On a journey from France to NY, she rekindled lights of Shabbos and Judaism

Spread your traditions to the world, and don’t hide.”

I was asked to speak this evening on my spiritual journey and I happily agreed. Then I realized I had to write about it in English. Half of you already know that I am French. The other half know now, because you can hear my French accent.

Anyway, as a good student I looked up the word journey in a dictionary. What is a journey? It is “an act of traveling from one place to another.”

Of course, Journey is also an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1973 and composed the song, Don’t Stop Believin’. That’s quite fitting, since believing and traveling from one place to another both contributed to my spiritual journey. 

A single step can make a journey. It’s a leap of faith. 

I was born in France and was raised in the south of France in a really small city called Frejus, in a traditional Sephardic family. My family kept kosher and observed Jewish holidays, but I’ve never attended Jewish school. I had no Jewish friends or even a Jewish boyfriend. And I love to wear pants.

My grandparents were in France during World War II and survived. In fact, in my family being Jewish was something you had to hide. 

“Don’t ever say that you are Jewish, not even to your best friend,” my grandmother always told me. “But why,” I asked. “Is it bad to be Jewish?”

“It’s not but people will always blame the Jew first. Don’t trust anyone.” 

So I grew up in a world were I had to hide.

“Why don’t you eat pork? Are you Muslim?”

“Your name is Levannah. Which language is that? What does it mean?”

I’d say that my father came from Algeria and people stopped asking.

Of my name, depending on my mood, I was Greek, Russian or Italian — but never Jewish.

It’s sad to say that sometimes I’d say that it’s Hebrew to just see the shock on people’s faces. Their rejection always struck me.

I tried to search for answers. I studied history, traveled to learn everything on this subject: “Why people hate us as Jews?”

Growing up, I was jealous of my friends who had Christmas trees and traditions they didn’t have to hide. They were proudly “Corsicans, Bretons, Nissart,” and I was just a Sefardic Jew lost in the south of France. 

But you know what, not anymore.

I consider myself really lucky because thanks to my travels, I met so many people from all around the world with so many different backgrounds, beliefs and stories to tell. And during all my travels, I shared what was the meaning of Shabbat.

When I was a kid, I was annoyed by this day. It kept me away from my friends going to the movies or concerts. It felt like I was different from everyone else. I didn’t fit in the society. 

Then, I grew up, and as an adult now I call it “the silence in music.”

I started to study music when I was 6 years old and one of my teachers told me once, “Don’t rush, because music only exists thanks to the silence. Without any silences it would be a big mess. It will be only noises.”

• • •

What is Shabbat for me?

For me, Shabbat is lighting the candles with my mother and being thankful for the entire week. 

It’s a delicious meal on the table that my mother made: chachoukah, couscous, spicy carrot, roasted eggplants or vegetable cake.

It’s my father’s Damrot. which is a “pâté”of dry fish eggs. or his fish liver that he loves so much. 

It’s helping my father with the kiddoush braha because he keeps on forgetting the words and laughing about it.

It’s trying not to talk politics or religion at the table but failing miserably.

For me Shabbat is spending time with loved ones.

I love the fact that even if you are busy and keep on running during the week and that sometimes we fight, at the end everybody is together and agree on the fact that the couscous is delicious.

During all my researches, I believed that I could find one thing to explain why people are different, to explain why deep down I felt so different. But I didn’t. Traditions are different but in the end people are similar.

We all want to believe, eat and love. We want this balance in life.

We want our loved ones to be proud of who they are.

I realized, thanks to travels, that I can’t change the world to accept me, but I can change the way I see myself in the world. And from this day, I have seen a change in people’s reactions. They weren’t shocked anymore that I am Jewish. They in fact were curious to know more about it. 

At the beginning of my speech I said that a journey is travel from one place to another. I am lucky to be still traveling on this wonderful journey.

But in my journey, I will always remember my first step. A small city in the south of France with the most delicious couscous and my family.

Spread your traditions to the world, and don’t hide.

Levannah Lebaz, an aspiring singer and actress, delivered these remarks last Friday night at the Shabbat Project dinner at Congregation B’nai Avraham, the Orthodox shul in Brooklyn Heights. She dedicated her speech “to the community of Brooklyn Heights and to the family of Rabbi Aaron Raskin who taught me to be proud to be who I am.”