Two Cultures Walk into a Shul: Reflections on Asian & Jewish American Heritage Month

Growing up in a Filipino-Jewish household meant many things. We're loud - louder even than the average New Jerseyan, where I was born and raised, and my parents still live. Our families are a spider's web of love and complications: this set of cousins aren't talking to each other, that sibling is in a passive-aggressive fight with the other sibling, etc. We're a family of immigrants: my mom came from the Philippines, and my dad's grandparents from Russia. Our food is delectable, from lumpia, pancit, and chicken adobo to rugelach, kugel, and matzoh ball soup (with noodles, thank you very much).

I started going to Hebrew school in the second grade, which is also when I started hearing the phrase that would dog my heels well into adulthood: "But you don't look Jewish!" Coming from both my Jewish and non-Jewish classmates in public school, it took me far too long to realize that they weren't just talking about my lack of stereotypical Jewish features: they also meant not white.

As a kid, this didn't bother me - at least, at first. My usual response was a helpless little shrug as if to say, "I don't know what to tell you, but it's true." It gave me an early lesson in the fact that identity runs deeper than what people can see, and that I shouldn't let someone's perception of me define who I am. It also gave me a running list of dual heritage jokes: we carry twice the generational trauma and twice the guilt from our mothers begging for grandchildren. (Sorry, Mom.)

There's something freeing about belonging to two communities that each have, in their own way, built entire cultures around memory, storytelling, food, and an almost pathological commitment to family. I didn't inherit one version of that: I got both.

That's not to say it's been a fairytale all this time. "Not looking Jewish" in Jewish spaces can lead to awkward, if not downright uncomfortable, situations where my identity becomes questioned. Once when I worked at a big Jewish nonprofit, we decided to host a Purim spiel that would be open for employees' families to attend. I volunteered to help set up an arts and crafts area for the younger kids. As we were decorating, one of my coworkers started explaining to me and only me, on a very basic level, what a Purim spiel was.

Look: I get it. She was trying to be helpful. I don't look Jewish. But now I was stuck with a ridiculous problem: do I interrupt and tell her not only that I'm Jewish, but I know what a Purim spiel is, and make the both of us feel awkward? Or do I nod, smile, and go along with it, and risk her finding out that I lied to spare her feelings?

I played dumb. She never found out. And these small moments, built over time, eventually become a mountain that's difficult to scale without feeling some level of frustration. No, I don't look Jewish, but why do I keep needing to defend myself? Why is it, when I'm walking the streets of New York with my non-Jewish white friend and we're approached by one of the Chabad students, they ask her, "Are you Jewish?" but ignore me completely? Why is it, when a non-white person attends Shabbat service, one of the ushers often approaches and asks them if they're in the right place (something that once happened at my current synagogue)? Why does our community assume someone's Jewishness by their race?

It also goes without saying that, in recent years, being visibly Asian or Jewish has become one minefield after another. It was during the height of COVID that I was harassed in public for the first time for being "Chinese". People avoided me on the subway for fear of catching "kung-flu". And the less said about the world post-10/7, the better.

I was well into my twenties when I first learned that Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month are both commemorated in May. The remarkable coincidence wasn't lost to me: what are the chances that both halves of my identity are celebrated at the same time? It was the first time I made the joke that I still make to this day: "This entire month is dedicated to me."

This was also around the time that I learned there's a whole community of Asian American Jews, all coming together to celebrate our dual heritage with pride. I started supporting organizations like The LUNAR Collective and Ammud, which cultivates communities for all Jews of Color. I began following the careers of leaders like Rabbi Cantor Angela Buchdahl '01, whose own background mirrored mine, and whose love for the Asian American Jewish community has been a critical source of hope for many years. (I actually had the pleasure of briefly meeting Rabbi Buchdahl during our recent 2026 New York Graduation. She gave me a massive hug. I've since achieved perfect Zen.)

There's so much more to love about being Asian-Jewish American than there is to complain about, and May has a way of reminding me of that. Two heritage months, one calendar, one person. It's a coincidence that feels less and less like an accident every year.

So yes, you may think I don't look Jewish, but I am and will continue to be. And, in that quintessential way to both Filipinos and Jews (and New Jerseyans), I'll be loud about it.