I lost my dad at 12 — and found my Jewish identity in the spaces he left behind

This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.

In August of 2021 my father passed away from alcoholism. I was 12 years old, and it was the day before the first day of seventh grade, my first in-person year of middle school. My parents were divorced and shared custody, so living alone with my mom wasn’t new.

What was new, however, was how my dad’s death sparked my Jewish identity. My dad was loosely Christian and my mom is Jewish, so I celebrated Christmas at my Dad’s house and Hanukkah at my mom’s. My mom and I never celebrated any other Jewish holidays and always considered ourselves “Jew-ish.”

My dad and I had a complicated relationship, making my experience with grief even more entangled. He was emotionally abusive, and I don’t have very many good memories with him. It felt like everyone around me expected me to miss my dad with every fiber of my being, but I didn’t. How was I supposed to miss the person whom I needed the most but only hurt me time and time again?

When you are young and grieving the loss of a parent, you feel so isolated from others; no one else your age has anything to compare your experience to. Plus, talking about death is generally uncomfortable for people, no matter how old you are. Add on a layer of abuse, you’re even more alone. 

Despite this, I was able to use my Jewish identity, as half-formed as it may have been at the time, to make new friends at school. Sometimes it came up with a new acquaintance. That allowed us to further our conversation and therefore our friendship. Other times it was a conversation starter, giving me the confidence to approach people knowing we would have holidays and traditions to talk about. Even if we didn’t directly talk about our Jewish identities, we both knew it was something we had in common, allowing us to feel a little bit less like strangers. 

Feeling more comfortable with myself and other people, I felt more comfortable opening up about my dad. As result, I was able to accept my grief and my situation. Feeling less alone and finding some kind of identity outside of my dad’s death, I was better equipped to deal with the ebbs and flows of my grief. I was empowered to move out of the rut, and into something lighter, healthier and more manageable. 

It took a lot of time, tears and therapy, but now, over four and a half years later, I can honestly say that I do, in fact, miss my dad. My relationship with my grief has changed. I am no longer as angry at my dad, but that does not mean I am free of struggle. I still experience isolation. Now in high school, I find it difficult to join conversations about parents or home life in general without feeling as though I am dragging the conversation down, talking about my single-parent household to a group with happily married, two-parent households. 

My journey with my grief is nowhere near done, and never will be. Since I am no longer constantly angry at my dad, that allows me to feel more sadness and aching to have my dad in my life. It hits me most when I do college tours, something I am supposed to share with both of my parents,. Often, this sparks the spiral of thinking about my future without my dad. Graduation, college, getting married: All of the things your dad is supposed to be part of, mine won’t. 

And yet, I like to think my relationship with my dad has gotten better. Although I don’t have many clear memories of him, good or bad, the distance from the ones I do have allows for new perspectives and even growth. I may not have first-hand experience with the good parts of my dad, but hearing my mom’s stories about times when he was healthy, I’m able to build a profile of him that includes more than just hazy and fragmented memories.

Death and religion are very intertwined, and by strengthening my relationship with my dad, I am strengthening my relationship with my Jewish identity. Through this, I am able to learn more about how Judaism relates to the afterlife and see how much it relates to my personal beliefs.

(JTA illustration by Grace Yagel)

While these discoveries are recent for me, I had inklings of them shortly after he died. After his memorial, we went to dinner and then ice cream. When we ordered, the ice cream server complimented my eyes, saying how blue they were. Ever since I was little, people told me I had my dad’s eyes. 

When we went to pay, the server said it was on them. I knew that it was my dad who made it happen. It is a Jewish belief that the soul survives after the body dies, which is why I started to feel more comfortable in my Jewish identity. I allowed myself to believe that this was in fact my dad, not some force of nature, and not merely a coincidence.

I have never been a super religious person, and I still wouldn’t consider myself one. I have always had a hard time believing in a god, and felt discouraged when that belief came so easily to others. But I did always believe there was something out there, even if I was unsure of what exactly it may be.

Now, I believe that “something” is my dad, and that brings me comfort. I’m comforted to think he knows the things I spend my time doing, and the accomplishments that have come with them, like getting awards for my journalism, or especially landing parts in plays, because he was an actor. I like to think he knows when I am sad and he knows that I miss him. Every once in a while I talk to him. It’s when I am missing him especially.

Since my dad has passed, my grandparents on my mom’s side moved to be close to us and we started celebrating more Jewish holidays. I love it. By taking this family-centered approach to my Jewish education, I’m able to pace it in a way that feels right and create meaningful memories. With my encouragement, my mom, aunt and I go over to my grandparents house for seders, and we read through the haggadah. 

During Passover I learn about what each ritual food means, its context within the story of Passover and the narrative of Judaism as a whole. With each food and excerpt, I am able to piece together my ancestry and in turn, my Jewish identity. Learning about these parts of Judaism not only interests me, but allows me to bond not just with my family, but other Jewish people in my community. 

While my Jewish identity is unconventional, and still something I sometimes question, it is unique and uniquely mine, and I am proud to call it that.