The Power of Pluralistic Identity

As a high-tech professional, I understand how core identity is to our online lives. We see only what our digital credentials allow. In social media communities, we advance whichever parts of ourselves the platform prefers: on LinkedIn, we emphasize our professional identities; on Facebook, we lean into our personal connections; and on Twitter, we flex our public personas. Wearing these different digital “hats” takes agility. But as cybersecurity professionals will tell you, that dexterity is key to our online security and privacy.

In these last, difficult 18 months, I’ve realized how true that is in the real world, too. Having a multi-faceted identity demands greater agility and dexterity, but it’s also what’s given me resilience. I, for example, have at least six identities.  I was born Jewish and American. I chose to become Israeli. I am a liberal democrat. I am a high-tech professional. And I’m a mother—of five children, four of whom are soldiers.

Each of those identities took a big hit in the last 18 months.

The most profound blow came on October 7, when the Israeli in me was assaulted. The murders, rapes, and kidnappings were not just horrific attacks on my people but also on the fabric of my Israeli self. They exposed national vulnerabilities I had not wanted to acknowledge, forcing me to confront the fragility of our security and of my own chosen nationality.

Before that, my liberal democratic identity had already taken a hit. The attack on Israel’s judicial system in early 2023 felt like a betrayal of the rule of law and democratic ideals I hold sacred. Every Saturday night, I stood in protest, draped in Israeli flags, hoping for a democratic tide that never came. My faith in leadership also faltered. Watching Israel’s leaders prioritize personal gain over national good tested my optimism, making hope feel, at times, like naivete.

The last six months, my American identity got deeply bruised, too. The polarization of and hostility in the United States have been painful to witness from afar. The election of a president who degrades women, soldiers, and political opponents has been unbearable. As much as Israel is my home, I still hoped my birthplace would always represent progress to the world.

Even my identity as a mother has been tested, as my children have stepped into months of reserve duty to protect me and our country. In many ways, our roles have reversed; once their protector, I now rely on their strength, feeling my role as the maternal guardian give way.

These serial assaults at times felt overwhelming, like each one was a punch to a gut still reeling from the prior one. But as I reflect further on them, I realize that each of my identities has offered strength when another falters.

My Jewish identity seeks redemptive faith in a God who makes things better. To be Jewish is to believe that history bends toward justice, even if the arc sometimes feels agonizingly long. I think of the story in Masekhet Makkot when, amid the  wreckage of the Temple, Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues see a fox running through the Holy of Holies. The other sages weep, but Rabbi Akiva laughs, explaining that the prophecy of destruction reinforces his faith that the prophecies of redemption will also be fulfilled.

In other moments I’ve taken solace in the joy and solidarity of my Israeli identity. Consistently, and even in this hardest of years, Israelis rank among the happiest of nations. Happiness, according to studies, is achieved through rich familial and community connections. Israel, more than any other place I know, offers that.

My American identity fuels my drive for activism, sending me out to protest, to make food for soldiers, to visit hostage families, to contribute money and expertise. The American organizational spirit that de Tocqueville identified helps me find ways to turn despair into action.

And my identity as a mother deepens my commitment to building the future my children and their generation deserve. They carry the flame now. Holding my 7-month-old grandson, born into such a harsh time, I am reminded that my role is not only to act directly, but to instill in my children the belief in the enduring legacy and eternal promise of the Jewish people.

My various identities turned into a sort of “multi-factor authentication” for the real world. They covered for each other, giving me extra layers of protection.

And as though I’m tabbing across the “platforms” of my life, my identities have also taken turns playing lead. In 2023, I mostly led with my activist identity, protesting and organizing in all my free time. Lately, I find myself “primarily” a mother and a religious Jew: praying, harder than ever, for peace, security, and the safety of my own four soldiers and all the others defending our nation.

The more identities we have, perhaps the lonelier we are – because fewer people are with us in all of them. But the capacity to code-switch across them, to draw on the different traditions that underlie them, to see across their sources of wisdom, is perhaps our greatest form of strength. By weaving the individual threads of identity into a personally vibrant tapestry, we create resilience, across the network of our people and our nation. May our diversity, connections, and varied traditions bring us not only richness and agility, but the security and strength that they engender.