Disclosure Day: What Spielberg’s Film Gets Right About God
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Andrea and Ramil both thought religion didn't matter. A trip to Israel changed everything.
Andrea Lebedev1 grew up in Brooklyn, New York in a non-religious Jewish family from the former Soviet Union. Her father passed away from a heart attack when her mother was pregnant with Andrea. He was only 34.
While Brooklyn has a large Orthodox Jewish population, Andrea never met anyone Orthodox while growing up.
“My neighbors were from all races and religions…I never happened to be in the right place at the right time to meet anyone observant. I was interested in Judaism, but had no in into that world.”
Andrea and her mother lived with her grandparents and aunt. “I grew up in a very loving household and never felt like I was lacking.”
I didn’t even know Hanukkah existed until going to that camp.
The family often utilized the local JCC, a wonderful place that helped immigrants get on their feet. Andrea’s first exposure to Judaism was at their summer camp. “We learned about Shabbat, challah, and candles. I didn’t even know Hanukkah existed until going to that camp.”
As a kid, Andrea was interested in Christmas solely because of the presents. Jesus was never mentioned and they never attended church. “We were not affiliated with Christianity. We were secular atheists, which was simply a result of growing up in the former Soviet Union. In Russian culture, New Years is a big deal. Stalin banned Christmas, so the entire Soviet Union adopted New Years as Christmas.”
Years later, Andrea attended Brooklyn College and joined the business club where she was the only Jewish girl. The business club met weekly and Andrea recognized Ramil,2 a fellow student from another class who was Muslim. They saw each other regularly at the club meetings.
“I appreciated his professionalism and leadership skills, and I was attracted to that. He was clearly attracted to my personality and felt I was a go-getter. In terms of professionalism, we matched up.”
The club also met up socially for Happy Hour. “One night, when everyone else couldn’t make it, it was just the two of us.”
Ramil drove Andrea home and told her in the car that he had feelings for her. He wanted to become romantically involved.
He wasn’t fasting during Ramadan and I wasn’t fasting on Yom Kippur.
Andrea reluctantly agreed. “While he was a really good guy and we shared similar interests, I went into the relationship hesitantly because he wasn’t Jewish, but he assured me that we would figure it out…Religion was not part of our lives. We knew who we were but we weren’t observing anything. He wasn’t fasting during Ramadan and I wasn’t fasting on Yom Kippur.”
They were both college-focused and determined to build a good career for themselves. Ramil’s parents were also originally from the Soviet Union.
“Our families were from different places within the Soviet Union but we had that commonality. We were both immigrants trying to build our careers. We knew each other’s culture and we thought we were similar enough.”
Ramil had also worked as a manager in a kosher store and had an understanding of Judaism culturally. While their relationship was flourishing and they began to talk about marriage, Andrea decided to visit Israel, taking advantage of the brief hiatus between graduation and her new full-time job at an accounting firm.
“I went on Birthright which was a rite of passage amongst my Jewish friends.”
While it was a standard, secular co-ed Birthright program, Andrea’s tour guide was a religious man, and Andrea became good friends with Samantha, the one observant girl on the trip.
Everything felt foreign to Andrea, including celebrating Shabbat and visiting a mikveh, ritual immersion pool, in Safed.
A female tour guide showed the women of the group the mikveh. “She explained intimacy in a way I had never heard before. She told us intimacy is special and shared only with someone you love. I know it may sound obvious or rudimentary to others, but in our world as secular college girls, it just wasn’t.
It was the first time in my life that I felt Jewish sisterhood. We were a mixed bag of Jews, all dating random people.
“It was the first time in my life that I felt Jewish sisterhood. I was in a room full of Jewish women who were getting emotional. We were a mixed bag of Jews, all dating random people.”
The teacher explained the concept of a soulmate and how one’s soulmates had to be Jewish. “It made logical sense to me that a non-Jew who has a completely different set of beliefs could not possibly be my other half on a soul-level. The entire group of women were tearing up from this talk… That moment really made an impact on me.”
During the trip Andrea began to explore spirituality more deeply and questioning the viability of her relationship with Ramil.
Andrea landed in JFK airport where Ramil greeted her with a bouquet of roses. “He was so sweet but I knew already at that point that it wasn't going to work long term.” They didn’t break up right away, but internally things had started to shift.
Ramil also had his own reservations. He kept delaying introducing Andrea to his family because he knew they would not approve.
