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My Identity Crisis: A Thread 
I grew up on Long Island, New York, a place with a relatively large Jewish population. However, with the exception of a few neighborhoods, the Jewish population on Long Island was overwhelmingly Ashkenazi and overwhelmingly assimilated.
As a half-Ashkenazi woman, I assumed the identity that was placed upon every other Jewish person I grew up around. “Jewish”, like “brunette” or “soccer-player”, was simply another adjective used to describe a person who, by societal view, was “accepted” as white.
As a half-Mizrahi/Sephardi woman, my identity has always been nebulous to me. I’m white-passing enough to experience that privilege in most places or American society. I’m Middle Eastern enough to internalize the millennia of hatred aimed from my ancestors to my grandparents.
Culturally, my identity has largely been shaped by my Mizrahi and Sephardi heritage. From Kibbeh to Kitniyot, my culture is a beautiful mix of three sub-ethnicities. After 3000 years of diaspora, I am the product of a new brand of interconnected Jewry.
This duality, however, has left me unclear as to where I stand. I’m not a “white girl” as society views white girls, although I pass enough to function as one. I connect to a history of genocide in Europe, just like I connect to a history of ethnic cleansing in Iraq and Yemen.
I have grandparents eat brisket and I have grandparents that eat shakshuka. Both families may appear ethnically distinct, but we are all indigenous to Judea. We are all Jews. We are all one tribe and one people.
So who am I?
So who am I?
The answer: it isn’t that simple. I am a mix. I am a mixed Jew. I am a mixed history. That identity feels uncomfortable, but it is my reality. And I’ve struggled through internalized antisemitism as I’ve come to reject the Americentric view of who a Jewish woman should be.
