Some of it goes over my head, but I’m excited to learn. For the first time in a long time, the idea of showing up every week to a room with other Jews and talking about religion and life is more than appealing—it feels necessary. Everyone here is Jewish and almost definitely queer and wants to help people, to change the world.

  I need to be a part of that mission, too.

  The rest of the meeting goes by too quickly, with Gali reminding everyone that there will be a radical interfaith Shabbat on Friday, a protest on the quad on Saturday, and a Rosh Hashanah party on Sunday.

  “Fray,” Gali calls out once everyone starts dispersing after the meeting. “So, what’d you think?”

  She’s grinning at me expectantly, and I can’t help but smile back. Because what can I say? My mom would hate this? That’s certainly true, but they don’t need to know that. I feel like I finally found people who understand me? It’s a bit dramatic, sure, but also true.

  I’ve never felt fully at home with other Jews before, but for the past hour, I did.

  So I settle on, “I’m excited for Shabbat!”

  “I’m excited to see you there,” Gali says, leaning closer to me. “We haven’t had a new person for a while, so you’re a welcome surprise.”

  They smile at me, and, for the first time since transferring, I feel like I’m in the right place.

  * * *

  This has been the best week of my life.

  I’ve strolled into the dining commons every night with my head held high, plopping my tray down next to Gali and Rose and Jonah and the rest of the JVP crew, listening to them debate politics and roast each other in the gentle way that only friends can.

  For the most part, I’ve spent that time staring at Gali. Because they’re just … so fucking hot. Their hair is short, shaved on the sides and the back and long and curly and floppy up top. When I look at her, it’s like she’s all there is in the whole world. They know everything there is to know about geopolitics, about Judaism, about life, and I could listen to them talk about the world forever.

  Except it’s not just Gali; it’s Rose and Jonah too. I’ve been sitting with Jonah in environmental science, and we’ve been doing lab reports together in the library. They like to doodle in the margins of their notebook, and sometimes I’ll doodle something in response. It’s nice.

  My JVP friends are also the only people who have ever used they/them pronouns for me. To be fair, they’re the only ones who know that those are my pronouns, but still, it’s incredible. They’ll call me handsome and pretty in the same sentence. They’ll let me tell them how I want to be seen on any given day. It’s so different from the way I’ve been put into a box in the past, as “good Jewish daughter.”

  Now I’m just Fray.

  Back at home, my mom never moved past the image of me as a bat mitzvah, standing at the bimah in a dress and cardigan and chanting Torah. I did that all for her, and then it felt like I never did anything right after that. My life for the past six years has been one extended disappointment to my mother.

  “You’re coming to the Rosh Hashanah party later, right?” Gali asks me as she shrugs her backpack on and puts her empty tray away.

  “I’m not sure…” Even though I feel closer to these people than anyone else at UMB, I still don’t want to intrude. It’s an old impulse, from a time when I knew people only invited me to parties out of pity.

  “Please?” Gali asks, running a hand through their hair. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  It takes almost nothing for me to give in.

  “Okay,” I say, grinning. “If you insist.”

  * * *

  “IT’S ALMOST 5784,” Rose shouts from the corner of the room, and the fifteen or so people who are here throw their hands up and cheer. “WHO’S READY TO FRIGGIN’ LOSE THEIR MINDS?!?!”

  This is … not what I expected.

  I grew up going to Rosh Hashanah get-togethers where I would eat apples and honey and try not to spill anything on my new white dress. Then my mom would parade me around the room, telling everyone what I had accomplished in the past year, and they would ooh and aah over my mom’s version of my life.

  If only I had known that I could’ve been doing this the whole time. That I could live my life with these Jews, who only vaguely care about the rules but want to heal the fucking world and have fun doing it.

  “You look incredible,” Jonah says as they walk up to me, gesturing at my whole deal. “Please bring this outfit energy to environmental science.”

