During the recent end-of-year holiday, I found a fascinating podcast series aired on BBC Radio 4 called ‘The Gift’. The gift of the title refers to the giving of presents of DNA test kits by family members or friends to particular people – the people who subsequently shared their stories with the presenter of the podcast series.
One of the episodes tells the story of a woman of mixed-race background: her mother is a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon of Christian descent) and her father is of African American extraction. When she goes through the DNA testing, she is surprised to discover that, biologically, her background is, in fact, significantly Jewish. It turns out that her mother had a ‘one-night stand’ with a Jewish man, and that this man is her biological father.
Aside from the obvious concerns about how one must feel when one discovers that someone you thought was your parent is not the father you always believed him to be, and about what the admission of the relationship must have meant to the parental couple themselves, I found my mind constantly returning to the identity issues that this situation gave rise to. What I found fascinating is that the woman – who previously had no connection to anything Jewish – began researching the Jewish culture and religion, and she has since converted to Judaism. She said during the podcast that she felt as if Jewish society was where she had always belonged, even though she had not previously thought she had any connection to the Jewish world.
It’s something I’ve wondered about before when I’ve heard about Polish people, brought up as Catholics, who have discovered in recent years that their origins are Jewish. (In most instances, these are people whose biological Jewish parents handed a baby over to non-Jewish neighbours in the hope that the child would survive the Nazi onslaught against the Jews.) Invariably, these people talk about having grown up never feeling like they quite belonged in their Polish Catholic community, and that coming into contact with the Jewish world was like coming home.
These situations raise big questions about how one’s identity is shaped: is it part of one’s biological or genetic make-up, or is identity formed by one’s upbringing and the society and family one grows up in? I don’t have the answer to this, but I certainly find it intriguing.
Interested in listening to the stories revealed in The Gift podcast? You’ll find the various episodes here.
The Chronicle team had a great deal of fun putting together the previous edition: a bumper edition that highlighted both the celebration of our 40th birthday and the launch of a new look for the publication. That’s what was behind the ‘cover wrap’ we put over the usual print version; we wanted to give our loyal readers a taste of our new branding and highlight the four decades of news from the Cape Town Jewish community. We hope you enjoyed it, and would love to hear your feedback. (Email us at editor@ctjc.co.za.)
• Read the February 2025 issue in magazine format here.
• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.
• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.
• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.
• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.
Follow the Cape Jewish Chronicle: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn