At age 33, I'm finally celebrating my first Chanukah

BERLIN (JTA) — I wasn’t raised Jewish, but this year I’m proud to be connecting with a neglected part of my heritage.

There are a lot of Jews who would say that I am not Jewish — my Jewish heritage stems from my paternal grandmother, and I wasn’t raised in the culture or religion beyond enjoying some foods my grandmother made. I accepted for most of my life that, at best, I was Jew-ish, with an emphasis on the “ish.”

This year’s Rosh Hashanah was the first explicitly Jewish holiday I had ever celebrated. I skipped Yom Kippur, not feeling prepared for the fast. But I’m ready for Chanukah — and...