I have fond memories of running around my synagogue. I remember hollering with laughter as we stole lollipops from the kids' pantry. I remember dressing up for Purim, and I remember dancing up a storm at Simchat Torah.  

Yesterday, I had coffee with a friend I made back then. We talked about the future and issues in our lives, but mostly we laughed and enjoyed each other's company. Honestly, I do not remember the specifics of our conversation, but I felt a strong sense of community and comfort. Here was somebody who had seen me at every stage of life, in a Jewish space. I knew that regardless of anything, she had my back, and I had hers. In interactions like this one, I find myself thinking and wondering about Jewish community. I wonder how to exist in one and how to build one that provides safety and joy.  

To be clear, my Jewish community has always been small. I live in New Orleans, which boasts more Jews than one might first anticipate, but it's still no New York. In my synagogue, I was the only kid my age, and my friends were in the years above or below me. Most of my friends at school were not Jewish either. This never seemed to bother me, though. I had a small community, and I was happy. 

Then, my mom shared some news that turned my life upside down. We were going to move to Vienna for around half a year, while she did her Fulbright. I said goodbye to my friends, and waved goodbye to my little community.  

In the second semester of my freshman year, we were off to Vienna. I learned that I love subways, I am not the biggest fan of Vienna's food, and missing home was harder than I thought.  One difference, I was not expecting to notice though, was the complete absence of my previous Jewish community. There, I interacted with almost no Jewish teens or families, and I was not a part of a Jewish community for around seven months. While I loved living in Vienna and the people I met, this absence began to feel particularly acute to me. When I came home, I began frantically searching for a Jewish community that I could join. 

I realized that I wanted to have rich intellectual conversations with other Jewish teens, I wanted to argue, I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to feel that deep sense of community that I thought I had lost. This led me to find the Great Jewish Books Summer Program at the Yiddish Book Center and, of course, JWA’s Rising Voices Fellowship. These experiences have taught me what I want in a Jewish community: to feel comfortable, to ask questions, to laugh, and to learn. While I am not surrounded by these communities every day, when we are in the same area, I tend to find us picking up exactly where we left off. Laughing and joking as though no time had passed.  

Now, as I enter the next step of my life, as I move across the country to New York, I feel certain about a few things.  I want to be a part of Jewish community (which will be considerably easier in New York), and I want to maintain the small Jewish community from all parts of my life. In many years, I hope we are still meeting up whenever we are in the same place, as we laugh and talk a mile a minute.