  I’m wearing a white jumpsuit and my tallest don’t-fuck-with-me black boots, so I can’t help but roll my eyes at Jonah’s comment. “I’m gonna continue wearing joggers and a hoodie to envirosci, but good try.”

  They stick their tongue out at me, and I flip them off.

  They grin. “Spicy.”

  “Shut up,” I tell them, but really, I could talk to Jonah all night. They’re so cool, and it’s wild to think of the alternate universe where we were in the same class all semester but never spoke. We would be strangers if it wasn’t for JVP.

  “WHO’S APPLE BOBBING NEXT?” Rose shouts a few minutes later. We’re in her dorm, a four-room suite with a stained couch and a peeling fake-tile floor.

  Gali’s wearing a white suit with a skinny black tie and black Doc loafers. When they walk up to me, my heart almost stops.

  “Fray,” they say, nodding like a Victorian gentleman.

  “Gal,” I say back, and they laugh.

  “Do you have an apple bobbing partner yet?”

  I’m not the kind of person who goes bobbing for apples. I’m the kind of person who watches other people go bobbing for apples and thinks, Wow, that must be fun for them.

  But maybe that doesn’t have to be me anymore.

  I shake my head. “Nope.”

  They reach for my hand. “Well, come on then, no time to waste.”

  I trail behind her, and a Red Sea of queer Jews parts just for us.

  “Gali and Fraaaaaaaaaaay,” Rose announces, holding a hairbrush in lieu of a microphone. “The match-up of the century.”

  Rose is more than a little tipsy, as are half the people here, but I haven’t seen Gali drink anything, and I haven’t either.

  I stare down into the metal bin filled with water and shiny red apples.

  “On your marks,” Rose says. “Get set…” Before she can finish, Gali’s head and shoulders are in the bucket, and I shove them to try to make space for myself.

  “NOT FAIR,” I shout as they emerge from the bucket to breathe. But I can’t say it with a straight face.

  I dunk my head under the water, and the sounds of the party are muffled around me. Water keeps getting into my mouth because I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

  I’ve never had this much fun on a high holiday.

  Unfortunately, though, none of the apples feel like staying in my mouth, and after a few seconds, there’s a tug on the back of my jumpsuit.

  “HNNNNN!” Gali grunts, a red apple hanging successfully from their mouth.

  “What was that?” I ask, laughing so hard that I cough up some of the bucket water.

  They pull the apple out of their mouth and take a bite. “I said, ‘I won.’”

  I tip a fake hat to them. “I can see that.”

  And then it’s my turn to grab their arm as the next two people bob for apples, dragging her across the room.

  “Do you want a towel or something?”

  She raises her eyebrows. “You have one?”

  “Well, no,” I say. “But I could figure something out.”

  “How entrepreneurial.”

  “I don’t think you’re using that word correctly.”

  We both slump down on the wall farthest from the apple bobbing station. This is the biggest party I’ve been to since I transferred, but it still feels intimate. Maybe it’s because these people understand every part of me: my Judaism, my queerness, my desire for connection that’s outside of what my old synagogue gave me.

  “Where’d you come from?” Gali asks after a minute.

  “What?”

  They turn and tilt their head toward me. “I just mean, you show up one day at the JVP meeting, and now it’s like I can’t imagine the group without you.”

  I have no idea how to respond to that, so I don’t say anything.

  “No, I’m serious,” they say earnestly. “It’s like you belong here.”

  I rub the back of my neck, which is slick from a combination of sweat and apple-bobbing water. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you feel it too?” Gali asks. “That you were meant to be here, with us, at this party?”

  “This exact party?” I wave my hands around the room. “No, not really.”

  They shove my shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

  I guess I do. Because I feel it, too. And I tell them as much.

  “Good, because I’m being serious.” They almost lean their head against my neck, then think better of it. But their face stays close. “You belong here.”

