Angela Buchdahl, senior rabbi of the Central Synagogue in New York, shared her experiences as a Korean Jew during her visit to Korea, saying it has been always a struggle questioning her identity in the United States.
She sometimes felt like she was “only half Korean, or maybe not really Korean” in Korea, yet clearly identifies as Korean in the U.S.
As the daughter of a Buddhist Korean mother and a Jewish father, Buchdahl also faced doubts about her Jewish identity while growing up.
“I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. And then when I got into the Jewish community, in the Jewish religion — your citizenship or your identity is traced through your mother — and I have a Buddhist Korean mother. So I would often be told in the Jewish community, ‘You’re only half Jewish’ or ‘You’re not really Jewish.’ So there was a struggle all the time,” the 52-year-old rabbi said during a press conference organized by Yoido Full Gospel Church at the Conrad Seoul hotel in Yeouido, Tuesday.
Buchdahl was born in Seoul, but moved to Tacoma, Washington, at age five. After graduating from Yale University with a degree in religious studies in 1994, she ascended to the position of senior rabbi at the Central Synagogue in New York, one of the world’s three largest synagogues, in 2014. She made 토토 headlines for breaking religious glass ceilings and social barriers as an Asian American woman. That same year, she was invited by then-U.S. President Barack Obama to pray at the White House.
However, her parents instilled a strong sense of belonging in her for two seemingly different identities.
“I was very fortunate that my parents made me understand that I was fully Korean, and fully Jewish, and I could inhabit all of those worlds at one time. So this is a powerful bringing together of two cultures that I’ve learned from my whole life. And I always grew up feeling that these two cultures shared a lot in common,” she said.
With her parents present, Buchdahl, who is also a cantor, sang the Korean folk song “Arirang” with a guitar during the event.