When Jo-Anne Berelowitz was ten, her father told her that they would have to leave South Africa because Jews didn’t belong and South Africa couldn’t ever be ​“home.” 

Jo-Anne grew up anx­ious about home and belong­ing. At twen­ty-sev­en when she left with a hus­band for a new life in Cal­i­for­nia and the pur­suit of an advanced degree in art his­to­ry, Jo-Anne thought she was done with South Africa; but decades lat­er, after a dif­fi­cult divorce and sev­er­al relo­ca­tions, she found her­self strug­gling with how the repres­sions of her South African years and her father’s words formed her. Jo-Anne reflect­ed, too, on how art his­to­ry had been a medi­um for avert­ing her eyes — a way to focus on beau­ty instead of Apartheid. Jo-Anne began a jour­ney — part­ly phys­i­cal and part­ly spir­i­tu­al — back to the past, a jour­ney of return. She came to under­stand that there is a place where she belongs, a home that has always there for her. That place is Judaism. It’s where Jo-Anne belongs.