Ramil also had his own reservations. He kept delaying introducing Andrea to his family because he knew they would not approve. They were more traditional and wanted him to marry into his religion and culture.
After Birthright, Andrea was on a spiritual high and reconnected with her new group of Jewish friends. “Observant Jews take having Jewish friends for granted because they grow up surrounded by Jews. Having Jewish friends was new for me and there was something very uniting about it all.”
She took her renewed sense of Jewish identity seriously. “I knew what persecution and discrimination was. I knew what it was to not get into a university because of being Jewish in the Soviet Union. Soviet history tells you being Jewish is a disease…My family came here on a refugee program for Jews because the country didn’t want us.”
Andrea started hanging out regularly with Samantha, including going to her house for Shabbat. “I wanted to start praying. Samantha’s family were Sephardic and I was Ashkenazi so she encouraged me to go to a Judaica store to buy a siddur.”
While Andrea was perusing the shelves, one of her professors from college who was an Orthodox Jew walked in. Andrea couldn’t believe the coincidence. She told her professor, “I just came back from Birthright. I want to connect but I don’t know where to begin.” The professor suggested that she should reach out to the campus Chabad. “I wrote the Rebbetzin a message and that was the beginning of the next stage of my Jewish journey.”
Andrea started going to the Chabad House for Shabbat and learning programs. Out of respect, she started to wear skirts in their presence.
Andrea was still going out with Ramil but eventually realized the time had come to break up. She knew that marriage was hard enough, and thought that by marrying him would mean setting herself up for many challenges in the future.
Our friend asked us, “Will your kids be Jewish or Muslim?” I said, “Both.” And Ramil said, “Muslim.”
Andrea remembered when she went to lunch with Ramil and a mutual friend who was also Muslim. “We were having a wonderful lunch, when our friend asked us, ‘Will your kids be Jewish or Muslim?’ I said, ‘Both.’ And Ramil said, ‘Muslim.’ I knew that according to Jewish law the child is Jewish if the mom is Jewish. But according to Muslim law the kids go after their father. Ramil understandably didn’t acknowledge the Jewish law. It wasn’t a priority for him while it was for me.”
Andrea said, “People can say whatever they want when dating. Once kids come into the picture, people change their minds. You want certain things for your children and it’s essential for the couple to be on the same page.”
Andrea finally gathered the courage and met Ramil for lunch.
“I told him that we may love each other but who will marry us? Is the imam going to marry us? Will the rabbi marry us? He was very upset. He didn’t want to accept that I could no longer stay in the relationship. Even though he had never introduced me to his family, he was adamant that we should stay together.”
After breaking up with Ramil, Andrea felt free to dive deeper into Judaism. She attended a three-week learning program and started to keep kosher and Shabbat as much as possible. She also started her first full-time job in Manhattan.
That’s where she met Josh. “We worked in the same department. We were in these Jewish gatherings at work together. I wasn’t interested in him romantically, at first.”
Josh became a calming presence in Andrea’s life during her years in corporate America. Both of them were unhappy in their jobs, and Josh was often the person she turned to when she needed someone to talk to. He listened without judgment and understood what she was going through.
When the pandemic began, they found themselves communicating more frequently. What started as group outings with friends gradually evolved into the two of them spending time together.
At one point, Josh invited her to a singles Shabbaton that a friend of his was organizing.
During the Shabbaton, Andrea realized something had changed in their dynamic. She found herself thinking that she didn’t want anyone else paying attention to him. She began to realize that her feelings had become something more.
As Andrea got to know Josh better, she saw qualities in him that mattered deeply to her. He was competent, kind, dependable, and someone she believed would make an excellent husband and father.
They envisioned an open and welcoming home, a vibrant social life surrounded by friends, and a family deeply connected to Judaism.
She and Josh discovered that they wanted many of the same things. They envisioned an open and welcoming home, a vibrant social life surrounded by friends, and a family deeply connected to Judaism. They wanted their future children to love Judaism and to feel proud of who they were.
The couple started dating and once they knew they were right for each other they got engaged.
Around the same time, both Andrea and Josh transitioned out of the corporate world and began building new chapters in their lives.
Today, they are married and are building a vibrant Jewish home rooted in strong Jewish values.
Looking back, Andrea believes that recognizing what kind of future she wanted to build was the turning point in her relationship with Ramil. She views the decision to marry Jewish less about rejecting a culture or specific person and more about committing to build a Jewish home with someone who shared her history, values, and traditions.
Once she made that commitment, she found her soulmate.
