Cassie Barrett: a Jew by choice

Tell me about your connection to your Jewish identity.

I don’t know how to sum that up easily because I feel like connection and belonging to the Jewish community is so deeply complex to each person and something I hope is always evolving.

I've been part of the Jewish community for just over 10 years now. I’m not born Jewish, but I loved the community so much that I decided to convert. For myself, I mark joining the Jewish community when I first knew I wanted to be Jewish, which was a bit over a decade ago. I formally converted Progressive seven years ago, and I’m partway through an Orthodox conversion now. With conversion, there seems to be this idea that you reach an endpoint and that's it – that’s your Jewish connection and identity cemented. I hope I'm never done with Jewish learning.

I also work in a Jewish organisation, have sat on a number of Jewish boards, and live in an area that’s embedded within the Melbourne Jewish community. It’s hard to delineate the connection when it feels like my entire life.

You grew up in country NSW. How did you become exposed to the Jewish community?

I grew up in Cootamundra in rural NSW. I didn't know anything about Judaism growing up. I didn’t know anyone who was Jewish. My total exposure to Judaism was A Rugrats Passover – that was it!

After studying in Canberra for university, I moved to Melbourne and was living in St Kilda East at the time. That created more exposure and solidified my interest in the community, and then when I started working at Jewish Care Victoria, I got the chance to learn about Judaism for the first time. I’m very grateful that my then-manager indulged my incessant questions and curiosities.

That’s a big step from not knowing anything about Judaism to formally converting. Why did you decide to convert?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why – to take this deep yearning and distil it down to a single reason. What drew me to the community was, coming from a very monocultural white Australia background, and seeing for the first time in my life, a really visible display of family, community, history, tradition and belonging.

I just remember this kind of aching of thinking that I wanted to be part of that. That was the initial pull. In lots of ways, converting didn’t feel like it was a choice, it felt like it was an inevitability. I didn't feel like I was actively deciding, I was taking the next steps on this path that was meant to be.

Do you feel accepted by the Jewish community?

For me, the challenge of acceptance is much more internal than external. In some places, I feel very accepted, and in some places, it’s hard to accept myself.

I used to talk about the “imposter syndrome” that comes with being a Jew by choice or a convert, because there's the knowledge that there are different ways of being Jewish and different ways of understanding who is Jewish. Depending on the community, a conversion might not be halachically accepted, and I've internalised that sense of not belonging or of being a fraud. I’ve received comments along the way, such as ‘that's not real Judaism’, which are still quite painful to hold.

That’s not unique to me – there are people who didn’t grow up in the Melbourne Jewish community, or have a parent who's not Jewish, or didn't go to a Jewish school, or live far outside the community. There are lots of ways in which we can feel that we don't belong, conversion is just one of those. You have to become resilient to what others might think about converts.

I feel really lucky to work in a role where I get to engage with all walks of Jewish life – with faith leaders, youth leaders, parents, schools – my role by function is inexorably Jewish in that way. It's been enhanced by lots of different Jewish learning; opportunities to be part of Jewish leadership programs; to sit on Jewish boards; and to visit Israel.

I think my genuine interest and investment in Jewish learning and the community has been really helpful in engaging with spaces that otherwise might have been challenging to navigate. I now feel a lot of respect and support from the community.

Tell me about your role at Jewish Care Victoria and how you work with the community.

I did a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degree at ANU, and in that, I focused on the social determinants of health. I was always interested in health and wellbeing in a clinical sense, but also in a bigger picture sense, and as time went on, I found more of an interest in how our culture and the setting in which we live impact our wellbeing.

I took a role at Jewish Care as, at that point, a research project officer. I was a new graduate and was so grateful for any role, and I remember the person offering me the job said I wasn't the most qualified, but I was the most enthusiastic. Skills can be taught; attitude is what matters, is what she said – it’s something I’ve held as I’ve hired people myself.

I started as a mental health promotion officer in 2014. From then on, my portfolio moved from mental health literacy and stigma reduction initially to match the priorities of the sector and organisation, growing to encompass family violence responses, gender equality, child wellbeing, parenting and so on.

I develop and deliver a whole range of activities, from resources to community workshops and training, on topics that align with community needs.

This work exists elsewhere in non-Jewish settings, so what I find really fun is dissecting the Jewish value and using that as the anchor for delivery. There's lots of different ways in which Jewish belonging or identity intersects with health and social issues. Delving into and unpacking that, thinking about how to make the learning meaningful and relevant, is what I enjoy most.

We’re not talking about simple issues – these are systemic, and in many cases, wicked problems. How do you stay motivated to work in such a role for over a decade?

In this work it’s not uncommon to receive disclosures. That can feel heavy sometimes, but also an enormous privilege that someone who might struggle to pick up the phone and call an organisation for help sees a route to support through something like a parenting program or another session I deliver.