  Maybe it’s because no one has ever said anything like that to me, or maybe it’s because we just stuck our heads in the same bacteria-filled communal bathwater, but I can’t shake the thought: I need to kiss them right now.

  I don’t know if it’ll ruin everything I have here, this new world that I want to live in forever, but I lean in.

  I keep my eyes closed as I do, because I can’t stand the embarrassment of seeing Gali’s face when they reject me.

  But I don’t have to, because a few seconds later, their lips are on mine. They put a hand on my chest and lean into me. Everything about them is warm and soft and perfect, and I don’t know how I made it here, with this person who told me I belong.

  When I come up for air (a much more pleasant experience than it was with apple bobbing), I can’t stop staring at their lips, puffy from the kiss. From where my mouth touched theirs, soft and sweet.

  Gali grins at me, but just as I’m about to lean in again, someone blows the shofar, and everyone heads toward the center of the room to sing and pray and talk about our hopes for ourselves and the world for the new year.

  “I wasn’t trying to get you to make out with me, you know,” Gali whispers when everyone is sitting in a circle. “I meant what I said.”

  “I know,” I whisper back. “But making out with you was a fun bonus.”

  They snort, and I lean into them, thanking the transfer gods for giving me UMB and JVP and Gali.

  * * *

  “Do you want to learn more about our Return the Birthright campaign?” I ask a random passerby who shakes their head and plows forward, speed-walking through the quad to get away from me.

  Gali just laughs. “You’ll get used to it,” they tell me.

  We’re countertabling Hillel right now, and I’m trying my best not to look across at the people behind their table. I recognize some of them from the Shabbat I went to, and I don’t want them to see me here, even if I’d rather be hanging out with my JVP friends than them. Maybe it’s residual shame from feeling like I’m doing something wrong by being part of JVP. Or maybe it’s very justified shame because my mom would flip her shit if she found out.

  “I need to get a picture for IG,” Rose says, motioning for all of us at the JVP table to move closer together. “Smile like you like each other.”

  I grin at Gali; I can’t help it. They’ve brought me into the fold of JVP and of their life, and through them I’ve met Rose and Jonah.

  Since the party, we’ve made out at every possible opportunity. We’ve talked about Judaism and queerness and a million other things that make me feel like I finally belong.

  When we’re all sweaty and tired from a day of handing out fliers and trying to get other Jews on campus to join our cause, we traipse over to Rose’s suite.

  Gali and I choose two seats pressed right up against each other around Rose’s crowded kitchen table while everyone flops down around us.

  “Gali-and-Fray-stop-making-googly-eyes-at-each-other challenge,” Jonah says after a few minutes of idle chatter.

  My face gets hot, but Gali says, “Absolutely not.”

  I grin at them, then pull out my phone to avoid looking at everyone else’s faces. I didn’t think it was that obvious.

  But what I find on my screen is about a thousand times worse than being teased about my crush on Gali.

  MOM: What is this?

  The photo attached to the text is the one Rose took an hour or so earlier at the counter-protest. It’s part of a screenshot from a UMB Jewish Parents group “warning” about us. About JVP.

  The moms move fast.

  Before I can even respond, my mom sends two more texts.

  MOM: I’m coming for Parents Weekend

  MOM: And we’re going to have a Talk.

  * * *

  “You didn’t have to bring me all this,” I tell my mom once she releases me from an extended hug.

  She’s been scowling this whole time, but she’s still plying me with food and clothes. But I can tell she’s mad at me because she brought me the scratchy underwear.

  “It’s fine,” she says. “I thought you’d need something nice to wear to Shabbat tonight, anyway. At Hillel.”

  I ignore the last part of what she said and sort through the tote bag she handed me. The non-underwear clothes she brought are, to put it nicely, hideous. She seems to have bought out the entirety of Target’s junior girls skirt section. There’s nothing wrong with a good skirt, but all of these are ankle-length and floral, and about as far away from my personal style as any article of clothing could possibly be.

