Shoes: A Jewish Question

By Zoe Felber

Featured art: Shoes by Vincent van Gogh

“What do you think of these shoes?” my sister asks and flips the phone camera around to show me via FaceTime. I peer at the screen and shift a little on my dorm room bed at Ohio University. She is sitting in the middle of her dorm room at Bowling Green State University, shoes neatly laid out in front of her. One is a pair of flats with tan straps and a silver button on top, and the other is a brown pair of wedges with silver crisscross straps.

“Ooh, those are both really cute!” I reply.

“Well,” she says, “which ones do you think will be better for Yom Kippur services?” The Yom rolls off of her tongue like “Rome” and the Kippur sounds like “Key-pour.”

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, which include daylong prayer services. One of our most religious holidays, Yom Kippur is our way of starting the Jewish New Year on the right foot and observing the traditional Jewish custom of fasting. This means that for a full 25 hours, we are not eating or drinking anything. This is meant to make us uncomfortable. Through this discomfort, we focus our remaining energy on self-reflection on G-d and sins in the past year. Services are not a time where people yell or lecture us for our wrongdoings. It’s a quiet, serene atmosphere where key Hebrew phrases, each representing a sin, are read aloud. As many Jews do not have a fluent understanding of the Hebrew language, we are encouraged to think in English about mistakes that we have made and want to improve on in the coming year. After each phrase is read to the congregation, we hold our fist over our hearts and tap firmly so as to leave an impression. Whether I’m thinking about the huge blowout fight I had with my twin sister, tap, or the day I made an insensitive remark to my parents after a hard day of work, tap, or the day that I witnessed a racist or sexist comment and did not stand up for that person, tap, or the day that I lost sight of all the goodness within myself, tap. In Hebrew, these key phrases are translated to mean if one has stolen, tap, slandered, tap, purposefully caused others to sin, tap, have given harmful advice, tap, mocked, tap, deceived, tap, gossiped, tap, rebelled against G-d, tap, and more, tap.

While at services, there are many customs outside of tapping our chests, one of which is not wearing leather shoes. This is because, especially in the old days, leather shoes tend to be more comfortable, and this day was meant to be anything but comfortable. It is meant to be focused on atonement and G-d. Hence, beating our chest, not eating for a full day, and wearing uncomfortable shoes.

“Hmm,” I say. “The flats kind of look like leather. Are they fake leather?”

“Yeah, those aren’t real. I checked.”

“I still think I’m leaning towards the wedges.”

My sister scrunches up her face. “I don’t know, I’m not sure. Well, wait, lemme show you the dress that I’m gonna wear!” At the time, I don’t understand. But there was more to that indecision than met the eye. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I missed it.

During the more religious holidays, like Yom Kippur, Jews tend to see a rise in hate crimes. According to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to helping Jews track global opinion and hate, 26% of the world population is anti-Semitic, or anti-Jewish. Let me repeat that. Twenty six percent. One in every four people in the world does not like Jews. When we narrow down the statistic to just the Americas—which includes both North and South America—this number drops only slightly to 19-20%. One in every five people does not like Jews.

Well, more than just “not like” us. Defining anti-Semitism is really hard. Not because the definition itself is difficult. But because acknowledging its definition requires me to remember that there are people out there that want me dead simply for the religion that I observe. See, I don’t want to tell you that more than a quarter of the world wants to kill me, convert me, change me. I don’t want to tell you about the simultaneous paralyzing fear and fierce defensive pride that I experience. Anti-Semitism predates America. Anti-Semitism is practically at the root of the Jewish religion, thousands of years old—in fact, a good portion of our many holidays celebrate the fact that our enemies didn’t kill us. In the end, I don’t want to tell you about the generational fear and trauma that Jews face. That I face on a daily basis. And no one really seems to know about it.

Not even my hometown community seems to understand the oppression Jews face. When I was a senior in high school, I was in a sociology class, and we were talking about racial, ethnic, and religious oppression. The teacher would ask a series of questions, and we would move to a different corner of the room if we strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed. One question in particular stuck out to me. She asked, “Have you ever felt oppression for a racial or ethnic identity?” Earlier in the class, we had agreed that religion is included in these groups. I walked over to the strongly agree side, my tennis shoes squeaking painfully loud on the linoleum floors. I had the type of shoes that had a bubble of air on the bottom to better support your feet. However, one of the bubbles had recently popped, and every time my right foot stepped forward and hit the ground, there was a loud squeak.

When we were all finally in different corners of the room, everyone seemed to notice the same thing at once. In the strongly agree corner of the room, I was the only white person, surrounded by students of color. Everyone seemed to be staring at me, daring me to move. Every single one of their eyes seemed to say, “Hey white girl, what the hell do you know about oppression?” I couldn’t move, though. The eyes were boring into me, daring me to move to the strongly disagree side with all of my other white classmates. But if I did, I wasn’t being honest. I did face oppression for being Jewish. I didn’t want to lie about my oppression to make others feel more comfortable. At times like these, being one of ten Jews in a school of nearly 1,300 students was difficult.

