On a sunny recent Saturday, I found myself quietly weeping in the smoked-fish line at Zabar’s on 80th Street and Broadway. Yes, it felt like a deleted scene from a Nicole Holofcener movie, and no, I don’t think anybody noticed—sunglasses and face masks are great for public crying—but I couldn’t help it; it was the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and stalwart Upper West Side bubbes were all around me, rapping on the counter with plastic-gloved hands and inquiring after the fish cutter’s new baby before haranguing him over an overly-thin cut of lox.
I grew up on the Upper West Side, a maideleh among those same bubbes, dreading every Jewish obligation my family dragged me to; we were hardly observant, but even the occasional Passover seder or day in shul was enough to strike fear in my tween heart. (I vividly remember my mother forcing me into a dark-green velvet, floor-length dress that most closely resembled a carpet, only to show up at a friend’s bar mitzvah and see that every other twelve-year-old girl there was dressed like a mini-Paris Hilton.)
I got more in touch with my Jewish roots in college, as I began to attend campus celebrations and meet Jews—queer Jews, Jews of color, Jews who didn’t agree with the U.S.’s support for Israel—who didn’t fit the mold. These days, filling my apartment with friends and stuffing them with chicken, challah, tzimmes and all the other traditional Jewish delicacies is one of my favorite Rosh Hashanah traditions; thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, though, it wasn’t possible this year, and as I stood in Zabar’s, surrounded by the sights and smells of my childhood, I realized how much I’d been counting on that sense of community.
Obviously, not being able to celebrate the Jewish holidays the way I’d like to is nothing compared to the immense amount of suffering that COVID-19 has caused around the world, but in a way, I don’t think I had really processed the challenges that the pandemic presented until the Jewish New Year rolled around. I’d done the Zoom dating, the bread-baking, the eventual distanced hangouts and all the other socially acceptable coping mechanisms, but Rosh Hashanah was the first holiday I observed that I’d had to spend without the familiar mishpocha of friends and family all around me, yelling, telling jokes, squinting critically at my bangs and generally filling the room with light.