Living Our Beliefs: Exploring Faith & Religion in Daily Life

New Land, New Religious Experience? – Judith Pajo, Zeyneb Sayilgan and Meli Solomon (part 1)

• Meli Solomon, the Talking with God Project • Season 4 • Episode 100

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Episode 100.   

For this episode, I’ve invited two women, Judith Pajo and Zeyneb Sayilgan, for a group discussion about living our faiths in America and Germany. We each have unique patterns of immigration in addition to different religious identities and practice. Judith grew up in both countries as a Catholic, Zeyneb likewise grew up in Germany and is a lifelong Muslim, while I grew up in the US and lived in Germany for nearly nine years, having become a practicing Jew as an adult. In comparing our unique religious experiences in these two countries, we found engaging layers of issues that we hope to further explore.  

 

A small note. Because this conversation was so extensive, I’ve divided it into two episodes of approximately 30 minutes each. This first part includes discussion of our background, religious identity and the dynamic of universalism and individuality. Part two will be released in two weeks. 


Bio for Judith:

Judith Pajo, PhD, grew up in both Germany and the United States. She studied Catholic theology and cultural anthropology on both sides of the Atlantic and has been teaching at Pace University in New York City. Her new research on interfaith dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Europe and North America, conceived a little over a year ago, is transforming her Catholic faith. She is currently working on an article about cultural transgressions in interfaith work. Judith lives in Queens, NY. 


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Bio for Zeyneb:

Zeyneb Sayilgan, PhD, is the Muslim Scholar at ICJS, The Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where her research focuses on Islamic theology and spirituality as articulated in the writings of Muslim scholar Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960). She is the host of the Podcast On Being Muslim. You can read her publications on her blog.


Links for Zeyneb: 


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project.

Judith Pajo, Zeyneb Sayilgan and Meli Solomon transcript

New Land, New Religious Experience?

 

 

 

Méli Solomon [00:00:05]:

Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. For this episode, I've invited two women, Judith Pejo and Zeyneb Sayilgan, for a group discussion about living our faiths in America and Germany. We each have unique patterns of immigration in addition to different religious identities and practice.

 

Méli Solomon [00:00:55]:

Judith grew up in both countries as a Catholic, though she is now rethinking that label. Zeyneb likewise grew up in Germany and is a lifelong Muslim, while I grew up in the US and lived in Germany for nearly nine years, having become a practicing Jew as an adult. In comparing our unique religious experiences in these two countries, we found engaging layers of issues that we hope to explore further. A small note. Because this conversation was so extensive, I've divided it into two episodes of approximately 30 minutes each. This first part includes discussion of our background, religious identity, and the dynamic of universalism and individuality. Part two will be released in two weeks. And now let's turn to our conversation.

 

Méli Solomon [00:01:53]:

Hello, Judith and Zeyneb. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. This is a really special conversation today, so welcome.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:02:05]:

Thank you so much. Meli. It's so nice to be with you. And Judy.

 

Judith Pajo [00:02:09]:

Thanks, Meli. It's very nice to be back on your podcast.

 

Méli Solomon [00:02:14]:

So the overarching question here is, how has our religious identity, our practice, and our sense of belonging been different in the US and in Germany? I think it would be good to start with laying the structure of our basic experience. So I'll kick off. I am an American, and I lived in Germany. I lived in Berlin, Germany, for almost nine years. I am back in the US in the Boston area. Judith, what was your pattern?

 

Judith Pajo [00:02:49]:

I was born in Germany, and I would say for the first half of my life, I spent half of that time in Germany and half of the time in the US always traveling back and forth, first with the family and later for my own education. So I would say, yeah, half of my life was spent half and half on both sides of the Atlantic. And in the second half, I guess I've settled more in the US Although I continue to travel back to Germany for both family visits and then also intensively for research for field work.

 

Méli Solomon [00:03:24]:

Okay. And Zeyneb?

