Firstly, we have to clarify one thing, and I think that this will be the main point of divergence between our opinions. The point is that happiness is not everything – there are some things that are more important than being happy. To put it on a bit more of a trivial level - I’d love to go to Old Timers Day at Yankee Stadium. I’m a big Yankees fan and a huge fan of baseball in general and am well versed in the game’s history. I’d love to go to the stadium and watch Reggie and Don Mattingly and the Goose put on an exhibition for a couple of innings. However, Old Timers Day (for whatever reason) is always scheduled on a Saturday. So I can’t go. Would I like to go? Would it make me happy to go? Sure it would. But I know that for a greater good, I have to sacrifice part of my happiness.
Now, I’m not trying to compare a marriage and lifetime commitment to a baseball game, but the same principle still applies on a grander scale. All of us have to make choices in life. Sometimes we have to defer our happiness for all sorts of obligations, be they financial, patriotic, religious or other.
The problem, however, is not at the point where the parental confrontation you described occurs. The problem occured years back when your hypothetical parents didn’t inculcate in you the value of building a Jewish home, the necessity of marrying another Jew and making it clear to you then that dating non-Jews would be unacceptable to them. By the time it comes to the stage of “would you rather I be Jewish or happy” it is usually far, far too late to undo the damage. Your hypothetical parents would have had years to show you the beauty of your heritage and why it should be your goal to continue that heritage and pass it down to your children. But your hypothetical parents failed in that task.
Certainly not unimportant. But not complete either.
The goal here is that they be BOTH. I don’t want my children to grow up to be non-Jews. I also don’t want them to grow up being miserable, rotten human beings. And I don’t see why I have to make a choice; I can certainly want both and expect both from my children.
Why would there be only those two choices? Do all the women in the world fall into two categories (non-Jewish-sweet-as-can-be and Jewish-thoughtless-selfish)? If those are his only two choices, then I’d advise him to wait, not get married now and look for other women. Your scenario is a false dilema. You might as well ask me “would you like to be shot or stabbed?”
Cowgirl I pick door #3 "Boychick, the Yiddishe maidele is no good. The way she treats you, I wouldn’t treat a dog! The shikseh is a nice, sweet girl. But, marry her and the ceremony will be interrupted by the sound of my heart breaking in two, and the earthquake caused by bubby and zeyde spinning in their graves. You tell me, you could marry cast-iron you know what and forget about the shikseh. You tell me you could marry the glazed ham- warm, sweet, and so very nonJewish, and forget the Jewish girl. I say, forget both girls then. If I, your own tatte who has reminded you so very often and for so very long that you should marry already and give me grandchildren, can say you should wait and not get married, then you should wait and not get married. I thought I would never find a nice Jewish girl. But, right there on the wall there she is in her wedding dress. And that shmendrick in the tuxedo is me. Note the confused look in his eyes. He couldn’t figure out how he ever got so lucky. I still can’t. That you’re willing to give one or the other of these girls tells me that neither makes you feel that way. "
Perhaps I should have qualified my statement better. It certainly did happen in the past. The reason for this “custom” is unclear as it is not codified in halacha anywhere. In recent times (going by my own observations in the last twenty or so years) this “custom” is rarely if ever practiced anymore. As Anne Neville pointed out, doing so will only serve to alienate the couple further and that is the exact opposite of what we want to do.
Well, that is downright wrong. If they held you weren’t Jewish then you could certainly become Jewish by converting. There is no one who should be told that they “never could be and never would be” Jewish.
If your mother’s conversion was halachically valid, then your relatives were wrong to insist that it was invalid and if you were born after the said conversion then they were wrong to insist that you were not Jewish or to even bring up the fact that your parents were converts.
