More than 16 years ago, I was accepted into a master class for writing fiction with a well-known regional author at a university near me in Kentucky. I\u2019d written lots of non-fiction and dabbled in fiction. I thought this would be a good opportunity. Shortly after arrival, I realized that this was a fiction class that specialized in Appalachian themes. Although I was from Virginia, my background wasn\u2019t Appalachian. I felt like an outsider. I was also the only Jewish person there. As things progressed, the author suggested we should always \u201cwrite what we know!\u201d He talked a lot. The class was a lot drier than I\u2019d hoped.<\/p>\n
When it was time for short writing exercises based on prompts, I let loose. I purposely wrote to fit in, creating a vignette around church. When it came time to read these pieces, everyone nodded along with my church scenario \u2013 I was fitting in, but only because I was purposely faking it. First, I\u2019d proved to myself that \u201cwrite what you know\u201d wasn\u2019t always necessary, because, of course, famous fantasy or science fiction authors don\u2019t truly know the alternate worlds they dream up. Even fiction authors don\u2019t always know how to do everything they describe in their imaginary worlds. Second, I\u2019d faked being part of the majority religious culture and those classmates bought it.<\/p>\n
In the afternoon, it was time to workshop pieces we\u2019d submitted earlier. I\u2019d submitted writing that had been favourably reviewed elsewhere. I felt somewhat confident. However, the workshop\u2019s approach was to criticize without complimenting \u2013 and many comments didn\u2019t even seem relevant to what I\u2019d written. When I tried to respond, I was shushed and told I must not know how these kinds of workshops worked. Responding was bad form. I was meant to be \u201cshamed\u201d without recourse. I felt vulnerable and took their unhelpful comments to heart, forgetting that I\u2019d been part of different yet\u00a0<\/span>successful writing workshops long before, as a teen at the University of Virginia. The day dragged on. I noted the famed author\u2019s agitation and cigarette smoking at the breaks. I wasn\u2019t having a great learning experience.<\/p>\n I returned home to spend the evening with my husband and my father-in-law, who was visiting from New York. They\u2019d just heard of the sudden death of a close family friend in a skiing accident. I devoted my evening to them and realized that skipping day two of this workshop to be with family was more important. I sent regrets to the famous author\u2019s class, but I mostly felt relief.<\/p>\n Later, I learned that the famous author, whose work was described as traditional, heterosexual rural Kentucky, and who had a wife and small kids, was going through a divorce at the time of the workshop. Later, he became happily married to a man. I wondered again about the \u201cwrite what you know\u201d and \u201crepresent your identity\u201d advice.<\/p>\n This all came to mind when I recently read obituaries of Tom Stoppard and Frank Gehry. Stoppard, a great Czech\/British playwright, only addressed his Jewish heritage later in life, when he learned more about what had happened to his family during the Holocaust. Gehry, born to a Polish-Jewish immigrant family in Toronto, heard Talmud from his grandfather as a child. Although Gehry claimed he was an atheist, he attributed his questioning and creativity to the rich encouragement of his childhood. Gehry changed his name from Goldberg to Gehry at the urging of his first wife, who wanted to avoid antisemitism.<\/p>\n I gained access to this fuller description of these creative figures not from a single write-up but from several. If I\u2019d relied on the CBC\u2019s account of Gehry, I\u2019d only have known about his Judaism from his name change and antisemitism concerns; CBC never used the word \u201cJew\u201d or \u201cJewish.\u201d The retrospectives on Stoppard\u2019s work came from both the CBC and Jewish publications, but Stoppard\u2019s last name came from a non-Jewish stepfather. That man wanted him to stop using the name Stoppard when his work became too \u201ctribal\u201d or Jewish for his stepfather\u2019s taste.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Stoppard and Gehry were ethnically Jewish and had identity struggles. They and their families wrestled with who they were in a cultural climate that made it hard to be Jewish. I didn\u2019t know either of these men or their families, but the public obituaries and descriptions brought into sharp focus that same feeling I\u2019d had when I wrote about church activities from a first-person perspective.<\/p>\n I remember a family friend who changed his name to avoid quotas, to get into medical school more than 60 years ago. I\u2019d hoped that this need for identity code-switching would no longer be\u00a0<\/span>so pressing when I moved to Winnipeg in 2009. For a time, this was true. I didn\u2019t have to be so careful about saying who I was and what that meant. Now, after Oct. 7, this struggle has risen to the forefront again.<\/p>\n Since Oct. 7, 2023, we\u2019ve faced options like whether to downplay our ethnoreligious identity, embrace it with joy and pride, perform it by speaking out against hate or by being a \u201cgood Jew\u201d who doesn\u2019t, the kind with whom many non-Jews feel most comfortable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t an obvious choice. Many of us code-switch daily. It\u2019s no different than what Jews did during the Hellenizing days leading up to the Maccabees and the Hanukkah story, or the days of the European Enlightenment, when Jews were finally considered \u201ccitizens\u201d \u2013 up to 1933 or so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There isn\u2019t a \u201cone size fits all\u201d\u00a0<\/span>answer, nor is it clear that anyone would have the same answer for every situation. I often think back to that \u201cfamous author,\u201d carefully performing as a heterosexual, married man and droning on as an expert. It may be that we\u2019re all experts on our own identities, but it\u2019s also necessary to name the experiences we have when we purposely or unconsciously obfuscate, struggle or react with pride when it comes to who we are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some parts of our identities loom large. Other aspects of who we are may lurk in the background most of the time. We cannot examine these issues until we think about them and name them. It\u2019s easy to tell people to \u201cwrite what they know.\u201d It\u2019s much harder to write who we are and what we don\u2019t know, especially when it feels unsafe. Further, just like how Gehry and Stoppard\u2019s names changed, we, too, evolve, morph and change over time, even if we don\u2019t know how to describe it.<\/p>\n Joanne Seiff <\/b>has written regularly for the <\/i>Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including<\/i> From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than 16 years ago, I was accepted into a master class for writing fiction with a well-known regional author at a university near me in Kentucky. I\u2019d written lots of non-fiction and dabbled in fiction. I thought this would be a good opportunity. Shortly after arrival, I realized that this was a fiction class […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[801,23083,24545,5914,218,22725,24544,7381],"class_list":["post-48172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-antisemitism","tag-code-switching","tag-frank-gehry","tag-identity","tag-judaism","tag-oct-7","tag-tom-stoppard","tag-writing"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}