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:03:25]:

I was born and raised in Germany. My parents are of Kurdish descent. I'm of Kurdish descent and they immigrated in the 1970s from Turkey to Germany. And I was the first born in my family in Germany. I was born in Mainz. We have a very big Muslim population, 4 to 5 million Muslims. So I grew up in Germany as a Muslim child in a very diverse Muslim community. I had Afghan Muslim friends, Bosnian Muslim friends, Tunisian, Egyptian and German Muslim friends. So that was my first experience in Germany. I've come to the United States in 2006 after I finished my graduate studies in Islamic studies in Germany and public law. I wanted to pursue further studies and I was very interested in the Muslim theologian Bediüzzaman Said Nursi said Nursi's works and had met scholars at a conference in Bonn at that time, in 2000, in the 2004, I believe, and then decided I would love to study with them. And then I moved to the United States and It's been almost 16 years now.

 

Méli Solomon [00:04:39]:

So Zeyneb, when you moved to the US you were an adult?

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:04:45]:

Yes, I was 26-year-old. But I've never lost touch with Germany or Turkey. I go every summer. My family and friends and relatives live in Germany and in Turkey. So it was very important to me to maintain connections and relationships.

 

Méli Solomon [00:05:03]:

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Already I can see how we have three quite different patterns of moving between the two countries. I want to dig into that more. I'm wondering straight off whether your sense of practice or identity, sense of belonging to has been stronger or weaker in one of these places.

 

Judith Pajo [00:05:28]:

Identity is such a fashionable term as of late. And I don't think growing up that I thought in terms of identity. It's something that has just come to awareness in the last couple of years in America because that, that term is so important. But if I apply that term backwards, which is a little anachronistic, and try to apply it to my growing up in Germany, that part of the experience. I think there were really four questions that bear on identity that were important. The most important question was, are you religious or not? The second question was, are you Catholic or Protestant? And then the next question was, are you baptized? Did you go to first communion? Did you do your confirmation? These are some of the sacraments that we have in the Catholic Church. We call them the sacraments of initiation. The idea was that you are more fully Catholic if you have gone through all three of these sacraments.

 

Judith Pajo [00:06:21]:

So that's why that was an important question. The fourth question that was important in the German context was are you active or not? And this question was like, how full, how much do you participate in other words, like how active are you? And I think if I just contrast briefly with the US Where I also grew up, I still was my Catholic self, but what I was missing was the Protestant other because the demographics in Germany were such that I guess half of the population considered itself religious in a Christian way, and then half of those were Protestant and half of those were Catholic. So I grew up always with, you know, the Catholic self and the Protestant other. And when I came to the US The Protestant other went missing because it's so much more of a diverse religious landscape in the United States. I didn't see the Protestants anymore, or perhaps there were so many different variations of them that I really didn't understand a thing about them. And therefore it was sort of the Catholic self without the other.

 

Méli Solomon [00:07:29]:

The greater complexity of the US Population, I think, is a great thing to bring up. I think that's really important. Certainly the minority majority mix is different.

 

Judith Pajo [00:07:45]:

In the US there was sort of a division that was made between the weekday self and the weekend self that I didn't feel in Germany. In Germany, you know, weekday weekend, it was all the same, like Catholic or religious through and through. And in the US Going to public school meant that there was no religious education, no religious instruction during the school week. And therefore being your religious self was kind of relegated to the weekend, you know, to Sunday school. For Catholics who wouldn't go to Catholic school in the US that split identity, I think that also was important. And in public school it was sort of a competition, you know, in terms of identity, because the focus in public school seemed to be on nationality and the diversity of the nationalities, the countries of origin of all the immigrants. Because the public school was so mixed, you know, what was really celebrated is all the countries of origin that had one thing in common. You're all not from America, you know, and now you're, you're, you're in America and it's a different nationality.

 

Judith Pajo [00:08:51]:

You know, what was missing in America that was present in Germany was this idea that you would have a religious education as part of your secular or education, part of your civic life. So in Germany, there was not this split between religion and nationality the way that it is in the US in my experience.

 

Méli Solomon [00:09:14]:

Yeah. Zeynep, what about you?

