‘I remember looking across the synagogue in Jerusalem and thinking: “That’s why Reform Judaism has it wrong. I can’t stop looking at this girl”’.

Australians talk about love, life and Judaism: MIRIAM HECHTMAN asks Mark Morris and Judith Belnick about their journey through life

Mark

Judaism didn’t play a prominent role in my childhood in London. My mum and dad separated when I was five. Mum had converted to Judaism but Dad was never very interested in it. Mum was from France and a lot of her friends were Jewish.

I think she liked that their families were quite strong; her family wasn’t. I think she was always attracted to Judaism. After the separation my mother continued to send me to synagogue, and I had a barmitzvah and all that sort of stuff. But it just didn’t interest me.

Later, I made friends with some Jewish guys and ended up getting involved in the youth movement, Netzer, which changed my life. Going to Israel when I was 16 was a big change for me. Prior to that my only conception of Israel was war.

When I visited, I thought, “here’s this history and culture that is mine and I can link into that”. At the time, I was with a crowd back in London doing stupid things and I wanted out of that.

So this became a way of giving me an identity, something to grab on to and tether me. I felt like my cultural identity was being played out on a state level and a country level, rather than in England where I was a minority.

I met Jude on Shnat (year-long immersion program) in 1990, in a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem. I remember looking across and thinking: “that’s why Reform Judaism has it wrong. I can’t stop looking at this girl, I’m not going to be concentrating on any form of prayer”.

I was 19 she was just 18. We spent three months together and then it hit the first hurdle and there was no conception of how to work on a relationship. I was going back to England, she was going back to Australia. We broke up before that year ended.