My move to Chicago back in March was both a long time coming and an unexpected jump. After having spent nearly four years in Indianapolis outside of the arts world, I was looking to utilize my music business degree the way I'd always envisioned. Having interned at Ravinia Festival during college, I was eager to return, so when a position opened up at Ravinia's Steans Music Institute, I jumped on it.
The interview process was long, so even though there were no guarantees, I had time to open myself up to the idea that I could move to Chicago. I was thrilled when they made me an offer. As quickly as I accepted it, however, I was just as quickly packing up my life in Indy and moving to a new city where my community was far less established.
That's when I started reaching out via text, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and any other medium I could to connect with fellow Chicagoans. Then, I received a text from a guy I went to camp with 10 years ago:
"You should host a dinner! I'll bring Jews, I promise."
It's true, I love cooking, and there's no better way to meet people (especially Jewish people!) than through a meal, but logistics were failing me. Host a Shabbat dinner? Who would even come? What should I cook? What if someone's gluten-free?
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He told me about OneTable, the organization making it easy and affordable to host friends and strangers in your home for Shabbat dinners, and I instantly signed up. The model is simple: Sign up to host a dinner in your home, tell OneTable how many people you expect, and they subsidize your costs. To alter a baseball-oriented quote, "If you cook it, they will come."
What better way to build community, I thought, than through a Shabbat dinner? Thus, I found my home filled with a mix of Birthright buddies, camp friends, neighbors, and new faces eating an Israeli-themed meal in my home, an apartment which only a month and a half earlier had felt like anything but my home, in a new city that felt utterly overwhelming.
The night was a joy. There's nothing like meeting new people who share a common foundation to make you feel like finding a place in a new city might be a little less difficult than you had originally thought. "I am definitely doing this again," was the thought running through my head the whole evening.
But then, June started. Ravinia's jam-packed concert schedule combined with the newness of my role completely overtook my summer. So I said goodbye to meeting new people and hello to late night concerts and long hours. Any momentum I had gained from my Shabbat dinner was halted -- or so I thought.
One day, a pianist walked into my office and pointed at a painting hanging on my wall of four Jewish musicians. "You're Jewish?" she asked -- in an Israeli accent. I told her I was, and we ended up discussing Judaism and Israel for two hours.
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While my new summer schedule was filled with late work nights, it was also filled with reminders that I can always build a Jewish community, no matter how new or overwhelming a new job (or a new city) feels.
I am still trying to find my place in the Jewish community in Chicago. On days when I question my decision to leave the support of my Indianapolis community to move to Chicago, I remind myself of the feeling of community I cherished during my OneTable Shabbat dinner. On days when I start to dwell on the difficulty and loneliness that a new move and a new city can bring, I think of the joy of my conversation in my office with a newfound Israeli friend. When I recall these new memories, my hopes for finding a place in Chicago grow. It's not there yet, but I know that the materials for building my own community are here and ready, whenever I am.
Molly Sender is the Operations Manager of Ravinia's Steans Music Institute by day and a Ravenswood-based Chicago explorer by night. She enjoys travelling, meeting new people, and staying active with yoga, crossfit, biking, and running. She can most often be found cooking in her tiny-but-mighty kitchen, cheering for her beloved Chicago Cubs, and enjoying the great outdoors.
For more stories from the "New-ish and Jewish in Chicago" blog series, visit www.oychicago.com/newish