Issues like mental illness and family violence are complex, and it's easy to feel really hopeless, especially when you're responding at the acute or crisis end, or when societal change feels slow. But because I get to be in the preventative space, the proactive space, I get to see the efforts and the work that goes into shaping the community we want to be.

Working with youth movements, for example, and hearing first-hand how incredibly thoughtful and dedicated they are in responding to the needs of the kids they support, or how passionate they are about Jewish education and shaping this community. They’re just incredible.

Or running a parenting program for dads and getting to sit and share space with men talking openly about wanting to be the best they can be for their kids, and how that means leaving behind unhelpful stories about masculinity, emotions and what it means to be a man. I feel so hopeful from what I get to witness.

There's always something new and interesting in this role. Right now, I can't imagine working anywhere else. My entire adult working life has been in the Jewish sector – so much of my Jewish connection, identity and belonging comes from choosing to work in a Jewish organisation and choosing to work in a role that is so undeniably Jewish. That brings me a lot of joy and meaning.

How well does the Jewish community understand these social or equity issues?

I think one of the challenges is that, as a community, we often find it hard to believe that it could happen to us. It’s hard to accept that people are struggling, or we want to believe that we're part of a community that lives its values. Acknowledging and seeing that issues like family violence, suicide or child abuse absolutely happen is one of the biggest barriers and that's what makes it so hard to talk about.

So often when people ask what I do for Jewish Care, they respond with ‘surely that doesn’t happen in our community – not in Jewish families?’. If that's the general belief, how much harder is it for people to open up and talk about their experiences? How much more impactful or even shameful does it feel to seek help?

The data is quite lacking, but there's no reason to think that the Jewish community is experiencing these issues at different rates than the mainstream community. We see that reflected in our direct service work. But we do know the impacts are often different. For example, for a religious woman experiencing family violence, it’s not as simple as ‘just leave’. How do you flee to a refuge on the other side of Melbourne when your shul, your school, your access to community, your whole life, is in Caulfield? How feasible is that if you keep kosher, if you observe Shabbat?

In the Melbourne community especially, where Holocaust survivorship is so prevalent, I often hear this internalised belief that a person doesn’t have the right to have a hard time. It delegitimises the challenges we experience. We dismiss our emotions by referencing how lucky we are, or saying other people have it worse. That might be true, but it’s also true that we can experience really hard things alongside what our parents or grandparents experienced.

What I do see is lots of willingness, lots of goodwill, lots of genuine wanting to make sure that our community is one that is safe. That it’s one where people belong. That it's one where people can flourish and live the best lives they can.

Your role is unique because you work with people who experience hardship, while you have lived experience of invisible disability and chronic illness yourself. Can you share more about this?

I feel uncomfortable claiming the label of disability, which I think probably reflects a problem with how we construct disability, because my life is certainly impacted by my rheumatoid arthritis and myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome).

The experience of being chronically ill is so big in my identity. I can never turn it off – it affects what I can do, the decisions I make, where I can spend my time. I'm really lucky to have a manager who sees that and understands and supports me, but I can't understate the way in which it restrains my life.

The fact of it being invisible to others – though I don’t want to claim or take away from what it's like to live with a more immediately visible kind of disability – can be hard. You’re not granted concessions or accommodations or allowances from people who don't understand. You’re constantly having to explain. The fear of being seen as ‘lazy’ or just not trying hard enough is very real.

What can be done to better address the needs of people living with invisible disability?

On the whole, the way we talk about disability can be quite narrow, or the way that disability is portrayed can be very stereotypical. I'm sure anyone who lives with any kind of disability would say the same thing.

Accessibility can take lots of forms, but inclusivity doesn’t begin and end with a ramp at the door. When needs are hidden or complex, it assumes or relies on you being able to advocate for them yourself, and that can be really hard.

You hear stories of people who have a disability permit to park for instance, but don't use a wheelchair and get abused; or how tiring it is to explain why you need flexibility at work because of your health. As a community we need to broaden our thinking around what disability looks like and what the experiences of that are.

A good tip for life is to actively inquire about what someone needs and how you can support them. Whether that's around neurodiversity, chronic illness, or life challenges that someone's going through – by holding curiosity, it gives us the chance to make space for others, to really hear what they need.

What does social impact mean to you?

I want to see a community where everyone is welcome and can contribute in the way that speaks best to them. I think what social impact looks like is breaking down the barriers or building up the opportunities that enable that to happen.

I look at the Jewish community, and think to myself that there is nothing like it – our passion, our enthusiasm, our energy, our deep care for others. It’s incredible. But we need to be sure we’re creating spaces where people can be exactly as they are.

Part of what drives me in my work is the opportunity to contribute to the kind of community that I want to be part of. I want to live in a world where everyone is safe; where they feel valued and welcome; where they can contribute and be part of something; where everyone belongs.