Every day I do something that feels so natural but deep down something in my gut tells me it’s wrong. I do something that’s considered normal for most average Americans, yet I still feel bad for what I do. I am Jewish: my parents, my parent’s parents, and my parent’s parent’s parents have passed the Jewish traditions and morals down from generation to generation until they’ve fallen into my lap and have been force-fed down my throat through Yiddish sayings, comments, anecdotes, and traditions for as long as I can remember. One of these moral traditions is avoiding non-kosher foods at all costs, yet I still eat meat and cheese together, I still eat shellfish, and I still eat a variety of other foods that are on the big “no-no list” of foods for Jews.  
 
Every once in a while, my mind will flip back to the stories of bravery and survival of what my great grandmother endured through the Holocaust to preserve not only her life, but the traditions that she valued and held onto so dearly. These traditions were meant for me to hold onto, because after everything she’d been through, it’s the least I can do. Despite the efforts to preserve these religious traditions, many succumb to the American classic meals and foods including meat and cheese and other non-kosher foods. According to the Jewish Bible, meats including mammals or fowl are not to be eaten with dairy products including milk, cheese, butter, and yogurt. My thoughts whenever I remember these rules? Oops. Each time I take a bite of a cheeseburger’s gooey goodness or a sweet dish with shrimp in it, after first thinking about how delicious it is, I can’t help but remember the expectations for me to continue to preserve Jewish rules and traditions. My mind wanders into wondering if I’m a bad person or aren’t “Jewish enough,” and through bites of some of my favorite foods, a wave of guilt almost inevitably washes over me. 
 
From eating a burger followed by ice cream to not always keeping Kosher during Passover by eating foods that rise (after all, my birthday does usually fall on Passover so how could I not eat cake?), I’ve always felt like a cheater when it comes to my Jewish identity. As my Jewish friends commiserate about all that they do to keep Kosher and I smile and watch, I wonder if I’m truly connected to a core piece of my identity that defines a part of me.  
 
If they were still alive would my ancestors be disappointed in me? I can just picture my great grandmother Sophie, the strongest woman I’ve had the privilege of meeting as a young child, shaking her head and wiping away tears with her frail and wrinkly hands while watching me mindlessly gobble down meals that I know I shouldn’t eat. She survived extreme hatred and abuse to hold onto her Jewish identity, so why does it feel so difficult for me to hold onto mine, even when there aren’t forces impeding with it? Maybe I’ve been influenced by American consumerism and advertising (how do they make cheeseburgers look so irresistible in commercials...) or maybe I’ve become more disconnected from Jewish rules and expectations with age. 
 
Although I face these inner conflicts and doubts each time I give in to non-Kosher foods, I almost always still pick the path that travels far, far away from my family’s values and identities (it isn’t even a path...more like a slight clearing in the distance that completely veers away from expectations). I’ve always struggled to understand the “why” side of things: I have vivid memories of plastering on a smile to make my parents’ candle-lit glowing faces nod in approval from across the holiday dinner table, without allowing myself to wonder why we follow these specific rules and traditions to begin with. Instead of questioning, I’ve become so used to just following my parents and the religion I’ve been raised on that I hadn’t taken the time to wonder “why” until more recently. This wondering then led to a spiral of “rebellion” which is really just eating foods that I feel morally conflicted about.  
 
According to ajc.org, more than one in three American Jews have been victims of antisemitism over the past five years. Antisemitism is a true problem in this country, and after all the sacrifices my family has made, after all of the cruelty they’ve faced for simply existing, I still manage to be selfish enough to toss it all away through a possibly ridiculous rebellion. Every time I take a bite of a cheeseburger, all of these thoughts rapidly run through my mind, and every time I still shrug them off and enjoy the food that I know I shouldn’t eat.