There were no other Jews in that class to vouch for Jewish oppression, as if we needed to convince them that we actually did experience it. As far as anyone else was concerned, my feelings of oppression were not valid. I just wanted to disappear inside my squeaky shoes, hide inside of them until the coast was clear and I couldn’t feel their stares anymore.

Thankfully, I had found a Jewish community outside of my high school, a tight-knit Jewish youth group called BBYO. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by Jewish people. And they weren’t these religiously obsessed people either, just regular high schoolers that loved embracing their religion and culture. It was a place outside of the walls of high school to learn more about my religion and identity. During the first overnight event I attended, I wore my thick winter boots. They were cute with my outfits, but also durable enough to withstand the mud and snow of the campground. On the first night, my guard was up. I felt like an outsider, the new girl. I wore my boots everywhere, protection from any judgement that I felt might be thrown my way. But I didn’t have anything to worry about. Later that night, Happie and Hunker, two famous BBYO song leaders, led a shirah song session. My friends and I sat on the hard wood ground in the front row of the log-built dining hall, all six of us cuddled up against each other. A hundred or so others were laying in sporadic rows behind us, sprawled on the ground, arms wrapped around each other, swaying to the music. Happie and Hunker began a song with a gentle strum of the guitar. They taught us the words, the strumming continuing leisurely in the background. Snuggled up, we begin to sing, and all of our voices become one, “Days like these, lead to/ Nights like these, lead to/ Love like ours/ You light the spark in my bonfire heart.” Pause for a breath. “People like us, we don’t/ Need that much, just someone that starts/ Starts the spark in our bonfire hearts/ Our bonfire hearts.”

A sense of peacefulness washed over us. This moment was filled with the kind of warmth you only feel when you’re at a campfire being warmed by the flames, gooey s’mores slip through your fingers, and your friends giggle at you for getting chocolate everywhere. For us, this warmth came from our song, our love, our Judaism. In that moment, I was surrounded by Jewish brothers and sisters, not strangers. And for the first time, being one of ten Jews at my high school wasn’t so bad, because if I had known more, maybe I wouldn’t have been here, experiencing the beauty of a Jewish community unlike any I had seen before. The song was right—we didn’t need that much, just each other and love.

And that night when we went back to the cabins to sleep, we all took our shoes off and crawled into bed. I didn’t need my boot’s faux, furry protection. I was accepted here.

“So what dress is it?” I ask.

“I think I’m gonna wear my white floral dress. You know, the same one you have in blue?” She stands up, leaving her phone on the ground, camera pointed at the light in her dorm room. I stare at her ceiling while she rummaged through her closet.

“Got it!” I hear from across the room as she walks back over. She sets the dress on the floor and picks up her phone, switching the camera around to face the dress. It’s a short sleeved white dress, knee length, V-neck, and flared at the waist. Blue and pink flowers with purple stems dance across the flowy fabric.

“Ooh, pretty. I love that dress on you. It looks good with your hair,” I say.

As my BBYO friendships developed, I learned that we could have conversations about anything from hair and makeup to our darkest fears. When I started going to more events, I made friends with people all across Ohio, then the USA, then the world. I knew a Jewish community so vast that if something happened states away, I would be able to send a text and have a real-time update in moments. We could talk about how during the High Holy Days when Jews are praying at temple and observing the holidays, the entire Jewish community has seen a spike in anti-Semitism.

In Pittsburgh in 2018, there was the largest mass murder of Jews in the United States since 1948. Because of BBYO, I know many Jewish friends that live near Pittsburgh or even go to that synagogue. I specifically remember one of my friends posting on Instagram about her friend’s loss from the shooting. Hearing about it felt unreal. A gunman came into the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday morning, October 27th, 2018 with an assault rifle and three other handguns. Several ceremonies were taking place, including Saturday morning services and an 8-day old baby boy’s bris. The armed man walked through the front door and began firing his gun at around 9:50 a.m. People hid or ran for their lives. There was blood and screaming and agony and pain and that day 11 people lost their lives because of their religion. Officers engaged in a gunfight with the shooter, one was hit in the face by flying shrapnel and members of the SWAT team evacuated two elderly victims. Other SWAT team members found the shooter on the third floor of the building, where another gunfight took place. Two of the SWAT officers were hit. Around 11:08 a.m., until his arrest, the shooter—a 46-year-old white man—was crawling on his hands and knees towards the door, saying, “All of these Jews need to die.”

It was Saturday night during my freshman year of Halloween weekend. At Ohio University, Halloween is a big deal; everyone dresses up in costumes and parties for about 48 hours straight. I wanted to be sad. When I heard the news, I wanted so badly to be sad, but this wasn’t real, right? Why would someone shoot my people just because of our religion? I remember feeling this overwhelming guilt because I had found out about this tragedy and all I wanted was to go out and have a fun night with my friends. Was that a sin? To want the normalcy that everyone else seemed to effortlessly have? Drunkenly, unable to hide my feelings like I normally could, I asked my friends, “I wonder how much easier my life would be if I wasn’t Jewish?”

