Me and my father have been debating this for too many years now. Me being Jewish and an Atheist firmly believe that I am no longer Jewish because I do not believe in any Torah and Talmud or whatever other stuff I learned many years ago. My father insists that because I was born a jew I will always be a jew and must have a much higher respect for jews than anybody else. He also feels it is not only a religion but a culture and a nationality which is similar to saying your American or Russian.
We ran into a serious problem many years ago because all my life I promised him I’d marry a jewish girl. Me being the player I was had no interest in jewish girls because I’ve seen with my own eyes they were no different than non-jewish girls. And because I got myself into a situation where I now had a child with a Christian girl and wished to propose to her, my father threatened to disown me if I did and to make a long story short we didn’t get married and I now have a son which I only see on the weekends.
Now me and my father have always had a good relationship and he is a very nice and smart man. He taught me everything I know and is basically an Atheist himself, but I feel he is painfully ignorant in this matter. So I’m not sure if this is a debate or an obvious answer so please explain to me whether or not one of us is wrong.
More specifically, it is a religion and an ethnicity, and a culture, to boot, which is quite distinct from “nationality”… you can be an Israeli Jewish Atheist if you want, or an German Jewish Jew, or whatever.
One of those tricky words with two meanings O_o
Though some people will debate how far the “ethnic” definition of “Jewish” goes, since you have “ethnic” Jews spanning thousands of miles across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East (well, a tiny part thereof), and, of course, the Americas. But generally, as you experienced firsthand, Jews tend to marry other Jews due to strong cultural and religious motivations.
That’s how I understand it. I’ve had several Jewish friends try to explain how Jewish is Jewish, but it ends up with everyone being quite confused.
Incidentally, I have one friend who is a American French Jew whose last name is “St. Martin,” which is endlessly hillarious after a few drinks.
From a religious standpoint, he’s right. Obviously you no longer believe in G-d, but official Jewish religious doctrine does in fact say that in the eyes of G-d, once you become a Jew - whether by birth or by conversion - you cannot un-become.
In some ways, all religions are similar to nationalities in that way, as said religion involves a community sharing common interests and in which membership is automatically conferred based on lineage.
However, it’s always a bit dodgy to separate Jewish “religion” from Jewish “culture” and “nationality.” Pretty much every Jewish cultural element that one could attempt to isolate from the religion probably has its roots in the religion, even if those who are not actively religious still maintain it.
Be that as it may, if you promised your father something, you shouldn’t have been so cavalier about it. That’s a simple matter of honesty, not necessarily of Judaism.
He’s not ignorant, but what he is is inconsistent. Not intermarrying is one of those things that might have meaning to “cultural Jews” but is in essense a religious prohibition. He needs to make clear to himself - and, in turn, to you - why maintaining Jewish lineage means anything to him if other aspects of the Jewish religion don’t.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a way not to say ‘common’ for fear of overgeneralizing, but I guess common is the right word. I expect you’ll find it more among older Jews. The attitude is definitely not unique to Orthodox or very religious Jews. Of course it’s not unique to Judaism either (the fact that there aren’t that many Jews has a lot to do with the ‘ethnicity’ thing). Anyway there definitely is a specific and out-in-the-open social pressure to marry within the faith in order to preserve the religion and culture.
I think for precisely this reason it doesn’t go very far. It can’t be much of an ethnicity if the people aren’t really related. The Biblical tribe might be considered a nationality; ‘Israeli’ is a nationality, Jewish is not. I think the two things have been divorced.
Just to make my vested interests or biases in this discussion clear, my family is (mostly) Jewish, I’m an atheist and I’m not. And to make clear how confused this issue is and why the debate will probably never go away, one of my brothers is also an atheist - a Communist, no less - and he apparently identifies himself as Jewish for cultural (not ethnic) reasons.
Israeli Jewish Atheist here (Thanks, Zagadka! - nice turn of phrase :))
Think about an Irishman. He’s certainly Irish. He’s probably Catholic. And let’s say he actually lives in Ireland.
Now lets start taking some characteristics away. Can he be Irish if he’s an Atheist? I think so. Can he be Irish if he lives in Boston or in NY (and his family has lived there for centuries)? Just go out to St. Patrick’s day parades in either city… Can he be an Atheist living in Boston and still consider himself Irish? Even if only his Maternal Grandmother’s Grandmother was actually on the boat from Ireland? See any reason why not? So - you now have a American Atheist with maybe 10% Irish blood. But he’s still Irish because he identifies as such. And his identical twin may actually be Catholic, move to Dublin, and consider himself to be a transplanted Yankee…
Same for Jews. The word “Jew” literally means “Judean” - it was originally a geographical descriptor, just like “Irish”, but, again like “Irish”, has come to mean much more than that.
Bottom line, people intermarry; move; find and lose religion. In the end, they are what they identify as. This goes for you as well as for your brother.
As to your spat with father - I really don’t think this has anything to do with either of you being Jews or not. It’s a promise you made… and which you aren’t sure you want (or are obliged) to keep. I really can’t help you there, except to say that the situation would be the same had you promised to marry only a College Graduate or a Republican. It has nothing to do with the question of whether you are Jewish or not!
