Babka beats ideology

We stood just off to the side of the post-Shabbat crowd, engaged in polite conversation. It was just after Passover. Kiddush had returned, along with the quiet excitement of a long-awaited babka reunion. People lingered a little longer than usual, making up for lost time, conversations stretching, plates refilling, children circling with predatory precision. 

He was visiting South Africa for the first time. Smart, curious, observant. The kind of person who tries to map what he sees. 

He was also, it should be noted, dressed exactly as one might expect: full black Chassidic garb. White shirt. Jacket. The works. 

I, on the other hand, was not. Blue shirt. No jacket. And trousers that were … suspiciously close to chino. My late mother would not have approved. 

“How do you identify?” he asked. He clearly wasn’t asking for my pronouns. 

Tempted as I was to answer, “Charedi trapped in a modern Orthodox body”, which sometimes feels accurate, I paused for effect and said instead, “Jewish.” 

He nodded, unfazed, and moved on. He asked about the community, about other communities, about whether there was a pattern, a symmetry, between levels of observance and political views. In other words: are the more religious more right-wing? The less religious more liberal? 

It was a familiar framework. Imported. Neat. Convenient. And completely inadequate. 

I tried to explain that if he attempted to understand South African Jewry through an American lens, he might miss the point entirely. Here, things are … less aligned. Less predictable. Occasionally less polished. But also, I would argue, more real. 

We don’t fit neatly into categories. The same person who will argue passionately for Israel’s right to defend itself might also be deeply uncomfortable with aspects of its politics. Someone not fully observant might run a seder with military precision, while someone more observant is quietly checking the rugby score under the table – not really true but sounded good at time of writing. A secular Jew might send their child to a religious school. A religious Jew might hold views that don’t fit any party line. 

And yes, there are even vegans who walk among us. 

We’ve never really had the luxury of ideological purity. Living in South Africa, with all its complexity, contradiction, and occasional dysfunction, has forced a kind of pragmatism on us. We engage not because we agree on everything, but because we understand that community comes first. And we do this, if we’re honest, with a touch of naivety. 

When it comes to Israel, this plays out in a particularly interesting way. Our support is strong, often instinctive. But it isn’t always filtered through the ideological battles that dominate elsewhere. We’re less interested in where Israel sits politically, and more interested in whether it stands at all. 

It’s a simpler approach. Simple. But not simplistic. 

Because in that simplicity lies something quite rare: the ability to hold complexity without needing to resolve it immediately. To live with contradiction. To accept that Jewish identity doesn’t have to be squeezed into a single lane. 

At some point, as the conversation continued, I became aware of the contrast between us again. And it struck me that perhaps that was the point. 

We aren’t always neat. Or consistent. We don’t always present well, sartorially or otherwise. But we tend to show up. We show up to shul, even if it’s in a blue shirt. We show up for each other, even when we disagree. We show up for Israel, even when we’re not entirely sure how to explain it. 

And in a world increasingly obsessed with labels, definitions, and certainty, there’s something powerful about a community that’s willing to acknowledge that we may not have it all figured out, but we’re here. And we’re staying for the babka.