Vika Krieger

So like I would go to a punk show, but I'd always keep my head covered.

Probably didn't wear a yarmulke to a punk show, but like wear a baseball hat or a beanie or something like that.

Or like, I wouldn't eat anything there because the food there wasn't kosher.

Or if I was out all night partying at a rave, like I would make sure to be back in time for sunrise so that I could pray the like morning prayers.

I think that I definitely had a little bit of a sense of subversion, like, oh, look at me, I'm a badass, I'm like doing these things.

But I also, I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on why, but I felt a sense of integration.

I was just like, okay, like there's no paradox here between like doing this, you know, going to a rave and being an Orthodox Jew.

And I kind of reveled in my ability to move between those worlds and not feel attention.

I mean, I think that, I mean, I definitely was like a type A overachiever in high school.

And I think that part of my ability to move between those worlds is like,

I was like really hardcore on the Jewish front, right?

And so I was like super into everything.

I was like in the top Talmud class, like studying the best freaking ancient Aramaic legal codes that, you know, you can imagine.

I was like,

valet Victorian of my school and like all of that.

And I was like bleached hair and baggy JNCO jeans and like, you know, as one does in the 90s.

And like, I think there were people whose system would overload at the contradictions and like would look at me and be like, I can't fit this guy in a box.

And I was just kind of like,

whatever, like I like doing all these things and there's nothing mutually exclusive.

And I think there's something also interesting about like growing up Orthodox in that I, you know, I learned fluent Hebrew from the time I was a kid.