If, OTOH, your mother’s conversion was invalid, then it was simply invalid. But that doesn’t mean that you should have been denigrated for it in any way. I have a cousin (not the one I mentioned above) who was born a non-Jew and adopted as an infant by my aunt (not the aunt I mentioned above either). They had a conversion ceremony, albeit a Reform one which I, as an Orthodox Jew, cannot recognize. So, in my eyes, my cousin is not Jewish. She’s still a wonderful person, always welcome in my home and a valued member of my family - but she’s not Jewish and unless she has a valid Orthodox convserion, I cannot consider her to be so.
One of the indespensible conditions of a conversion is a commitment to living one’s life according to halacha and keeping the mitzvos. If your mother’s conversion did not contain this (as my cousin’s didn’t) then I understand why your father’s Orthodox family would consider her conversion invalid and, by extension, you to be non-Jewish. But to state that you “never could be and never would be” Jewish is plain wrong. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you’d have a potential advantage over other would-be converts in that you’ve had some Jewish schooling and have lived (at least part of) your life according to it’s teachings.
I hope “halfbreed” is a self-pajorative term that you’re using and not one that others have used on you. Judaism doesn’t recognize “halfbreeds.” Either one is fully Jewish or one is not.
And that’s sad and a shame.
Then, to save their marriage, my parents moved away from both families. To this day I refuse to live close to my relatives because that pushing away still goes on - to the Gentiles we’re Jewish and will always be Jewish, even if we converted to Catholicism, and to the Jews we’re Gentiles and always will be, despite being born to a woman who converted under an Orthodox Rabbi, and even if we went through the conversion process ourselves (which we shouldn’t have to, from all that I’ve read and heard).
[/quote]
An Orthodox rabbi would not have converted your mother without a commitment to living according to halacha. Are you certain that it was an Orthodox rabbi? And if it was, and you did live according to halacha then your relatives were downright wrong.
As an aside, why is it that people’s worst behavior always seems to come out at funerals?
Guinastasia With the comparison to Operation Exodus I undertand what you mean. This is genuinely a different thing. Judaism teaches that there are righteous gentiles, and that one does not have to be Jewish to get into heaven. There are debates over the exact boundaries, but even by the strictest view I know of good Christians, and Muslims get into heaven. The religion of others (unless it involves human sacrifice) is not to be held as lesser. Gentiles are not to be forcibly converted or brainwashed into conversion. Gentiles are not considered sick or deluded or unclean (well no more unclean than anybody who hasn’t been to the mikveh and sacrificed a red heifer). The only concern is that our kids don’t marry them. It’s important our grandkids are Jewish. There is no concern about Jewish blood or racial purity. The concern is of diluting religion or culture.
Because they’re depressed and emotional and tend not to be thinking rationally. So they’re more likely to get pissed off at little things and blow stuff out of proportion, or just be jerks.
However, your baseball/marriage analogy made me think of a story.
There’s this guy who’s trying to get baseball tickets, but the stadium is sold out. He’s disappointed, but then this old man comes over to him and says, “I have an extra ticket…do you want it?” The guy agrees, and they go into the stadium and sit down.
When they’re seated, the guy says to the old man, “Wow! These are great seats. Why do you have an extra one?”
The old man answers, “My wife and I used to go to every game. We were married for 50 years, and every year we’d get season tickets. Ever since she died, I’ve had an extra ticket.”
The guy’s sad about all this, and asks the old man if he gets lonely, not having anyone, and the old man answers, “Oh, I’ve got plenty of family…kids, grandkids.”
So, the guy asks, “How come none of them came with you?” and the old man answers, “Oh, they’re all at her funeral.”
Thanks for your thoughtful answers to my hypothetical (and Doc - your accent is evocative!) No, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there were only the two kinds of people (ie Jewish/nasty or gentile/nice). I had to use an extreme to illustrate (to me) what you meant, and it worked. I understand what you are saying!
Interesting point about happiness, zev. I get what you mean, but from a different direction. While it may make me happy, for instance, to [eat filet mignon/drive an SUV/make lots of money as a stockbroker], these would require things of me that I am not willing to do, and not because they won’t make me happy but because they violate principles I have which are unrelated to happiness. I can see that some people have a hard time understanding that about me.
