Coming Home: The Moth Podcast
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What inspires Gwendolyn Lopez‑Cohen to explore her Jewish roots?
Welcome to the Moth. I'm Emily Couch. In this episode, we've got two stories all about finding out where you come from. The process of figuring out who you are in relation to your family, your culture, your background, even your language. With both the Jewish High Holidays and Hispanic Heritage Month coming up, we wanted to reflect on this journey of discovery and growth, with two stories about tradition and identity and what comes up when those two things intersect. First up we have Gwendolyn Lopez Cohen. Gwendolyn told this story at a special event that the Moth put on with Barnard College at their annual reunion. Here's Gwendolyn, live at the North.
So it's Martin Luther King weekend. In nineteen ninety two, my senior year born her and I'm sitting in my room at Hewitt Hall and there's a knock on my door. It's my friend Rachel from down the hall. And she says, Hey, you want to go to Canons? And I thought, well, you know, I honestly prefer studying to going out, but it's my senior year and so it's kind of now or never. So I decided to go out. And we we went to Canon's a local dive bar and and uh that night at the bar, uh this nerdy looking guy walks up to me and says, Hey, aren't you in my art history class? And I looked at him was like, uh, no. And it turns out neither one of us was taking an art history class, but uh It was an icebreaker and um and at the end of the night he said, you know, would you like to have dinner sometime?
I said, sure. My name's Gwen Lopez and I live at Hewitt Hall and you can look me up. Fast forward four years and we're dating and I'm working as a first grade teacher on the Upper East Side and taking pre medical classes at night at Hunter College and We're both pretty busy. So we we decided, you know, we made a regular Friday night date of sorts, going to the synagogue of Nejeshran. On that the upper west side. And you know, my boyfriend was Jewish. It was important for him to go to the synagogue. And I found that you know I was really drawn to the singing and the dancing and the Hebrew prayers. And there was this magical feeling at Bine Jeshrin, this incredible spirituality. I had grown up Unitarian.
How does Gwendolyn discover her family’s hidden connection to Judaism?
And you know, um celebrating Christmas and Easter. So I didn't have a strong religious affiliation myself. And I found at these uh Friday night synagogue services that I felt a real connection to God that I never experienced before. And with something about the music and the dancing and and Hebrew prayers that really helped me to leave behind all the stress of the work week and start to really feel relaxed and at peace. Eventually boyfriend and I had a conversation where he said, You know, I'm Jewish. It's really important for me to have Jewish kids. I thought about I thought, well, I I feel very connected to Judaism. So I decided that I wanted to convert. So a um local rabbi or someone referred me to a conversion rabbi at Yeshiva University named Rabbi Bomzer.
I went to his office at Yeshiva University and I sat down with him and I said, You know, I I really I've been going to synagogue on uh Friday nights and I really feel strong connection to Judaism. Happen to be dating this Jewish guy and I really want to become a Jew, make it official and convert. And I and then I said, you know, and it's not so surprising to me because my grandmother was from a Jewish family in Germany. Maybe that's why, I'm not sure. And he looked at me and he said, Well Which which grandmother are we talking about? And I said, Well, my mother's mother came from Germany in nineteen thirty-eight because of World War Two and she had to leave Frankfurt. And he looked at me and he said, Well, chances are you are a Jew.
And he recommended that I learn more about my family heritage. Look into this. So at that time, you know, I I was kind of Surprise. I mean because you know, growing up unitarian, I I was taught that religion is it's a personal belief system. So it was a something that an individual would choose. Анюмай фатер харона каталик і ком. uh from Puerto Rico to the States and uh stopped practicing Catholicism and didn't identify with it anymore.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What inspires Gwendolyn Lopez‑Cohen to explore her Jewish roots?
0:02–2:19
2
How does Gwendolyn discover her family’s hidden connection to Judaism?
2:19–5:50
3
What steps does she take to convert and prove her Jewish heritage?
5:50–10:29
4
How does DNA testing reveal a long‑lost Ashkenazi cousin?
10:29–13:54
5
What challenges does Iris Hernandez face when she returns to Puerto Rico?
13:54–16:58
6
How does Iris confront the language barrier at her family’s Nochebuena party?
16:58–17:33