Editor’s note: In protection of the author’s identity, her name, as well as the names of other people involved in this story and a few details have been changed.

From what my friends tell me, public school gossip moves a mile a minute. The news of a break-up is quickly overshadowed by rumors of another couple getting together. By the end of the day, several new stories have broken and everyone has forgotten about what was so scandalous at the beginning of the day. It isn’t like that in a Yeshiva high school.

I’m a normal high school girl who has not done anything out of the ordinary, certainly nothing so remarkable that it would even be a topic worth discussing if I wasn’t in the Jewish community. But you wouldn’t know this from the year I just had, with the level of backlash and name calling directed towards me.

Many people presume that the students who attend are model Jews being instilled with good midot (positive values). This simply is not the case. Take “Daniel,” who spread rumors about me when we were seeing each other, falsely claiming that I performed oral sex on him. The rumor spread quickly, across grades and schools, due to the interconnected nature of yeshivot (the downside of “Jewish geography”). Students at my school accosted the boy in question, asking him personally details about me and the time we spent together. Daniel told them his version of the story. When I ran into Daniel in person, he hid from me, but my friend overheard him saying that he wished to accost me and humiliate me. Daniel, as well as many of the boys in my class, keep kosher and shabbos but somehow has not grasped how hurtful lashon hara (gossip/evil speech) is.

Another romantic entanglement a few months later did not end much better. Although “Adam” most likely did not share the news that we were an item, his friends who met me most certainly did. I am a private person and I like to keep my romantic life separate from my academic life, but that was not possible in this scenario. With one text, a fairly good amount of people in my school knew, including one boy who told me that I was hurting my male friends who secretly wanted to date me and that he wanted to be invited to “watch the sex.” Not only was what he said to me disgusting, it also makes no sense. He condemned and encouraged the same behavior simultaneously.

The Torah says that to embarrass someone is to kill them. I’ve been thoroughly embarrassed by Adam’s friends. I worry about going into Kosher restaurants or playing hockey games against other schools. I’m constantly worried I’ll see someone who knows private information, real or false, about my relationships or who has called me “slut” or “whore” out of earshot, because I know so many students do. I saw a message on group chat where someone sent a picture of a girl with carpet burn on her knees (get it?), and one of the kids in the chat asked if it was a picture of me. Even though the relationship ended nearly a year ago, the gossip has yet to die down.

However, the rumors were not just spread amongst the students. A senior administrator at my school heard stories that I was involved with Adam and had attended a “dangerous” party he threw. “Principal Cohen,” as I’ll call her here, claimed that she had received this information from faculty at Adam’s school, even though Adam nor any of his friends had gotten into trouble. Principal Cohen then reported the unsubstantiated rumor about me partying to my mother.

When I asked my principal how she could call up my mother and spread falsehoods without asking me if anything was true, she said that it was acceptable because it was an out-of-school matter. If I had reported it to her, then she would not have been able to say anything to my mom. This statement is, of course, illogical. She expects me to tell her everything that happens in my life, on the off chance that maybe one day she’ll spare me from spreading rumors she’s heard. Principal Cohen is supposed to be an adult, yet she was also gossiping, wasn’t she? And although my mother and I are on good terms now, Principal Cohen’s actions temporarily damaged our relationship.

Principal Cohen also told me that anything that happens at any yeshiva will always be reported back to her and that I have “no privacy.” But it was not enough to her to just tell my mother. Principal Cohen would tell members of the faculty in my school about the rumor, destroying my reputation amongst beloved teachers who did not need to be privy to the details of my personal life.

It isn’t just me, though. The culture of slut shaming is pervasive in every Jewish school I have encountered. Girls who kiss more than one guy are immediately labeled sluts or worse. God forbid they have sex and like it. Because of the small Jewish community, gossip is not limited to just your school. I’ve heard stories about videos of romantic encounters jumping from school to school like lice, or compromising photographs that spread like wildfire. These rumors also never die. Jews in their twenties and thirties who have checkered pasts often find that it is nearly impossible for them to escape mistakes they made when they were young. This can have real repercussions, such as damaging potential marital matches.

I began thinking about the events of my annus horribilis (which I mostly try to forget) a few weeks ago when a friend who attended a yeshiva high school informed me that he had lost his virginity. He told me people were surprised, but most tended to have overwhelmingly positive reactions, commenting on how beautiful the girl he had sex with is and how proud they are of him. I had no reactions like that when I lost my virginity. I was asked if I was having a mental breakdown or informed my actions were slutty. And that was just what my supposed friends said to my face. Although there is a double-standard when it comes to sex for most people, not just religious Jews, it feels far more pronounced in the Orthodox world. A woman without her virginity has no chances of getting married, no future, and is damaged goods. A man without his virginity is the norm.

One story often told to young Jewish children is about feathers in the wind. A woman goes to her rabbi, looking to atone for the way her lashon hara has hurt people. The rabbi tells her teshuva is easy- all she needs to do is remove the feathers from a down pillow, wait a day and collect them. The woman does just that, and the next evening, returns to the rabbi puzzled. “Rabbi, I tried to do what you said, but I can’t collect all the feathers. They’ve spread too far and there are too many of them.” “Ah,” the rabbi replied. “It’s the same with lashon hara. Your words have more power than you could know. Once you let the feathers into the wind, there’s no telling where they’ll end up.”

As for the future, I’m not sure whether I will remain a member of the Orthodox community. Although I like many of the practices in religious Judaism, I hate the hypocrisy I have encountered. It’s not enough to prattle off Bible verses; you have to follow the basic tenets of Judaism: treating others as you would treat yourself, not humiliating people, and trying to limit hurtful speech.

Sophia Rosenberg likes baking and combating injustices in the world.