Repeating lots of what has already been said, the answer to your question is “yes” - it is a religion and a nationality and …
The best phrase is “tribe” with the recognition of its historic roots as a tribal identity that became spread out across most of the world but still united by that tribal identification. Of course shared religious beliefs are part of any tribal identity, even though it is sometimes hard to believe that Chiam and I have religious beliefs that are shared (I was raised Reform, am now part of a Conservative schul and am quite secular - a soft theist at most; he the observant Orthodox) - yet we both accept each other as mishpacha, as members of the Jewish extended family. Of course shared cultural attributes and history is part of a tribal identity. Of couse birthright is one way to become part of a tribe and of course former outsiders can become part of a tribe by undergoing some tribal initiation - they are then full fledged members just as if they had been born into the group.
What is so confusing about Jewish identity is the manner in which the tribal identity has spread itself amongst and betwixt other cultural identities, variably absorbing and transforming aspects of host cultures into itself and sharing parts of such absorbed/transformed bits with other parts of the tribe spread elsewhere, and contributing bits of itself (and the transformed bits from other cultures) to new host cultures along the way. Yet never being totally absorbed by any other identity. This exposure/absorbtion/transformation of cultural concepts and ideas that has been such an integral part of a tribal Diaspora has done more to define Jewish identity (and to encumber defining Jewish identity) than any other single feature. The Diaspora and forced rootlesssness left the Jews as a people with only those ideas as their resource to develop and trade with. But rich with that resource as the ideas of many other cultures mixed together in many novel combinations.
So yes, you can reject the religion and still have your tribal birthright. You can reject the religion and still care about being a good member of the tribe and about passing that identity on to your children. You can be a member of the tribe and be Chinese or African or Arab or Indian or Irish or Aboriginal by ethnicity. It has become a very diverse tribe in many ways. But still the question is “M O T?” (Are you a member of the tribe?) for good reason.
Not intercultural marriages. Just anybody who is Jewish marrying somebody who is not. If I marry a woman from Japan, Iceland, Argentina, or Ethiopa, my family’s concern will be ‘But, is she Jewish?’. If the answer is yes, my relatives will do a happy dance. If the answer is no, there’s a chance some of them will say ‘I have no son/brother/nephew/cousin! From this moment, you are dead to me!’ this would be followed by rending of clothing and recitation of mourning prayers.
Irish-American (lapsed) Catholic weighing in here.
Many Jews express a fear that the Americans, through intermarriage and assimilation, will succeed at doing what the Germans, through Shoah, failed at: Extinction of the Jewish people.
If you’re Jewish and your son marries outside the tribe, the child born of that union will ultimately have to choose between two identities. Most children, being weak-willed, choose the one that has skateboards, rock stars and shiksa cheerleaders associated with it. And even the ones who stay true to the Tribe are half goy and a bit suspect for that.
There was a brutal story early on in Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint where the narrator’s cousin fell in love with a blonde shiksa drum majorette and fought bitterly with his father over it. Cousin wants to elope with this girl, but his father engineers some discord in the relationship (At one point luring the girl into a car and offering her $500 in 1940 money to break up with the guy; she doesn’t take it). Cousin winds up joining the army and getting killed in short order. At his funeral, lots of relatives tell his father it’s a good thing he didn’t get the girl pregnant so there’d be a half-goy bastard in the family.
So yeah, interfaith marriages are a sore point to lots of Jewish families. Gentile ones, too, really.
I’m agnostic. I also am Jewish. I look at being Jewish very much as an ethnicity- the same as an African American, Italian, or Irish person may feel strongly about their cultures.
I am aware of this belief, and I wouldn’t disagree, except that I would think that this brings you right back to what is meant by the Jewish people.
I could see the US ending up with two groups – the relatively insular observant “Black Hat” Orthodox, who are determinedly fecund by tradition, and secular cultural Jews, with little middle ground in between.
So you and your father both feel it is more important to honor a promise you made many years ago than to marry your child’s mother? You wanted to marry her, but you didn’t because of your dad? Is that the case?
(Reform-raised culturally Jewish agnostic here - I’m all about preserving cultures of every sort, but I have never believed it should keep apart people who are meant to be together, which is an endless source of consternation to the older generations of my family. Of course, then you get to argue over who is “meant to be together,” which provides endless hours of fun.)
No, I don’t think so. This idea of cultural identity irrespective of nationality seems to me to be uniquely American. Does your hypothetical Irishman still have Irish nationality? If he does, then yes, he is nominally an Irishman. If he has American nationality, then no, he’s not Irish, he’s American, with Irish ancestors. My grandfather came from Ireland, and I have an Irish surname. That doesn’t make me Irish.
It’s pretty obvious to anyone who knows any Jews that there is a huge difference.
You must be the identical twin I mentioned… I think there are Americans (and possibly others) of Irish ancestry who consider themselves Irish still. And I know that there are people of Jewish ancestry who do not consider themselves Jewish. My point is that it’s an individual choice
Except when it’s not. If you’re living in some place where Jews or the Irish or whoever is discriminated against, either legally or de facto, and then you’re a member of that group whether you choose to be or not, based on the outside world’s definition.