For weeks, guilt tore at me for having even voiced this. I love being Jewish. But I couldn’t get the thought out of my head: If I wasn’t Jewish, I could have just gone on with the rest of my night, not caring because in the end, it’s “just another shooting” and “they happen all the time.” Later that night, I prided myself on not crying in front of my friends. That’s what anti-Semitism does to you. If you don’t show how upset you are about your own community dying, then it doesn’t matter as much to the rest of the world, right? I just needed to stop being overdramatic. Seriously.

A few months go by and there’s another shooting, this time at a Jewish Chabad in Poway, California. It was April 27th, 2019 at t 11:23 a.m. when a 19 year old white male walked into the Poway Chabad. He went to the Chabad on the Friday of Passover where 100 people were gathered inside. He killed a 60-year-old woman who sacrificed herself by running in front of the rabbi, and the shooter injured three others, one of which was an 8-year-old girl. Around 11:30a.m., shortly after he left the scene, he called the police and told the dispatcher that he had just shot up a synagogue. He said, “Because Jewish people are destroying the white race.”

This time when I heard the news, I cried. This was real. This was all too real. 19 years old. The shooter would have also been a freshman or sophomore in college. Same age as me. I immediately went to the Chabad on campus to tell the rabbi, who grew up in California. Upon arriving, the Chabad rabbi and I realized that his cousin was the rabbi at the Poway Chabad who was shot. That day, I mourned the dead as if they were my own brothers and sisters. In fact, I spent the whole weekend crying, mourning the Poway victims, mourning the Tree of Life victims, mourning the 6,000,000 Jews that lost their life in the Holocaust. These tears were for all of them and more. It felt like millions of tears, each tear for a different Jew that had died.

When I went to my sorority chapter the next day on Sunday night, I was still a mess. I went up to my bedroom to take my shoes off, as we weren’t supposed to wear shoes for the meeting—a sorority rule. Then I walked downstairs to where the meeting was taking place. With only socks on my feet, I slid down the wall, letting my feet fall out from under me. One of my Jewish sorority sisters sat with me while silent tears continued to flow down my face. Here I was, crying in a corner in front of my whole sorority. A few months ago, I would have been mortified. I would have done everything in my power to make sure that no one saw me cry. But all I could think about was that the person shot in this shooting was my rabbi’s cousin, the rabbi that teaches at OU. Was he the one that had his finger blown off?

“Hello… you there, Zo?”

I glance down at my phone screen. “Uhh, yeah, sorry, I got distracted. For that dress, I definitely think the wedges would be best. But the sandals wouldn’t be too bad either. Up to you.”

“Ahh, okay, thanks. I think I’ve decided.”

Jews from across the country and world came together and mourned the Jewish victims. It was impossible to go on social media without seeing twenty more posts from fellow Jews to commemorate their lives. And after the Pittsburgh shooting, the Jewish Hillel on campus organized a beautiful memorial service for the victims. Just like at BBYO, the same magic filled the air as we sang together, “All my life I’ve been waiting for/ I’ve been praying for/ for the people to say/ that they don’t want to fight no more/ they’ll be no more wars/ and our children will play/ One day, one day, one day/ One day we’ll all be free/ and proud to be/ under the same sun/ singing songs of freedom.”

While the Jewish community united during these times like they always seem to do, the murders spread a mass wave of panic. This panic manifested everywhere. This is anti-Semitism. Not just “disliking” the Jews at this one synagogue in Pittsburgh or this one Chabad in California. It even goes further than dislike or hate, but teeters into silence when no one outside of the Jewish community speaks up. This panic reaches beyond fearing for our lives when we go to synagogue; it makes us question every little detail before we step foot inside our places of worship. After those shootings, there were a lot of debates like: if there had been a guard with a gun outside of the Jewish temple, then those people would have been safe. But what nobody asked was, “What kind of shoes were the victims wearing?”

Despite my advice, my sister decided to wear her flats. And as I sit here, writing this, with no shoes to cover my own naked and exposed feet, I understand: the flats would be better for running.

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Zoe Felber (she/her) is a senior at Ohio University from Twinsburg, OH. She is part of the OHIO Honors program and is majoring in English Creative Writing with a certificate in Diversity & Inclusion and in Entrepreneurship. Zoe’s goals after college include pursuing a career in social justice within the Jewish community and educating others through her writing. Throughout her college career, she has held two internships. In 2019, she interned at the Hebrew Free Loan Association (HFLA) where she created daily social media content, organized logistics for upcoming events, copyedited documents, and established a donor prospect list. In 2020, she interned at the National Council of Jewish Women, Cleveland section (NCJW/CLE) where she designed the Share What You Wear teen board program at a local, low-income school district to lead a Community Resource Room that is stocked with clothing, toiletries, and school supplies. Additionally, she created daily social media content, established a Time Capsule storytelling project for NCJW/CLE members to document unprecedented times, and helped with any technical difficulties that arose. Zoe loves to write and a long term goal she is passionate about is writing a novel. Connect with Zoe on LinkedIn.