More Than Pizza VS Shwarma

By Shawn Ebrahimpour

I have woken in a cold sweat on a number of occasions with the same burning question: “three cheese pizza from California Pizza Kitchen, or Shwarma Lafah Wrap from Nagila?!”

  This simple matter reaches far beyond taste or diet. What this strategic choice calls upon is the same age old question that our ancestors pondered from the first time we were booted out of our homeland: whether to pledge full allegiance to the religious and cultural circle that is AM YISRAEL or to the American state in which you reside. The contradiction is not done justice by the cliched ambiguity of being called a "Jewish American" or an "American Jew." Neither statement encapsulates the personal struggle to claim my true identity.

I cannot help but confess that on a regular basis my Jewish person-hood prevails. My exposure to the Jewish faith and my contribution to the Jewish community manifests my self image and shapes my priorities in every respect. The forthcoming election demonstrates my personal allegiances. While most teenage Americans were analyzing the strength of each candidate's vision of change for America through their ornate rhetoric, I could think of nothing other than the Jewish state.  I tried to support the candidate that will fervently support the Jewish State, to ensure that Israel's strongest ally will not wilt with a change of the presidency.

Does my consideration of a foreign country’s affairs before my own country's domestic affairs make me some kind of duplicitous traitor? I think not. 

Voting in the swiftly approaching elections strictly calls upon the strength of my national and cultural identity. My cultural dispute remind me of the displacement of Ugandans to America within the past two decades.  When America graciously took in thousands of Ugandans who were in mortal danger, a process of resettlement for the Ugandans took place. One would think that our government would settle these refugees together as a community so that they would provide communal support for one another within a foreign country. Instead, the Ugandans were widely dispersed across the nation. In theory, this approach sought to integrate these newcomers.  Instead, it tore them away from their culture. What is funny is that our government evidently expected them to stay put. To the contrary, the Ugandans exhausted the few resources they possessed and soon joined together and created a community--a home very far from home. Only now could the Ugandans recreate a new sense of nationhood. Similarly, I feel I am a Jew taken from my spiritual home and placed into a nation that somewhat attempts to compromise my cultural identity.

On the opposite note, I must admit that I would join the Israeli army in a heartbeat before the American forces. My Jewish people are the ones who have raised me, educated and befriended me, and pledged an unspoken and unconditional protection of me for no other reason than my reciprocal claim to Jewish ideals. I was brought into this Jewish mindset at some point in my life--it could have started on my fairly recent first visits to Israel, at the start of my  formal Jewish education, from the time of my circumcision, or even before I was born.  I respond to the consequences that came out of the merciless murder of my people, often by the hands of the countries to which the Jews once pledged allegiance--to a bond of nationhood beyond all other cultural or religious ties. After contemplating this personal dilemma, I have not yet settled on a concrete answer and leave it to you to decide.

In my dorm room flies an Israeli flag. Without permission, a mezuzah is nailed into my doorpost. I say the shmah every night before I sleep. And yet I live in the heart of an incredibly American city. I love my country and verbally pronounce it as my own; but I love my Jewish people, my Jewish traditions, and my Jewish state even more. G-d bless Israel and G-d bless America and may they prosper forever.

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