Chapter 5: Are We Jewish or Are We Christian?
My family moved to Bowling Green in 1989. My brother was turning six, and I was turning three. We rented a house in the country for a few months, then bought the red-brick home on Garrett Drive where we lived for 16 years. We joined the local Presbyterian Church, but didn’t quite fit in. It was too conservative, or maybe we were too liberal. My parents struggled to make friends, and my brother and I hated Sunday School. All of which fueled an identity crisis, and another poignant question posed by my brother from the back seat of the family Oldsmobile.
So my mother started exploring. She connected with the local community, searching for a Jewish home that fit her interfaith family. We tried the existing Reform congregation in Nashville, but had a bad experience. For a while we drove to Owensboro, KY on Friday nights—two hours on toll roads through rural western Kentucky coal country. Finally, my mother got wind of a new Reform congregation forming in Nashville—Congregation Micah. After an open house where she felt welcome and wanted, and with encouragement she made the commitment. For all of us, without really asking. But we’ll get there.
72 Miles features the stories of three separate interfaith Jewish families–two real, one not, and one mine. Together, they trace 150 years of Kentucky history, with experiences that resonate today—about being Jewish in America, about being Jewish and southern at the same time. About being Jewish, being interfaith, and the blending of the two.
So strap in, and take a ride with me, up and down I65, or back and forth on the L&N Railroad. In the end the when and the who don’t make as much difference and you might think. But the where sure does. My name is Nathan Jordan Vaughan. It’s 72 Miles til Kentucky. Let’s get moving.