Image via Sophia Nicholas on Pixabay

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In that picture, you see a 16-year-old girl. She has frizzy, curly, reddish hair. Her eyebrows are thick and dark, and her nose is large. She enjoys reading and writing, and has dreams of working in publishing and live in New York City. She will get there someday; but first, she has to finish high school.

High school is rough. Whoever said that those are the best four years of one’s life was either home schooled or a compulsive liar. High school is especially hard when you don’t fit in, when you’re a minority.

My name is Deanna Schwartz. I am a proud Jew. I attend a high school in Howard County, Maryland where the vast majority of my peers are Christian. It may come as a surprise as to how few Jews there are in my city, considering areas not too far from me, like Baltimore and Potomac, have such high Jewish populations. Yet there are so few of us that I know most Jews in my county on a personal level, from one Jewish youth activity or another.

It’s 2016, so every day there’s a different trending topic celebrating diversity. This is good. Some may think that discrimination is a thing of the past. But, this is not true—especially for the Jews.

Oddly enough, my somewhat difficult experience growing up as a Jewish teen is fundamentally different from my parents’ experiences. My mom grew up in Philadelphia and South Jersey, where Ashkenazi culture is easily found. My dad, while primarily growing up in the same area as my brother and me, faced a completely different generation of tolerance and culture, since he was immersed in synagogue life and attending a heavily Jewish school.

My high school is a melting pot of socio-economic backgrounds and classes. You’ll see as many teenagers with “Bernie 2016” buttons on their backpacks as “Make America Great Again” hats. One area where we are not diverse? Religion.

It is easy to identify me as a Jew. I look like what people think of as appearing Jewish. I use Yiddish words as much as any good East Coast Jew should, and my last name is extremely, canonically Jewish. I wear sweatshirts from Jewish camps and am quick to correct someone if they wish me a “Merry Christmas.”

My parents have always made sure that my brother and I appreciate our differences for what they are. They pushed against the current of our Christian neighbors and classmates and enrolled us in Hebrew school. I had a Bat Mitzvah when I was 13, complete with a big party with all my friends and family. I participate in Jewish youth groups. My family has always attended or hosted Passover seders and lit candles for the eight nights every single year of Hanukkah.

Because of my proud Jewish identity, I have to deal with discrimination every day. It’s usually what the speakers think is subtle—people making Holocaust jokes, or saying I’m “cheap.” I once bent over to pick up a quarter that was on the floor in the cafeteria at school and heard someone mutter “filthy Jew” under their breath.

What did I do? What I often do— I pretended I didn’t hear it. Or sometimes I’ll laugh as if it’s funny. Or I correct people, but while hiding how much it actually hurts. I roll my eyes when they tell me that I’m going to Hell (both in jest, and in earnest; I once had a classmate ask me to leave the table during a meal so she could say grace. My presence as a Jew was too much for her to handle as she said her prayers to Jesus). I haven’t sought support from the school because I know nothing would change.

This is something that the Jewish kids in my school are used to— my closest friends are also Jewish and I have a twin brother, and I often hear other stories like mine. We grow up knowing that we are different. We are used to teachers assigning homework during Yom Kippur because it’s just a day off school to them, or seeing tweets from our classmates flippantly saying “thank you Jews for the day off!” We’re used to being assigned the role of “Jewish one” in friend groups. We’re used to holiday gift exchanges being called “Secret Santa” and feeling uncomfortable at Christmas parties.

One of the most frustrating facets of the teen Jewish experience in my area is the assumption that we are Christian. Everyone simply assumes that you are Christian. I’ll never forget when our warm-up question on a December day in fourth grade was “Are you excited to get your Christmas presents?” I was the only kid who put my magnet on the side of the board that said “No.” The teacher said to me, “Deanna, why are you so ungrateful?”

Moments like this are minimal, but they add up. Years and years of feeling that it’s wrong to be Jewish at one point made me start to resent my religion. I started to perpetuate the stereotypes and make the jokes myself. I screamed when it was time for Hebrew school. I experimented with makeup to make my nose appear smaller, and tried straighteners to get rid of that pesky curl that seemed so ugly to me. On my Bat Mitzvah, I had straightened hair.

Something every Jew can agree on is that it’s comforting to be around other Jews. A usual haven for many Jewish kids, myself included, is summer camp. For six years, I attended a Jewish sleepaway camp, Camp Louise. Being surrounded by other Jewish girls my age in a safe and fun environment was absolutely incredible, and included Saturday night Havdalah and learning Israeli folk dances. I don’t attend Jewish sleepaway camp anymore, but it had a profound impact on me and my life overall. It’s something to hold onto, to remind me that my identity is something to love. I would not be the same person without it.

I’m at the beginning of the summer before my junior year of high school. This is an important summer. I’m starting to look at colleges (a good Hillel is a must!), learning how to drive, and developing all kinds of new forms of independence. I’ve been thinking about the future since before I knew what it really meant, and Judaism has always been a part of my future. I plan to raise my children as Jewish, and I hope to be able to teach them the lessons I’ve learned and will continue to learn. I dream of a day where Jews will be more accepted. It’s the same dream my ancestors have been dreaming for centuries. But if there’s anything that the Jewish people are, it’s persistent. We’ve been the subject of hate and violence more times than any other religious group, and we’ve pushed through. Judaism is and will always be a huge part of my life. It’s shaped my ethics, morals, and personality. I love my religion with all my heart and will never stop being an advocate for acceptance.

Deanna Schwartz is a teenage writer and blogger from Ellicott City, Maryland. Books, theatre, writing, feminism, and Judaism are just a few things on the long list of things that she loves.

Images courtesy of Deanna Schwartz

The post The Struggle Continues: Being a Jewish Teen in 2016 appeared first on Jewcy.