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Jewishness, my family background, estrangement and th heavy feeling that resulted since childhood

It just feels like something was taken, stolen, because of the history of my family. And I don’t know how to feel about what happened to them and what happened to the one that, on that side, is perhaps the last surviving member of that family.

There is Jewishness on both sides of my family. I know there are differing opinions. The last surviving member in which who my mother side came from was a father, and despite the line of mothers after that, an interrupting father was genuinely fooled into leaving the culture behind.

On my father’s side, some may say it would have counted if I was raised Jewish. But my grandmother didn’t teach him, and he wasn’t present with me, so through him I still wasn’t raised with it. The grandmother I speak of was one of those who fled from Eastern Europe during the war. It was surprising to me that she was able to be accepted to come into the US to be adopted to another Jewish family (since the US, at least idk for how long, was not taking as much refugees as they should have, if not barely any).

And for my mother’s side… the family member I spoke of left behind his culture because he fell in love with a Catholic woman. He moved away from his family… basically abandoned everything for her. But, as evident because of her making him abandon his culture, her family was deeply antisemitic. And she left him because of that disapproval. She left him with the kids, and due to what I suppose to be pressure or how she already began raising them, he continued abandonment in raising his kids Catholic. But I don’t know if it was because what happened to my family in Poland.

He called. He tried to get his family from Poland to come over with him during Nazi Germany. But they told him they were fine there, that the Nazis would never come there. That they were going to be safe. And, well, we know what often happened there. They were all murdered. I suppose it was because, from what I learned, being a Slavic Jew made him view them as “too tainted”. They had blond hair and blue eyes, but they couldn’t hide.

And so I come through a line mothers’ mothers’ mother. But I suppose with the interruption, if I am correct, that the line ended. Ended and everyone else died.

My grandmother didn’t even know this until young adulthood.

There was my grandmother on my fathers side, but like I said. He wasn’t there, and my grandmother never taught either of us. Despite my mom actually asking her to.

I talked to someone Jewish near me, descended so and surrounded by it. Took the trip to Israel with his family. He said it still counted, but I think he misunderstood what I was saying when I looked into it again the next day.

Because of the interruption, never knowing it since forever that closely despite my silent wish.

Despite the abandonment being through a lie that made him, foolishly, leave all of his upbringing behind. Due to antisemitism.

So basically in this the Jewishness ended, in both cases due to abandonment, the other betrayal as well and death that should have never happened. And I don’t know. I don’t know, I knew a bit of this as a kid but I always felt like it was taken away. A lot of it hurt, and looking at history hurt in more ways than one. That regardless, there was the connection that should have never been cut. But it did.

And yeah, naturally off of this all said, my mother and mother’s mother and hers were never raised.

I just look to my other grandmother, now dead, on my fathers sides. and further to the man who fell in love, on my moms side, filled with a sense of grief. Maybe on his behalf.

I don’t know if this sounds bizarre. I can still go back. I tried several years before, but corona happened and things got chaotic so I didn’t get far. The rabbi I was talking to left the synagogue. now I can’t find another place (that accepts queer people) that I would be able to get to since I don’t have means of transport. But I want to go as soon as i can.

I will return. But I still feel like it was taken from me. That I should have had it around me growing up already.

I don’t know if it is me having a calling or what. My family dying, family escaping…. I know about the maternal lineage or being at least raised, I know it ended. but I feel like this past left a deep mark on me. And so when I read about the Holocaust as a kid, I thought what would happen to me. What I would have done in their situation. Despite everything.

It just feels so wrong.

I just feel betrayed and stolen from. Even if I was not those ancestors. But also, the abandonment also abandoned Jewishness from me.

I don’t know if anyone can give advice or thoughts to this. I just needed to let it out. It has been weighing on me for a week, and also as said, on and off my whole life.

Edit: Please do not comment on the fact I am queer to tell me I’m wrong or need to get rid of it. I am going through a lot as it is. There are queer Jews out there in general. Those who disagree about the idea of it being sinful. It is not a lifestyle, and does not contradict anything to do with this.

Please. I made this account to find help. Any remark like that is doing the opposite. I don’t want to regret making this post

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