I am not religious and I don’t believe in God. I don’t pray—even when the airplane I’m flying in shakes violently during turbulence. I close my eyes and curse silently until the shaking subsides and I can breathe again. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason nor do I console myself with the other cliches that help humanity survive existential calamities. If I enter a synagogue, which is extremely rare, it is not to pray. I don’t fast on Yom Kippur or light Shabat candles. I don’t keep kosher, and even though I prefer not to eat pork or shrimp, it is mostly because of health reasons and habit, not for fear of divine punishment. Yet, despite all this, because I was born in Israel and Hebrew is my mother tongue, I have a strong Jewish consciousness and Israeli sensibilities.
This is why I know that what I sense in this random Airbnb room in the old part of Belmonte is something only a Jew could recognize. It is the heaviness of Jewish history—something that happened here long ago. I don’t want to feel it. I didn’t plan to feel it. But it keeps hitting me. When the tuk-tuk driver insisted on showing us the public squares where Jews were burnt, hung, and tortured in Lisbon, I turned him down. But here, in Belmonte, in this small room, it has finally caught up with me, forcing me to accept that Jewishness is in my blood. Simmering in the unconscious regions of my being whether I’m aware of it or not. They say the body keeps the score, so it must be in my cells, in the nuclei where my hereditary material has been stored since the beginning of days—or, as others may say, since we left Egypt or Jerusalem, whichever works.
It’s the same sensation I felt years ago when I sat in front of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court during his visit to San Francisco. That meeting, too, made me feel a connection to my Jewishness which, until that moment, I didn’t know existed inside me. It is like the feeling that washes over me when I hear the Israeli national anthem: Od lo avda tikvatenu… You hear it again and again and it becomes part of your cellular memory.
The rabbi agreed to see me after his wife spoke on my behalf when she heard about me from a mutual friend. I came to ask him about the status of my daughter, who was born to a non-Jewish father. I did it for her sake rather than for mine. I wanted to make sure that if for some reason in the future, she decided to enter the Jewish faith, she would be accepted as an equal. I also wanted to know if I could recite the mourner’s Kaddish in honor of my parents who recently passed away, even though I am a woman and, traditionally, this prayer is recited only by men.
I know this sounds contradictory because I am secular and a non-believer and shouldn’t care about these things. I also know I was not trying to please anyone or get points to ensure my entry into heaven. Besides, the Kaddish is a prayer that praises God not the dead. So why did I want to do it? Why did I care? Why did I want to recite Aramaic words that penetrate my soul when I hear them? Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba…
I had no answers then, and I have none now. I only know these words resonated inside me in a frequency that dissolved any intellectual resistance. They had nothing to do with faith, commandments, or good deeds. Perhaps it was a desire to belong to something larger than the self, even though, I didn’t think in those terms or aspired to anything resembling a religious awakening in those days.
The rabbi was dressed in the traditional uniform of ultra-Orthodox men: a white shirt, black jacket, and wide-brimmed black hat. A long, bushy beard with a few gray strands hid his neck, and thick eyebrows above his reading glasses completed the look. He was sitting in a small auditorium reading something when I entered. He put the book on the table by his side and invited me to sit in front of him.
I wasn’t sure how he’d react to me, a secular woman who had never spoken to a rabbi, especially a Sephardic rabbi. Not only am I an Ashkenazi Jew, but I also lack any religious etiquette. I didn’t know how to behave near a rabbi except that I shouldn’t try to shake his hand. I also didn’t know if I had to use special honorifics or greetings. I was afraid he’d be preachy and patronizing, that he’d lecture me on the need to draw closer to God and the Torah. Instead, he was friendly and curious about my story. He wanted to know how I heard about him, where I grew up, and if I ever visited my family in Israel. He was impressed when he heard that my mother was born in Jerusalem. I think I scored a few points when I told him that.
After I explained what bothered me, he promised me that my daughter was as Jewish as can be and that he had no problem with me reciting the Kaddish.
“You can recite it anywhere you want, even in a synagogue,” he said. “Just tell them I said so,” he added when he saw the surprise on my face.
It felt so natural to talk to him. There was not one awkward moment in our conversation nor a word I regretted uttering. For a second I thought he was even entertained by my request. The contradictions I presented probably did not make much sense to him, but he carried on without showing any displeasure or bewilderment.
On my way out of the auditorium, I felt like I was emerging from a meeting with one of our sages of blessed memory who shaped Jewish laws and rituals two thousand years ago. Against all my expectations, I experienced a deep connection with him, as if we had met more than once before when I still understood and practiced religion. I knew it was that Jewish thing that made me feel it—not anything he said or did. It was just there, between us, something beyond words and logic or belief and wishful thinking. It was in my DNA, not in my brain. Otherwise, there is no explanation.
It is the same thing that makes me feel the Jewish history swirling inside this room in Belmonte. The room looks modern with its obvious mass-produced furniture, the fridge, the microwave, the electric heater, and the glass-walled shower. But the thick stone walls, the low ceiling, and somehow even the air hold inside them the stories of the Crypto Jews who lived here. I can feel the weight of their presence around me, not suffocating or ominous but light and elusive. It is not a happy presence for sure. It is secretive, inquisitive, and not very friendly—used to hide from nosy neighbors, the cruel Church authorities, and daylight. It needs time to become familiar with me and for me to become familiar with it. Luckily it is still daytime so there is no reason to feel uncomfortable.
I park my carry-on by the bed and shove the plastic bag containing the little food I bought in Porto into the small fridge: a couple of rolls, tomatoes, cheese, cookies, and tea bags. Later, I might make tea and sit by the round table to read about the history of this town, which would help me understand why this room feels so haunted.
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