The upsides - and downsides - of avoiding a 'Jewniversity'

This blog has been shortlisted as part of our JC student blogger competition

When all of my friends from back home went to ‘Jewniversities’, I chose Durham. My Jewish identity was strong enough that I didn’t need to be surrounded by them for my entire university life; I wanted to branch out, meet new people beyond the world I have always known, try something new. Right?

On my first Friday night there, my parents called to wish me a Shabbat Shalom, and I didn’t even realise it was Friday; it just seemed like any other day of the week. I was shocked at myself. We aren’t especially religious; I hardly expected myself to be lighting candles, but I thought I’d have at least remembered, that something deep rooted within me would have been activated. I was wrong. At a university where the average turnout for JSoc is 20 people, where almost none of the people in my halls had even met a Jew before me, and where educated, intelligent people actually believe the stereotypes that I thought had been left behind in Nazi Germany, it is difficult to maintain my Jewish identity.

I have found myself having to explain what a Bar Mitzvah is, what Shabbat is – things I had just assumed everybody knew, if nothing else then simply because of Judaism’s presence in popular culture. I have had to defend my religion, and my right to believe in my religion.