As far as I can remember, the first time I've ever heard about anything jewish was during my summer vacation when I was 8 years old. My father and I went to Normandy, his native region, and we stopped over Paris for one day, waiting for train connections.
I saw the Capital for the first time and my father wanted to show me the Eiffel Tower, and some other things.
My memory is very slight, I can just remember walking and complaining because I already walked for hours ! My father showed me a building, and told me it was a synagogue : "a what ?" did I ask. He explained me it was where Jews prayed, but I didn't know what a Jew was ! My father offered me to visit the inside and to have a look of what a synagogue was, fortunately it was opened and in the hall I saw 2 women, big hats, well dressed, very classy.
I told myself it was really impressive to see that Jewish women could look like any other french women. In my head I probably imagined Jews would be as distinctive as Black people or Asian people are... I don't know exactly what I imagined but I am sure of one thing, I was impressed by them !
My father was speaking to a man, and I couldn't stop staring at these women, especially their necklaces, they both wore a Mogen Dovid and it was shining, as a little girl I wanted to have something like that, maybe not "something" but this thing !
I asked my father to buy me one, but he answered "no you can't wear that, you are not Jewish".
"Why can't I wear one ?" I was so upset because I couldn't understand why It's an obligation to be jewish to have the chance to wear a beautiful thing like that...
As any other child I forgot about this necklace and probably bought another one during vacation.
But this memory is engraved inside me, because I kind of envied these women...
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