Ancestral Pride

How difficult it is to be Jewish, yet how proud I am to be so


I was born in Argentina on November 4, 1947. I had a happy childhood; my friends were not Jewish, and they even invited me to take part in their traditional celebrations, such as Christmas and New Year’s.


My contact with Judaism came through the celebrations at my Bobe Cecilia’s home during Passover and Rosh Hashanah, which were called in Yiddish Peisaj and Roshashune. Yiddish was the Jewish language I heard from my maternal aunts, Bobe Elena and Sheide Martin. I never learned it.


I attended secondary school with both Jewish and Christian friends. I got married in a temple and had only daughters. On Yom Kippur, I would go to the shil when the service ended and greet my mother, who rented a seat every year and observed the fast.


I must acknowledge that being Jewish was never a problem for me, nor did I hear that it was for the Jewish people I knew during my time in Argentina.


We emigrated from a country where I had felt a strong sense of national identity for many years. I was proud of it until, little by little, events occurred that significantly eroded that love for the homeland. Living on land where you have lost the feeling of being and belonging is suffocating. We had to leave, and the option was Israel.


When we arrived in 2002, I began to understand what it truly means to be Jewish. I became interested in the situation of Jews in the diaspora, especially when armed conflicts broke out. I received a great deal of information and began to become aware of the good and bad situations endured by Jews around the world.


I learned that during the Second World War, the massacre of Jews was carried out by the Germans, with the complicity of many Europeans. Ships filled with Jewish refugees fleeing certain death were turned away by countries we believed to be friends.


I also learned about what happened throughout history: persecutions, pogroms, social isolation, and other calamities suffered by Hebrew communities.


Today I live in Israel, at the epicenter of Judaism. The ace up the sleeve that all Jews around the world possess and can use when they deem it necessary: the so-called Law of Return.


My family and I made use of it. We are neither Zionists nor religious, but we are here fighting to preserve what was so hard to achieve: a State for the Jews of the world.


Twenty-one years have already passed, during which many things happened, both good and bad. A great deal of time was spent trying to integrate and live alongside different customs; we did not always succeed.


I realized that, as a Jew, I have something in common with my neighbor: we are both enemies of those who do not want us in this world. That unites us. We fight against them because our battles must end in victory; we have no other alternative if we wish to continue to exist as a people living in our own nation.


With everything that is happening, on a personal level I have not fully regained the sense of being and belonging. I stand with my neighbors because together we are stronger. When we are no longer threatened with annihilation, I believe I will return to that previous state.


My Judaism is ancestral, and I am proud of it. I know that throughout history it has contributed—and continues to contribute—achievements from which all of humanity benefits.


I have no reason to complain about actions committed by Jews of which I would not be proud. I also recognize that we share something that unites us: a scale of values that gave the world norms by which to live in a civilized manner.


The reality is that not everyone adopted them. Hence the massacres, wars, and bloody conflicts that we all share but do not embrace—and if we do, it is in self-defense.


The achievements attained are a characteristic that sets us apart. Unfortunately, here we collide with one of humanity’s worst flaws: envy.


So many successes in all areas are offensive to many, and they express it in different ways, some of them very violent. Triumph and achievement—whether the result of tireless effort or innate abilities—are unforgivable to many, who then ask: why them and not us? This way of thinking generates a negative feeling that eventually explodes.


We cannot and must not apologize to anyone for being successful. Those who do not like us will have to live with it, and we will have to live with them. That is how it was, and that is how it will be for all time.


Marcelo Keselman

12/28/2025

Jarish, Israel


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