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:09:17]:

Your question about identity? That is something that I've always had to think about. Like I said, I was born and raised in Germany, and oftentimes the messaging that I received was, you have to decide. You have to decide if you want to belong or if you want to be part of this society, you have to give up your Muslim identity or Muslim faith and practice. Oftentimes as a young Muslim perceived as a problem or as a nuisance or a burden to society. And then oftentimes we had that. I'm sure you're aware about the debate about the German Leitkultur, the Deutsche Leitkultur, and to follow. Follow a certain leading culture that was never defined. And I think nobody knows what.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:10:07]:

What actually is the German leading culture. So when you go up in this context, the question of identity is very much on the. On your radar. Early on, as a child, I asked myself, am I a German? Am I Turkish? Am I Kurdish? Can I be Muslim at the same time? Do I have to have a certain loyalty to one country? Can – can't I cheer for the Turkish Soc national soccer team and the German soccer team at the same time? Is that even allowed? Dual loyalties, dual belongings, multiple belongings. That is actually on my whole autobiography. This kind of experience brought me to my doctoral work because it was only when I turned to my sacred resources, the Quran as my scripture, as holy Muslim scripture, that I started bringing all these questions. What does my traditions say about home, about identity, about borders, about belonging, about integration, about assimilation? What does God say about this? And for me, the Quran is very much the word of God.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:11:16]:

And I have come now to the humble conclusion that for me, the human being or human nature as I defined it, has a cosmic identity. And let me define what, how I understand cosmic identity for me and in my life, when I have so many multiple belongings. I speak the Turkish language. I have deep admiration for German literature in which I majored. I love the German language. I still speak German. I love Kurdish, I love English. I don't want to decide where I belong.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:11:48]:

As a theologian, I came to the conclusion that cosmic identity means that we are more than territorial beings, that we cannot be confined by certain borders or legal constructs and passports or certain documents. Yes, I have three passports, the Turkish, German, and the American one. I'm all of that, but also none of that. I'm more than just, you know, an earthly, material, physical being. I have a spirit. And that spirit cannot be confined by borders by a certain country. It doesn't feel enough for me at this point in my life. I'm 45 years old.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:12:30]:

I'm raising a daughter who's 10, who will walk the similar experience this summer, will go to Germany, Turkey, and I will tell her, you belong to all of these beautiful places. It's a privilege, it's a blessing to have so many languages and be exposed to all these cultures. And, and that's a sad story for me that we are losing out of the potential, especially immigrant children, refugee children, when the messaging is you cannot belong with all of your languages, your cultures, your religion, because this is an amazing resource. We are not tapping into enough. And sadly, my experience in Germany was that you have to give up certain things in order to belong. But I do not accept that anymore. I reclaim myself, place in this world. And looking at it from a theological perspective, I realized I'm more than an earthly being.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:13:25]:

Like I said, that spiritual entity cannot be captured just with a country. There is a celestial element within us. We all feel it, right? The heart or the soul is not something that can be put in a box. And that for me was the fundamental conclusion. If you think about human nature, there is a spiritual core that requires that we need to be more expansive, broader, that we cultivate relationships with all of the earth and all its people. And honestly, that's where I as a person of faith have come to. When I look at my scripture saying, you are wider than the earth, you are heavenly being. Your ultimate departure point was paradise.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:14:12]:

And we are immigrants, all of us. None of us is bound to stay. None of us can claim ultimate ownership of the resources on this earth, of the country. Of course, we are spatial beings. Space is important. I have to cultivate a certain attachment to a place, but that is for me, the both end. Cosmic identity means that I have an earthy aspect, a physical aspect, but also have a spirit that wants to belong or cultivate belonging to many more spaces. And why should I decide? Why should I have to give up certain things? And for me, my Islamic faith was the one umbrella tent that provided that space of universality and sameness.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:14:55]:

I could relate to people from all ethnic backgrounds. I affirm belief that we are one human family, even if I have a relationship with, who does not embrace faith in God. Still for me, that doesn't take away that relationship. So that's where I met and this brought me to my academic research and shaped me fundamentally, my own spirituality. And I think we need to have a different take on identity, what it means, especially in a world that is marked by migration and mobility and movement.

 

Méli Solomon [00:15:25]:

Yeah, thank you, Zeyneb. I do hear from both of you that complexity and how problematic this question of identity is. Since this is a three-way conversation, I'll add my bit in terms of my experience of being a Jew in the US and in Germany, it's been really different. So in The US I've lived in three major cities. New York, Boston, and Seattle, all of which have significant Jewish populations. It's been very easy to be a Jew in the US Where I've lived. This is not universally true, I'm sorry to note. But I do need to raise it that antisemitism, it never completely goes away, but it has risen again.

