I am Jewish by default because I was born in Israel to a Jewish mother, which made my Judaism a fact, like my eye color or curly hair. It wasn't something I chose, questioned, or even thought about. In Israel, being Jewish is the air you breathe. You don't stand out for it, and you are not defined by it, unless you are religious. My Israeli identity was always louder, more present, mine.
Then in 2019, I left for Los Angeles to explore and live outside the familiar - not out of rejection of Israel, but out of curiosity. I built a life in LA - a new career, marriage to an Israeli man, and an unexpected discovery. Distance gave me perspective. Being the only Israeli in the room – often the only Jew - made me visible to myself in ways I had never been.
During my last visit to Israel, a deliveryman knocked on my hotel room door, handed me my order, and said “Shalom” without thinking. I paused. How did he know I was Israeli, Jewish? And then I remembered: I'm in Israel. Here, it's assumed.
In Los Angeles, no one assumes. When I say I'm Israeli, I'm Jewish - that's a choice. The outsider’s experience forces a question that life in your homeland never asks: Who are you when no one assumes?
A month before October 7, I attended a women's leadership program at Harvard University. I sat in a negotiation seminar led by a brilliant, engaging professor, Diana Buttu.
When she pronounced my name perfectly, with an accent that suggested Mediterranean roots, I felt seen. After class, I asked her where she was from. She responded, somewhat intentionally, that she was from Haifa. The choice of the city rather than the country said everything - she was Palestinian.
That night at my Airbnb, I couldn’t sleep and Googled her for hours. But what I found shattered the moment. She was a senior adviser to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and a former spokesperson for the PLO. Her public positions were fiercely antisemitic - everything I have spent my life fighting against.
The next morning, our class was scheduled to spend hours together. Part of me wanted to skip - not to spare myself the pain, but so as not to give her my presence. But another part of me recognized that she wouldn’t care if I left and it would be my loss.
Against my friends’ advice, I went back. For the first hour, I couldn't hear a word she said. I looked at her, overwhelmed, searching for words that didn’t come. At the break, I asked her to step outside. But what poured out wasn't strategy; it was tears and choked sentences. I know who you are. I know what you represent. And it hurts because I respect you as a teacher, but I cannot respect what you've done against my people. You are everything I fight against.
She listened and then offered me something I didn't expect - not agreement, but understanding. She lived in Ramallah and Gaza and saw what she saw. She said that we are all byproducts of our life circumstances. Although I couldn't agree with her politics, I could agree with that. When she offered me a hug, I took it.
After October 7, I don't think that conversation could happen today. The naivete is gone; our good faith has become a luxury that history keeps billing us for, and neutrality is no longer an option.
Something shifted in me that day in Boston. I realized that my Judaism and my Israeli identity were not things that happened to me. They became mine by choice.
At the Milstein Family Foundation, I work to fight antisemitism in America, to strengthen the US-Israel alliance, and to defend American democracy. These aren't abstract missions for me anymore. They're personal. They're urgent. They're mine.
Judaism, I now understand, is not only about being the chosen people in the theological sense - chosen by God. It is about us choosing to show up, choosing to light candles on Friday night, choosing to stand for something even when it costs you. I'm not religious, and I hold deep respect for those who are. But for me, Jewish life means choosing to be present even in the darkest hours. It means advocating for understanding while refusing to be naive. It means refusing to disappear.
I am Israeli. I am Jewish. And for the first time in my life, both are things I actively, consciously, and proudly chose. And that choice, I’ve come to believe, may be the most Jewish thing I’ve ever done.
Chen Rosenberg Klein is Senior Director of Programs at the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Leah Soibel.