Convert ? I don't know, I never thought about conversion, I am just curious about your religion and I would like to learn a little bit...". He simply said "No there is nothing for you then, I have to go"

I didn't understand why he was so cold and why I couldn't study judaism ? Because my parents are catholics ? Because I need to convert to be able to learn ? I was very disappointed, and I remembered a conversation I had with my uncle when I told him that I met a jewish boy during vacations, he said "you'll never be accepted by Jews, they are closed and they don't like non Jews". I was thinking "he's right !!" and I cried !

If I couldn't talk to people in real, maybe I could use Internet and chatrooms and forums to meet Jews ! That's what I did, but it didn't bring any satisfaction, no one was interested in teaching me because I wasn't jewish... But I am very stubborn and I spent hours and hours on internet every day typing the words "jews, judaism, israel, conversion". I also found a great tv show about all religions on sunday morning from 8am to noon... 9:15 quickly became my weekly "meeting" with Rabbi Josy Eisenberg ! This is how I started my learnings : TV, Radio, Internet...
But I still had this problem with my identity : not jewish = never accepted !

I had to write an essay about the Holocaust for school, I went to the jewish bookstore and asked the saleswoman about books I could read for this essay. I thought it would be beneficial to read books about judaism as well... The saleswoman asked me what kind of book I wanted, and I told her the same thing "I'm not jewish but interested in judaism, and I don't know where to learn and what to learn ?!", herself too wasn't very helpful.
I started thinking "what is wrong with me that nobody wants to tell me anything about judaism ??" I told one of my friend and she said that maybe it wasn't for me, maybe I shouldn't learn judaism that it wasn't worth !

The day had come at school where I had to give my speech about the Holocaust, and at the end, the teacher asked me if I was jewish... which I answered "yes I am" with a huge smile, I convinced myself and people that I was jewish and identify myself to a religion that I started loving, and I just felt... good !

First step into the long discovery ... It has to start somewhere

I sort of give up the writings for many months, not that I didn't want to write anymore, but I didn't really find time to just concentrate on my blog.

Last time I wrote, my post was about how I left christian religion to look for something else, something new inside of me : my own spirituality and beliefs.

I think for a few years (maybe from the age of 11 to 14) I questionned myself a lot, then just gave up tormenting my soul, then asked myself again, sometimes thought I should still adress my prayers to G-d so He could open up the doors of His knowledgements and finally take the real and only path... all without success !

I was in a public middle school, where most of pupils were from immigration and didn't really know french language or culture, refugees from Albania, Yoguslavia, Africa, Irak etc, also lots of Muslims from North Africa (born in France but having difficult time to integrate the french school system and way of life, eventually delinquents). I think it's important to mention this detail for the understanding of the next paragraph and future posts.

I will always remember my history-geograpy teacher, he was a Jew from Morocco. At that time I didn't know he was jewish, but I found it cool to get to know about someone jewish in school, where the majority was Muslim. I also remember of discovering antisemitism in school, where a young teacher's assistant was constantly insulted by a group of boys, because they thought he was jewish... I didn't understand what was wrong with being jewish and why they would insult him for being so ?!

the following year, I had a different history-geograpy teacher, a woman, who was also jewish (but I didn't know), and I think this year had a huge impact in my life... We started learning about the Second World War.
I knew what happened, because my father was 12 years old during the war and he told me about what happened between France and Germany, and when the teacher taught us about what really happened in details, I asked a lot to my father even if it was hard, I felt guilty make him remembering about the terrible time he went through, losing family, house, forced to exil without anything to eat, nowhere to sleep, had to hide from the germans and remembering him and his siblings as orphans... just writing this is hard for me, anyway...

We were studying about the Final Solution, and Hitler's goals... I think I just listened, wrote and learnt as a good student, of course I didn't understand and the same question over and over again "WHY?", but one day my teacher decided to show us a video about the Shoah, and oh G-d this had affected me and never let me be the same person again after watching this...

I can still remember what I felt... Now this can sound very strange, but I felt empty, like... dead, of course I felt sad, and my eyes filled with tears and I was extremely shocked by the story and by the pictures and I remember this part of the film in the baraqs where this man was sooooo skinny and sick and hungry and ate his tissue, and other things that I don't want to describe...

At the end of the film, when the teacher turn on the lights, I think she was giving a speech but I couldn't hear her, all of me was paralyzed until one of my classmate started laughing and the teacher yelled at him and asked him what was so funny about all of this, and he simply answered "who care about them, they are just Jews"
How to explain what happened to me when I heard these words, I started crying, I wanted to scream, and I think if the teacher didn't send him away by force yelling at him, I would have grabbed my chair and hit him.

Okay, it was terrible statements to make, okay after watching the video one could have had the same reaction, but his words affected me personnaly, hit myself like he was insulted me, like I was myself jewish and I never ever understood why I felt like this that day...

And it was the beginning of my searchings about the Jewish people, the history of Jews, and then Judaism.