 

Méli Solomon [00:16:14]:

But in my experience, these three cities have been, you know, very comfortable. It was very different in Berlin. I didn't have problems, Gott sei Dank. But given the history of Jews in Germany and the fact that because of that history, the Jewish population, even in Berlin, which is the largest population in Germany, it's very small, especially in contrast to American Jewish populations. One of the things that I found was that in terms of my practice, Judith, you talked about, well, are you observant? What do you do? I realized that in contrast to where I lived in the US I needed to actively decide every day to be a Jew and to activate that practice. And if I did not, that practice would simply dissipate to nothing. You really had to make a point to go find a community and to join it. And they were small, so supporting it actively was important.

 

Méli Solomon [00:17:29]:

Along with that was a real joy and pride in helping to rebuild the Jewish community. I'm really impressed with how Germany has faced its history against the Jews. Everywhere you go, there are memorials and plaques, but it's history, right? It's looking at the dead, at the past, at ugliness. And my focus was, how can I contribute to the living, to the future, to the ongoing community that's really actively doing something? I don't hear those issues from either of you, even though Zainab, you know, the Muslim community is a minority in both Germany and the U.S. Judith, I hear a bit of this from you. So. Yeah, go ahead, Judith.

 

Judith Pajo [00:18:29]:

I think what you just spoke about really made me realize there's a whole other layer. You know, I'm always thinking about the cultural differences between the two countries I grew up in and how that culture impacts the sense of being religious. And I think what you mention about Germany, the Erinnerungskultur, right, the memory culture that is really visible throughout the country has made a lasting impact on me. And when I came to the US I was not at all proud to come from Germany. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I wish nobody asked me about it. You know, I came to the US in the early 80s. This is like a mere 35 years after the Nazi horrors were put to an end.

 

Judith Pajo [00:19:22]:

So nationality and national identity which seem to figure so large in American culture. Everybody's supposed to be proud of where they came from. That was not the case for me. And I think that in turn led me to highlight the religious identity because that was one that I could be happy with, could be proud of, because it was that one God that I felt we were serving not only as Catholics, but across the religions. I just felt like, look, I mean, I'm a monotheist through and through. There is one God, and logically it has to be the same God, you know, and this God created the universe. God created humans. God revealed himself to us.

 

Judith Pajo [00:20:11]:

God saves us. Saved us in the past, saves us now. That oneness of the universe and God, that was something I was proud of. And what was really disturbing to me was all this division into different nationalities, because I felt like that that's where all the horrors came from. To me, growing up, nationality was the problem. Religion was – I don't know if I would call it the solution, but religion was the. The place of peace. That drives my research to this day.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:20:46]:

Judy, that resonates deeply with me. I felt also all my life that aggressive nationalism. I mean, I have nothing against love of your nation and that. That type of healthy love for the nation, but I do think that there is an element of extreme nationalism or aggressive nationalism that I found very exclusionary. And it's a construct that comes out with the rise of modernity. And of course, modernity has. I don't want to say all of it is bad, but there is an element that has this type of aggressive nationalism or at least the rise of modern nation states has also contributed to a certain arrogance or exclusionary mode of thinking. And that's certainly also a malaise or disease within the Muslim community, something that we have to grapple with.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:21:37]:

Nationalism of different Muslim countries. And I think for me, the beauty of the Quran was to affirm that healthy diversity of ethnicities and races, that the colors and the languages are all signs of God, of. Of his divine creativity. But when you become too extremely attached to your nation or your ethnicity or race, then that there's an element that becomes arrogant, can turn into hostility. There's possibility. I take deep pride in my Kurdish ethnicity and my Turkish background, but I found that element very disturbing. And I think that was something that still Germany was wrestling with post war. What is German identity? What is our religion? And the Muslim is raising all these questions, who are you in the face of the Muslim immigrant? Is the Judeo-Christian background important to you? Is your German identity important to you.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:22:33]:

And I think it was kind of a mutual wrestling. Who are we in the face of each other? We are now this week in the pilgrimage season of the Hajj. Three million people around the world from 180 countries go to the sacred pilgrimage site. And while Muslim community is messy, we deal with racism, we deal with aggressive nationalism. I think for me it's a beautiful, powerful, embodied reminder of the unity of one human family. You know, the Abrahamic faith pilgrimage is a reenactment of the Abrahamic rituals of mother Hajar and baby Ismail Ishmael. And it is a reminder for me what is it that we are about as one human family. I call it the first ancient United Nations.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:23:16]:

And for me it's still an invitation to live into the call to be one ethically, spiritually. And we are still not there yet. We still haven't fulfilled that because it is a world where we feel it becomes more divisive, it becomes more hostile, taller walls, bigger borders or whatever, thinking that we need to reject difference. There's a lot of young Muslims who don't feel that it works for them because of their embodied experience of difference. So I grew up in the West, I grew up in the east, in Turkey. For me there is no division of the holy Islamic land and the unholy Christian West. I have never experienced that. You know, when I'm in Germany and I'm a counter the Christian culture, I'm not filled with negative emotions.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:24:08]:

And so I think when you have 45% of Muslims now living in the west, this is important. When we talk about identity, how do we broaden the concept that makes space for everyone in America? Frankly, I was more comfortable being a Muslim because of the fact what you just stated, that religion is much more publicly affirmed, acknowledged the need for religious expression, that it's a human need, existential need is affirmed. When you are Muslim, you're already in public, you can't hide. Your 5 times prayer are very visible, your fasting becomes visible at some point. You don't make a showoff, but still it's visible in a sense. So it challenges the notion that religion is somehow secluded to the private sphere and it pushes you to be in public. And it has made me a more self-aware and self-conscious Muslim in a good way. I mean, as a young child I struggled with that.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:25:05]:

But now as an adult I say, nope, I'm going to be unapologetically Muslim. And you know, God wants me to have a space in this world. Not to see difference as threat, but as Richness. And the very much is true. When I go to Turkey, it's too homogeneous for me. There is a certain ethno-nationalism that still grapples with different nationalities, ethnicities. But like I said, this is something that is in all communities, something that we need to tackle. Racism, ethnocentrism.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:25:38]:

But generally, looking across the Atlantic, the issues are quite similar. And what you said earlier, Meli, about antisemitism. Islamophobia has been always part of my life. Right 45 years I am now as an adult woman. The fear and hatred of Muslims is something that I daily encounter in textbooks and the curriculum. The erasure of a people. And yes, while the Holocaust is important and needs to be taught, there is a whole history, pre-Holocaust, that we rarely talk about in our history textbooks, about how Jews, Christians, Muslims have lived in different regions of the world. Yes, there was tension, but there were also episodes of concord and amicable relationships.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:26:19]:

And thus this is a complete erasure. In our schoolbooks, we don't even talk, we don't educate our young people. It's an element of justice that certain people are not represented in the education system. And that leads then to the invisibility. I was invisible all my time. I could only take part time jobs as a young Muslim when I was in a call center, invisible or had to use the back door because I shouldn't be scaring the customers. And that was a constant messaging and that leads to disenfranchisement of young immigrants and refugees. And it's a very sad experience and still going on. I talk to my friends and the community in Germany and elsewhere and it's exhausting to constantly feel like you have no place on earth and you have to apologize for your existence.

 

Méli Solomon [00:27:12]:

So I'm hearing a mix of approaches and assessments you've both spoken of. Zayneb, you mentioned cosmic identity, cosmic language. And Judith, you talked about the Protestant other dropping away when you came to the us We've all agreed that the US is a much more pluralistic country. I think there's no argument there. And you both seem to be highlighting the value of a more universal identity. That said, we've all acknowledged that there are multiple aspects to our identity. There's religion, there's gender, which we haven't really spoken of. There are these different cultural backgrounds.

 

Méli Solomon [00:28:02]:

The thing that I press against in terms of this universalism view is I don't understand how one grounds oneself within that view. I do often get pushback when I ask people to identify, like who are you? You know, and people say, well, I don't want to put myself in a box. And I get that. I get the problem with boxes. But for me, identity is grounded in specifics and in terms of relationship. It's a starting point. It's not everything, but it's a starting point. So we understand.