I think one reason I have such a hard time getting it is the same part of me that has a hard time ‘getting’ organized religion in general - it’s just not right for me, because of my stubborn insistence that ‘tradition’ or ‘because it’s written’ is not (on its own) a good enough reason to get me to do something I don’t want to do (and vice versa). I fully understand that it’s just me, tho, and that others have different experiences.
I’m thrilled that my friends who are religious Jews found and fell in love with other religious Jews, because it was so important for them that they do so. (I mean, the pool of religious Jews is relatively small, and they have done well anyway.) By and large I don’t know what they went through to get there - what if they were attracted to someone who’s not Jewish? Would they allow themselves to flirt, even? To become friendly? I probably wouldn’t, because I would be concerned about the potential of friendly --> flirting --> dating --> can’t live without this person. I’ve nearly been in that position with people with whom a relationship cannot work (for other reasons, eg distance) and it was agonizing.
Well, among Orthodox Jews, casual dating is more or less nonexistant. The main purpose of going out on a date is simply to find out whether or not a prospective match is suitable to you. As such, dating tends to take a short amount of time among Orthodox Jews (usually no more than a few months) and does not begin until the partners are ready to seriously consider marriage. And given the very purpose of dating, they obviously don’t go on dates with people they would not consider marrying (non-Jews, people not of their type, etc.).
And again, fair enough. I’m sorry if I offended you, DocCathode. I can understand how this is important.
I still think that considering your child dead, to the point of holding a funeral or erecting a tombstone is wrong. But then, even though I was raised Catholic, my parents were never very dogmatic-really, all they ever asked me was that I try to do my best to be a good person.
There are, however, some practices in Catholicism that I find abhorent, even as they are a very important part of the faith.
So, it’s not really Judaism, just organized religions in general that I find fault with.
Guinastasia I’m not offended. It’s just that the comparison made with fundies and homosexuality, made me wonder if you and other people might have thought that Jews had the same bigotry when it came to gentiles. I wanted to be sure that anybody reading this thread was clear “I’m not a bigot. I just don’t want my children to marry one.” isn’t being used as a code phrase in the way Strm Frnt folks use it.
I’m divided on declaring the person dead. It’s cruel and extreme. OTOH, this is a vitally important issue and the possibility of parents declaring you dead, whether or not they would actually do it, aids in preventing Jews from dating gentiles.
There are practices and beliefs in Judaism I find objectionable myself. But overall as a religion and culture, it really works for me.
Oh, yes - I mean, I don’t have a problem with some sort of symbolic ritual expressing the communal grief that one of their number has left the community, and perhaps that’s where it started, but over time it got out of hand. Or you had a group getting into some “holier than thou” competition.
But since it’s not my religion I don’t feel my opinion carries, or should carry, much weight with Jews.
I know that, zev. I knew that even as a young child of 9 or 10. I actually used to argue with them about that, but being a child no one paid me any attention, I was just wrong.
As I said, it’s all sad and confusing. The family would lament about how few they were, how many they had lost over time… yet they pushed away a woman who wanted to convert and bring more Jews into the world (at least she did at that point in her life - later on things changed)
Only mom was the convert.
Like I said, Jews are much like other people - including having the ignorant, the stubborn, and the prejudiced among their number along with some very nice, wonderful people.
Personally, even if someone leaves the faith cutting them off isn’t wise. It leads to resentment and anger… which can lead to bigotry. Those of us who are perceived as Jewish - whether we are or not by Jewish law, whether we practice Judaism or not - are subjected to the same prejudices true Jews are subjected to except, when treated as outcasts, we have no community to fall back on. And I don’t think that’s the doing or the command of G*d, that’s the fault of falliable human beings. On the other hand, if Jews don’t treat their gentile relatives as complete dirt those same relatives are far more likely to come to their defense when the bigots show up. Safety in numbers.
