suddenly Jewish twice over

Essential background: I’m converting but it’s complicated because of my parents. I started two years ago, at the Reform temple near my house. Long story short, my rabbi and I have agreed that I can keep studying and follow the religion’s traditions until I’m either 18 or able to convince my parents to let me officially convert.

I recently found out I was ethnically Jewish because when my great-grandmother, Ammachi, whom I was close with, passed in 2015, it was revealed that she was a practicing (mostly in secret due to the world at her time being extremely hazardous to a Jewish Malayali woman with like eight kids) Cochin Jew. My grandmother found this out seven years ago, and told me about three weeks ago that we were Jewish.

She thought I knew, because it was common knowledge in our family that we are descended from Cochin Jews and our family was a happy mix of St. Thomas Christian and Cochin/Malabar Jews up until the 1930s, when all the practicing Jews either were forcibly converted or went into hiding. A decade later, nearly all the practicing Jews that remained fled to Israel (because of both persecution and freedom due to India’s newfound independence). My grandmother is Christian (but the actual kind of Christian, not the bigots who hide behind the label of Christian), and she’s the first one in my family to accept me for who I am. She always has been, ever since I came out as queer years ago. Now that I’m out to her (and only her) as Jewish, she’s still as incredible and loving as ever.

Ammachi was the last in the family who was a practicing Jew, but did so completely in secret. Now, it appears I’m following in her footsteps- hiding my Jewish identity from almost everyone. I hope she’d be proud of me for finding the courage to live true to myself and my heritage.