 

Méli Solomon [00:28:44]:

So I am an American Jew. I have lived in Germany. Judith, you're Catholic, you were born in Germany, but you've been back and forth a tremendous amount. And Zeyneb, you're Muslim, you were raised in Germany, and you came over as an adult to America. So we've. We've all had these experiences in two countries, the same two countries, but we're of different religions. But I am hearing from each of you, despite your talk of universalism, you are saying that you have specific experiences because of your religion and your country of origin. So I'm struggling with these two competing views.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:29:35]:

Let me highlight. So I don't want to go back to this romanticized version of universalism. My approach is both ends. I think sometimes in our conversation of intersectionality, we focus so much. I am so unique and I'm so different. Yes, I. I am. I have my Kurdish background.  I'm a woman. I grew up as a minority. I often do not hear the sameness, the universal, where we are the same. And I think that's what I would like to also be uplifted. We are different. Yes, the uniqueness. Each one of us is a unique creation of God. And I think that is enough for me to maintain the honor and dignity of every human being.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:30:19]:

That is my absolute departure point. At the same time, I need to highlight and affirm everyone's unique ethnic background, racial background, gender background, minority majority experience. To all of that, I always start every conversation. I was born as the daughter of Muslim immigrants from Kurdish, Muslim immigrants from Turkey. And then I explain how each of these descriptions have shaped my life as a woman. If you are born as a girl, you're already in a very disadvantaged position in life. In this world, every woman struggles. You talk about unfair pay, unequal treatments, very sensitive to that as well.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:31:04]:

Something that I also write about within my community, but also outside my community. It's something that we have to address collectively. Patriarchal structures, marginalization. That is not something that Muslims have a monopoly to deal with. This is something that we all need to address. Right? And I grew up in Germany. Patriarchy is very much still in place. Right.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:31:28]:

As a Muslim woman, I was denied entry into the workforce as a woman because I was perceived as undemocratic unmodern. I had employers telling me you have perfect weights. You're an A student. Your German is excellent. Yet they would tell me, because you are Muslim and you are an immigrant, we don't think you will perform well at this school or in this work. This is well established. It's well documented by all German major foundations, research. I'm not making this up.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:32:02]:

So I do not accept when people say misogyny is a Muslim problem. No, sir. No, ma' am. It's also a Western problem. It's a problem in the west, in the Christian west or in Jewish communities. This is not something that Muslims are only dealing with. Right. So when I look at all my identifiers, you know, being born as a girl, having experienced misogyny inside, outside my community, my Muslimness was a problem.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:32:29]:

Maybe my Kurdish ethnicity was a problem. I highlight that, and I see this as part of my embodied pedagogy. And I would never, ever dismiss these very important intersectional parts of identity. They are important, but I also want to emphasize the sameness, the unity. You have a heart. I have a heart. You have a spirit. I have a spirit. You have feelings. I have feelings. You go through loss, I go through loss. You experience suffering. I do. You experience loneliness. I do. You wrestle with the notion of home.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:33:02]:

I do. And these are the things that I would love to talk more in a way that connects us, unites us. And how do we together find meaning in the same shared human life stances? And this is part of my work. I'm very much interested in human life stages. We all start with birth, family, youth, aging, and death. And how do we each find meaning and purpose? And that's, for me, where I'm really interested in how you, Melly, and how you, Judy, how do you approach that very universal human experience? It's not just so. And then, of course, I also do write about ethnicity, race, gender. And I think those human life stances are the ones where I deeply connect with people.

 

Zeyneb Sayilgan [00:33:47]:

Grief is a universal feeling, yet very rarely talk about it collectively together. And that's where I make the most profound connections. And they are gateway into conversations about race, ethnicity, about religion. But I think it's human nature at the end. We are fundamentally, at our core, the same. The details are different. And that's why I like to have the dual approach of both ends, the universal and then the uniqueness of each of us. Sadly, I have not in my life yet seen that dual approach sufficiently uplifted. We don't want to get lost in the. Yeah, everything is Kumbaya universal. No, it's messy. The intersectional is messy and needs to be also stressful.

 

Méli Solomon [00:34:33]:

Yeah, just a quick note and then I want to throw it over to Judith. Perhaps what we're saying is the commonality is each person is complex and each person has these huge human experiences and strivings. The hope, the life phases, the grief, all of these different experiences. Maybe this is how we connect the universal and the particular thanks for listening to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. If you'd like to hear a similar story about how religious expression and practice changes when we live in different countries, check out my conversation with Daniel Stein Koken entitled Reinterpreting Jewish Liturgy. In that episode, Daniel talks about his experiences practicing Judaism in Germany, Italy, Israel and the US this podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. To keep up to date about new episodes, blog posts and other events, sign up for my twice monthly newsletter. A link is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.