Well, this all took place long before I was born (I’m the youngest), but I was always told, by both sides of the family, that mother’s conversion was at an orthodox synnagogue under an orthodox rabbi. But by the time I was 5 or 6 my parents had basically given up the struggle and gone secular. (The fact my mother was also berated almost daily for not producing a son didn’t help, and various ugly things too nasty to mention outside the Pit.)
As I said - most of this occured before I was born. But from what I’ve heard, mother did make a sincere effort to live by Jewish laws even when it meant giving up things she liked (like pork chops).
And yes, I do know dad’s family was in the wrong. They’re still in the wrong. But I refuse to make their problems my problems.
Well… not too sure about all that. We were certainly exposed to Jewish culture and tradition growing up, and I remember celebrating the Jewish holidays with dad’s family much more often than the Christian ones with mom’s family (which sort of contradicts the whole “you married out of the faith you’re dead” party line, but as I pointed out before, there’s no way this is entirely rational). I think grandma finally came around to the idea that even if she hated mom, mom did convert and we were at least Jewish enough to associate with (she lived with us for two years at one point - it’s a wonder those two women didn’t kill each other during that time).
It certainly was an influence - I still can’t stand mixing meat and cheese, it seems wrong on a visceral level to me. Never acquired much taste for pork or shellfish. Nor is it just food - just recently my husband pointed out to me that whenever I take one day out of the weekend for complete rest it’s almost always Saturday. I make some of these choices without thinking about it, but the influence is always there. And Jewish traditions aren’t strange or odd to me - they’re part of my childhood memories so if later on in life I wind up converting (unlikely, but you never know) it wouldn’t be so much learning something new as returning to something old.
My parents made sure I’d know about both sides of my heritage and would respect both sides, whichever way I went in life. Mom’s family didn’t give a damn which way I went, but as time wore on I know Grandma sort of regretted we kids weren’t more Jewish than we were, and I think she realized she had some role in that… but she never would have admitted it words.
Yeah, I know - but explain that to gentiles who speak of “half-Jews” and “quarter-Jews”. No, it’s not a “self-perjorative”, it’s an ugly term I’ve heard off and on all my life.
Seems to me the product of an interfaith marriage should be able to say “I’m of Jewish descent, but not a Jew by religion” and that would be the end of it, but the world does not permit that in many cases.
Actually, my sisters’ kids think it’s kind of neat they’ve got Jews in their background, even if they aren’t Jews in the religious sense. Which is the way it should be, instead of something to hide, which I’ve heard from other people… I mention being product of an interfaith marriage and someone will invariably sneak out of the crowd and say “you know… my grandfather/grandmother/some other relative was Jewish, but I was told never to admit it” And that’s a real tragedy, that someone feels they need to hide their ancestry.
See above - most of this played out before I was born, but I’ve always heard it was a conversion under an orthodox rabbi. I do know mother wasn’t happy about the synnagogue arrangements where she and the other women had to sit behind a screen during services, but she put up with it because that was part of the package and no more onerous than some of the Catholic customs she had to deal with growing up.
Stress.
Actually, counsin Marsha always seems to be in competition to be more Jewish than anyone else - even if no one else was in the game. :rolleyes: I don’t like her on a personal level and it wouldn’t kill me never to see her again in this life.
Mind you, when we went down to St. Louis for the funeral the rest of the Jewish community in the area made us extremely welcome, invited us into homes, kept us fed and comforted and were, in general, really warm and wonderful people. Truth is, most of the hard feelings were in the past, the worst of the blowhards were deceased (with one or two exceptions).
Sometimes I wish I had been raised in the community as a fully accepted Jew… but I wasn’t. And while I don’t hide my Jewish heritage I don’t feel like Jew in the religious sense and never have, I’ve always felt apart from them.
Oh, I don’t think it’s the same sort of bigotry (I don’t see any Jews lobbying to forbid Gentiles to marry and such, for example!)
Just that in the long run, cutting all ties with a child in such a manner can have just as negative an effect on both parties.
(BTW, I could hear your little example of your father talking as Grandpa Boris from “Rugrats”-did anyone else?)
