My First Encounter

I have traveled to Israel twice in my life. The first time was during the summer going in to my junior year of high school. I traveled with 110 other students my age from around the San Francisco Bay Area to familiarize ourselves with the country primarily through tourism.
My first experience with Orthodox Jews was on my first trip. We spent our last Shabbat in Jerusalem. In three smaller groups, we went to different synagogues to participate in services. My group went to an Orthodox synagogue in a very religious neighborhood. We were told before we left the hostel that we had to cover our knees and elbows. As we walked through the neighborhood, we got many condescending looks from residents of the neighborhood. As we approached the synagogue, there were many children playing outside the synagogue. All of the children had peyas (religiously uncut hair before the ears) and wore black and white. As we walked by, we tried to be friendly and smile at the young boys and girls. I clearly remember one boy, who couldn’t have been more than three or four, turning his head and running the other direction. He had been raised not to look at people like us because we are women and we are not religious enough. I felt personally offended as this little boy ran away. He was non-verbally telling me that I wasn’t good enough. I understood that he was young at it was the way he was raised, but I couldn’t help but feel hurt – I consider myself Jewish, so why can’t they?
I felt even worse after walking into the synagogue. All of the women in my group had to walk upstairs, while the men could stay on the floor close to the Torah and Rabbi. I knew that this would be the case when I left for this service, but I had convinced myself that it wouldn’t feel as isolating. I knew the logic was that women distract men from their prayers and therefore need to be separated. However, I felt like an outcast. We were trapped in a balcony behind shades that we couldn’t see out of. I felt like a prisoner. In my synagogue that I was raised in, I am counted as a member of a minyan (ten or more Jews gathered together for prayer), but here I didn’t even feel like a person. While I was able to follow the service in this Orthodox synagogue, it felt more like a different religion than a different sect of the religion I grew up practicing.