I found out that fiction can transport, uplift and connect you to something bigger then yourself

I wasn’t born in a small frum community. I was born in Binghamton, New York, which has a tiny frum community. Tiny like I had to bring a sandwich in a brown paper bag to my classmates’ birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese while they devoured treif pizza. Tiny like I had one frum friend. Until my family moved to a large frum community when I was seven, I always felt acutely different than my peers.

One day when I was around six years old, my mother and I visited Rivky Slonim, the renowned local Chabad rebbetzin. While the adults schmoozed, I looked at the books on the shelf, my hand resting on one in particular. It had a lively pink border and a picture of two girls on the cover. Frum girls with Jewish names, just like me.

“Do you want to take that book home with you?” the rebbetzin asked me, with smiling eyes.

I nodded, elated.

The story of Mimmy and Simmy was just a book about two girls with relatable issues, a kind teacher and super-chilled out moms who were cool with a life swap. But it was momentous in the sense that I found out that fiction can transport, uplift and connect you to something bigger then yourself. It can make you feel like part of a whole.