  Instead of telling my mom that, I quietly thank her again, and then get changed so we can go to services. I’m playing the role I need to play right now, because anything else will stop the plan I’ve set in motion. I need her to think we’re going to Hillel, that I’ve “come to my senses.”

  I kept trying to get her to stay home, but I don’t think she’s ever going to let me be now that she’s seen the people I hang out with. She hasn’t addressed it, but I know it’s coming. Nothing can stop a Jewish mother on a mission.

  And then, as we’re walking through the quad, we run into Gali.

  “Hey!” Gali says.

  If we’d run into them accidentally, I’d be embarrassed. But this is all part of the mission.

  When I told Gali and Jonah and Rose about the text my mom sent, they immediately swung into action. It was wild—and heartwarming—to see.

  “Hi,” I say back, careful not to stand too close to them. “Mom, this is Gali. Gali, this is my mom.”

  “Nice to meet you,” my mom says in a way that makes it clear it’s not.

  “I was just about to head to Shabbat at a friend’s house. We’re having an event for Parents Weekend if you two wanted to come?”

  I look tentatively over at my mom. I’m not sure if she recognizes Gali from the photo, but if she does, then she’s got a good poker face. Gali is dressed in a button-down and khakis, a respectable Shabbat outfit.

  “We’re going to services at Hillel, but thank you for the offer,” my mom says, and starts to walk away.

  “Wait, Mom?” I ask. “Hillel will probably be crowded. Why don’t we just go here?”

  It’s not the truth, but I need her to say yes.

  “I already bought Shabbat tickets,” my mom says. She’s tapping her foot, annoyance written all over her face.

  “Mom, please?” I ask, desperation seeping into my voice.

  She sighs, then stares at her watch. Then sighs again.

  She turns back to me. “Fine,” she relents, and the three of us walk in silence to Rose’s suite.

  Rose and Jonah and the others are all dressed in their Shabbat best—part of the plan as well, since we’d normally all just wear a T-shirt and jeans or whatnot—and welcome my mom as she walks in.

  “Fray, this is my mom,” Rose says, pointing to a woman who looks just like her but older and grayer.

  “It’s so nice to meet you,” Rose’s mom says, pulling me in for a hug. “I’ve heard so much about you from my Rosie.”

  I don’t know if this is true, but I smile gratefully at her. When I turn back to my mom, she seems slightly more at ease. Maybe it’s the fellow-Jewish-mom presence.

  There are desserts everywhere, and the suite is steamy from freshly baked challah.

  We all start by singing Shalom Aleichem, and when I look over, my mom’s singing along, her eyes closed. Singing together is one of my favorite parts of Shabbat; the words feel like they’re imprinted on my heart.

  Shalom aleichem mal’achei hashareit mal’achei elyon …

  We sing as one, and my mom squeezes my hand.

  After we make kiddush, everyone eats and mingles, and my mom pulls me aside.

  “Is this what I think it is?” she asks, and I hesitate for a moment before nodding. I know she’s asking if this is JVP, the people she’s spent years warning me against.

  She sighs, not looking at me.

  “Mom—” I start to say.

  She shakes her head. “Not right now. Not in front of these people.” Then she walks away to talk to Rose’s mom.

  “Is it working?” Gali asks under their breath as we both power through chunk after chunk of challah.

  “I don’t know,” I tell them honestly.

  Everyone continues mingling, and I try to ignore my mom for a while as I laugh and chat and eat and sing with Gali and Rose and Jonah.

  When the time comes to leave, my mom thanks Rose and we walk quietly out of the dorm. She doesn’t say anything for a long, long time.

  “What did you think?” I ask finally. I can’t wait any longer.

  “Rose’s mom was nice,” she says.

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want me to say, Fray?” she asks. “This is … shocking, to say the least. If I’d have known you were going to join whatever radical group happened to hand you a brochure, I wouldn’t have let you come here.”

 

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