Welcome to my blog

After more than a year of reading friends' blogs and telling myself that I should launch my own, I have finally taken the leap.

By way of introduction, I am Susan Jacobs, a 27-year-old journalist living in Pittsburgh, PA. I grew up in Charleston, WV, and love my hometown and home state dearly. I go back to visit whenever I have a chance, and it helps that Pittsburgh is just a four hour car trip away from my family.

I am also an Orthodox Jew (a baalas teshuva -- been completely shomer Shabbos for nine years, but started becoming more observant after I declared at age nine that "I want to be Orthodox when I grow up."). If you know anything about West Virginia, you should know that it is not exactly a center of Jewish life in general, or Orthodoxy in particular. But Charleston is home to a wonderful community of about 1,000 Jews (out of 60,000 total population in the city), and it has been home to my family for more than 100 years. I am proud of both of my heritages (Jewish and West Virginian), but the combination of the two has sparked more than a little surprise and confusion on the part of big city Jews. In grad school, one of my professors had no problem understanding the Jewish part of me, but he just couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that I grew up in West Virginia. I relish being a contradiction in terms, and I expect at least a few entries on this blog will address this topic.

The most exciting news in my life of late is that after biding my time for two years as "marketing manager" for the Jewish Association on Aging, I am finally returning to the wonderful world of journalism. As of Sept. 20, I will be Associate Editor of The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh. The current Web site is no great shakes, but I'll see what I can do about that. First and foremost, the paper needs more help with basic content and copy editing. It won't be a glamorous job, but it's newspaper work, which I love, and it's an opportunity to lend my talents to my community. Just one step in my meteoric rise to stardom. (Alright, it's a slow-moving meteor. Work with me here.)

Well, if you've read this far, then you also know by now that I'm long-winded. (Hey, everybody needs an editor, even so-called editors.) But before you go, allow me to explain why I chose the name "Draydel" for this blog. During Chanukah when I was 10 years old, two wonderful pets were adopted by my family -- an adorable Cocker spaniel puppy named Taffy, and a part-Siamese cat with deep blue eyes whom we named Draydel. We got both pets because my sister had been begging for years to have a dog, and since she was getting a dog, I said I wanted a cat. Taffy and Draydel were wonderful companions and they were with us for 14 and 15 years, respectively. They were the first and so far only pets I've ever had. Although I'm sad she's gone, Draydel's memory still makes me happy, and for that reason (and because other blog names I considered were already taken), this blog is named for her.

So ends the first post on the blog named Draydel. Keep checking back for more.