So this is a bit of a long story, but bear with me for a little….

I recently saw a post by a guy that I want to college with. Let’s call him Steve. The two of us were pretty good friends throughout the 3 years we learned Graphic Design and Advertising together. We ate most meals together – him with his cafeteria-bought pepperoni pizza, and me with my kosher yogurt and packed tuna sandwich from home.

My entire class knew that I was Jewish – probably because I walked in the first day determined to use my given Hebrew name (no English name…) Chavi. That pretty much ended by 4 PM that day when everyone tried desperately to make that harsh “Ch” sound and ended up sounding like a bunch of students throwing up a hairball. So I switched to Rachel since my middle names are Rochel Laya (yes, spelled and pronounced like this…). A story for another time.

But the word was already out: I was the sole Jewish student in this program of hundreds of students.

So the college years passed, we lost touch, and I eventually married and then moved to Israel a couple of years later with my husband and 5 month old baby. Time went by and we added more kids to our family, and a couple of dogs along the way.

At some point, probably close to twenty years later I get a message on Facebook:

Hey, it’s Steve, do you remember me?

Of course I did! It was really nice to hear from him and we started corresponding a little here and there. He, too, was married and he was working as a Graphic Designer in the city.

At some point during our correspondence – maybe a couple weeks into it – he dropped a truth bomb:

He told me he was Jewish.

I can’t tell you the shock I felt. I was actually dumbstruck. I had sat next to this guy for YEARS, and answered questions about my religion, explaining the inaneness of what exactly was The Feast of the Tabernacles, and that we “lived” in branch covered huts for 7 days while shaking three branches and a lemon every day. He saw me fight to hand in a project a day late because of........

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