I am prouder than ever to be an October 6 Jew

It was in the winter of 2023 that I finally formalised my Jewish identity after a decade of practice and learning within the progressive community.

My Jewish wife and I had already been raising our daughter in a Jewish home and I had happily been informally participating in the community, but the time came when I craved more. I wanted to be able to be called to Torah at my daughter’s bat mitzvah and be seen as a Jew both inside and outside of the community.

When I finally reached the Beit Din (the rabbinic court that finalises conversions), the rabbis wanted to know why, in a time of growing antisemitism, would I want to subject myself to possible persecution. I took the question to be largely hypothetical, an important idea to ponder about a future that was yet to come into full focus.

I had no way of predicting the cloak of horrors that October 7 would lay across all of our days and mark us out as ‘other’.

It happened almost immediately. On the morning of Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023, I awoke with anticipation and excitement to finally hold the Torah along with my community and fully partake in a celebration that I’d only ever been on the sidelines of before. But then, news started rolling in from Israel of the Hamas attacks and by the time we reached our synagogue, the congregation was struggling to find the will to party.

Still, we stood together resiliently, unfurling the sacred scroll together, finding moments amongst the shock and fear to express Jewish solidarity and yes, even Jewish joy.

Already I was realising that this was an intense time to embrace my Jewish identity.