By Josh Walfish

It all began with a simple feast for one.

I had been in North Carolina all of three weeks when the Jewish high holidays rolled around. Stuck without any vacation days to spend the holidays with my family, I decided to make the most of it and made myself some chicken and couscous and bought a nice red wine.

That elegant dinner for one was the first time I really understood the fact that I was in the real world now. No organic Jewish community to join, no parents to cook all this delicious food. Just me, my subpar cooking skills and a dimly lit apartment in eastern North Carolina.

The festivities continued a few months later when I rushed home from work every day during my dinner break to light my menorah in celebration of Hanukkah. The lights glistened as I placed the tray with the menorah in the sink to prevent a fire while I drove to the high school basketball game I was covering that night.

My first job out of college was in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, a town of about 57,000 people according to the latest numbers from the Census Bureau. Although no data is officially available, there are probably fewer than 10 Jews living in Nash and Edgecombe counties — and I am one of them.

“I realized just how lonely I really was in the world. Sure, I had a great family and a fantastic group of friends in Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., but if I needed someone to come to my aid at 4 a.m., who could I call?”

I didn’t think it would be a big deal for me. I’m not one to force my religious views on anyone, and I am very tolerant of the beliefs of others. I didn’t see a reason for any issues to arise, and for the most part, they didn’t.

That changed on January 6, 2015.

I was covering the local Christian private school’s basketball team, and they said a prayer before the game. I stood silently with my head looking straight ahead, thinking about all the wishes they were asking from God. When the prayer was completed, an older woman nearby said I was being very rude by not bowing my head during prayer and asked me why I didn’t pray with them.

I tried to explain that it wasn’t my custom, but I might as well have told her that Jesus was a myth and she was crazy. She berated me for a few minutes before realizing I didn’t care. She turned her attention back to the game.

After the game, I went back to the office and recounted the story. My colleagues were very sympathetic to me and told me not to worry, but in my mind, the seeds had been planted that I just did not belong in this town.

Ironically enough, my birthday was the next day, and as I tend to do, I took a state of my life after 23 years. With that incident fresh in my mind, I realized just how lonely I really was in the world. Sure, I had a great family and a fantastic group of friends in Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., but if I needed someone to come to my aid at 4 a.m., who could I call?

That realization sent me into a major funk, one of a few prolonged low moments I have had in the 18 months since my graduation. The only way out of that spiral was to work. So I dove into my job, but didn’t do very well taking care of me and my needs in the process.

“Community — especially religious community — is about nothing more than loving one another and helping each other in times of need.”

Even though on the outside I seemed fine, and most people could not witness the turmoil within, I was slowly being engulfed by these feelings of isolation.

The funny part of this story is that it took going to church for me to come to grips with being Jewish in an almost exclusively Christian town.

My editor lost his newborn child to a heart defect, and I attended the funeral with many of my colleagues from work in early May. I sat in the service as an act of moral support, and when there were the prayers to Jesus, I took the opportunity to say the Jewish equivalent to each prayer.

When the final prayer was going to be said, the pastor asked everyone to hold hands and bow their heads. The girl to my right attempted to grab my hand, but I kindly declined the request, and she looked bewildered.

As the family’s processional back up the aisle commenced, my editor came over and whispered that he was grateful I had shown up. He later texted me that he wasn’t sure if I would come, but he was glad to see me there in support.

All religions at the core are about respecting your fellow human. We pray to different deities, but we pray for the same things, and we believe in the same fundamental principle.

Community — especially religious community — is about nothing more than loving one another and helping each other in times of need.

No matter what I say or do, just about everyone I meet in Rocky Mount will assume I’m Christian. I will still get asked which church I attend — my answer of Beth Shalom really throws them off — and I will still get the same concerned faces when I tell them that I offered to work Christmas Day.

So when a curious high school athlete recently asked me after an interview whether I would be going home from Christmas, I calmly told her, “My family puts more of an emphasis on Thanksgiving.”

I went home later that night, put on my charcoal gray yarmulke and lit the Hanukkah menorah for the second consecutive year in an apartment that was now shining with the flickering flames of Jewish pride.

Josh Walfish is a sports reporter for the Rocky Mount Telegram in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

By Brooke Hawkins

There are few things more indulgent than taking a really great picture of yourself. One that makes you unafraid to share — excited even — to post confidently. One that shows your summer freckles in the clearest light, one where the sun hits all of your features so perfectly that for a moment in the many moments of your existence you feel brave and whole.

But, sometimes, these same photos show other parts that you’d forgotten.

On those days, the same freckles that make me feel unique and proud remind me that I’ve inherited them from my mother — though mine more sparse than hers that covered her whole face and grew deeper every year. These freckles remind me of the woman who gave me life. She was the person who helped me understand the woman I would grow up to be. She was the woman who thought tough love was stronger than compassion. The woman who dealt hurt and pain, emotional and physical, and the woman I’ve been unable to speak to since I moved away from home, more than six years ago.

I hold my memories and history with her close — to avoid being named as a person who has suffered abuse, who has missed out on maternal love that many of my peers received and who continues to be haunted by her presence every year when I get a cryptic text that says she “prays for me.” Another year will pass and we won’t talk or see each other. I am thankful for that space.

“I wonder if my friends struggle with their own identities in this way: the same parts that make them feel confident about themselves simultaneously bringing confusion and pain.”

I’ve worked really hard to overcome these experiences, and their lessons continue to impact me each year that I move further into my adulthood. Parts of my mother poke through in many things — in my romantic relationships I struggle to trust and confide in people that show me endless affection, as I wait for the day that they’ll have enough of my trust to cause me pain. I work hard socially and professionally, competing with people who have lived lives of Ivy League schools, who continue to receive support and guidance from their mothers, and who appear to have never felt the cold sting of a mother like mine.

I look at my photo and focus on the features that look like hers — the dark brown eyes, the skin that tans a deep brown in the summer, a mole that was lovingly referred to as a “beauty mark” that I now conveniently hide behind bangs to avoid its regular reminder.

I wonder if my friends struggle with their own identities in this way: the same parts that make them feel confident about themselves simultaneously bringing confusion and pain. How do they learn to look at those parts? How do they learn to be unashamed? Other days I convince myself that I’m the only one that deals with this — I seal myself off and push my insecurities deeper. I allow myself to separate from these parts of myself and forget.

As I get older, I try to become more intentional about finding ways to love all of these parts of myself. Even when I feel pleased with the superficial aspects of my appearance and life, sometimes these more unpleasant things rumble beneath the surface and threaten to disrupt my progress.

I look again more carefully at the picture of myself. Sun striking my cheeks, freckles glowing, proud in a living room in a big city that I’ve made home. I see a light in my eyes that’s mine alone. It’s a light of confidence and sureness that I’ve accomplished a great deal, and I still have a great deal to achieve. In these things I can steady myself and learn to love what’s really there. I have many facets, and loving the ones I’ve worked so hard to develop make the painful ones harder to see.

It’s important, I think, to be gentle with ourselves and patient. I remember to look for a few minutes longer at that photo that made me feel so confident, and to learn to be comfortable with the constantly changing image of myself.

Brooke Hawkins is a Chicago-based UX/UI designer, music maker and photographer.

CANDLES OF PRIDE

“I realized just how lonely I really was in the world. Sure, I had a great family and a fantastic group of friends in Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., but if I needed someone to come to my aid at 4 a.m., who could I call?”

“Community — especially religious community — is about nothing more than loving one another and helping each other in times of need.”

SELF REFLECTION

“I wonder if my friends struggle with their own identities in this way: the same parts that make them feel confident about themselves simultaneously bringing confusion and pain.”