#24 — Losing My Religion

A Story Unfolding Across Timelines

My name is Liat, and I currently live in San Francisco. I was born and raised in Kiryat Ata, a small town in Israel. As a teenager, my favorite band was R.E.M., and I could listen to their “Out of Time” album for hours. “Losing My Religion” was and still is an iconic song, and the name of the song could be misleading for people who are not familiar with the American usage of this term. The phrase “losing my religion” is an expression from the southern region of the US that means losing one’s temper or “at wit’s end,” meaning that if things were going so bad, you could lose faith in God. As much as I love rock music, I also love pop music. So when Glee remade “Don’t Stop Believin’,” it met me where I needed it the most. For me, this is one of the best encouragement songs to lift me up. Listen to it when you feel down, and don’t stop believing.

Believe and Belief are two strong words. I can’t speak for most people in this world, but when I was younger, religion was immediately associated with these two words. I was born in Israel to a Jewish family. My grandparents from both sides were religious, while my parents merely keep the Jewish tradition to this day. The Jewish tradition was preserved for generations in the diaspora when the Jewish people lived under different regimes. The ability to preserve a belief for centuries as a minority group…