Is anyone else remembering the sitcome Bridget Loves Bernie? It was about the marriage of a Catholic woman and Jewish man. The Wikipedia page says it was highly rated but canceled after one season mostly due to objections from Jewish leaders who found it offensive. I never saw the show so I couldn’t say. But while it may have been an exciting theme for a show decades ago, it now seems like an awfully flimsy subject to be the centerpiece of a TV show.
,
Are absolute numbers a concern? Judaism is a not a huge global religion in the first place, and I thought they were not aggressively seeking proselytes.
Even in the mid 1930s, when my uncle married a Christian woman, there was no shiva, no shunning in our family. Perhaps some more distant, more pious relatives were put out. On the other hand, when my son did the same in 1992, my wife’s stepfather announced that he would no longer be welcome in his house. Which didn’t bother anyone (except my MIL) since I couldn’t stand the man anyway and I don’t imagine my son felt any differently.
My impression is that it is more a custom among some groups than an actual rabbinical law. But I could be wrong about that.
Oh, and when my brother married a devout Catholic, her mother called my mother and asked what they could do break it up. My mother wasn’t interested and the other woman hung up in despair.
I forgot to mention that mitochondrial DNA evidence shows that most or nearly all Ashkenazi Jews have a non-Jewish female ancestor somewhere along the female line. Thus, according to modern rabbinical law, none of us are actually Jewish (including the learned rabbis).
Under Orthodox Jewish law, you are a Jew. Well, if you completely reject Judaism they might accept that (you’d be dead to them, in a sense) but if you choose to call yourself a Jew, that vast majority of Jews will consider you to have always been a Jew.
It’s not just a religion, it’s an ethnic group, and you are a member of it.
Yes, Jews hope not to become extinct. The Reform movement has decided to embrace those with one Jewish parent who are interested in being Jews. This is a bit of a mess from “who’s a Jew” perspective, as this is contrary to the Orthodox rule that only those with Jewish mothers are Jews. But it has “worked” for Reform Judaism, in terms of keeping communities functioning.
My synagogue has a whole set of procedures to include non-Jewish parents in Jewish rites of passage, for instance. So, instead of e.g. saying the usual blessing over the Torah (an honor usually given to parents on the occasion of their child’s bar mitzvah) there’s a non-denominational “blessing” they can say so they can be honored in front of the congregation.
I was thinking of that show when I wrote about my aunt and uncle earlier. I was going to say “If you want to picture them as Meredith Baxter and David Birney, go ahead, even though they don’t look like that,” but then I thought that the reference was too old and obscure, and hardly anyone would get it.
As for the shunning – I think back in, say, “The Fiddler on the Roof”, it wasn’t that the Jewish parents chose to shun their child so much as that by marrying out, the child was removing herself (or himself) from the community, and it probably wasn’t even safe for them to visit much, as they had to establish credibility as a good Christian. So of course the parents mourned.
But I worked with an older man whose parents sat shiva for him when he married a Catholic woman in the US, where of course they could have stayed in touch. But I wonder if that was sort of a hold-over from the forced separation of the old days. Or maybe it was just parents being really angry.
When my MIL told her parents she was marrying a non-Jew, they said, “well, his name is Jewish enough that we don’t have to tell everyone”. When my FIL told his parents he was marrying a Jew, they hung up on him. So the whole shunning bit isn’t just a Jewish thing.
Not necessarily definitive. While Judaism does discourage conversion into the religion, it’s still possible, and a Jew by conversion is regarded as every bit as much a Jew as one by birth. So if a Jewish man marries a woman of gentile ancestry, but she converts, then their children would still be regarded as Jewish. And of course genetic evidence can’t say anything about that possibility.
There is the famous biblical story about Ruth, who was originally Jordanian, but married a Jew, moved to Judah (“thy people shall be my people, and thy god my god”), and was pretty clearly accepted as a Jew. Of course no rabbis were involved, but scripture ought to hold some weight.
I think “ethnic group” isn’t the right term. There are, after all, huge cultural variances between Jews from different parts of the world. Consider, for example, the Abayudaya of Uganda. Ethnically, they couldn’t be more different from my Ashkenormative self, but they are most definitely Jews.
I think it’s better the call Jews a “nation”. The quality of being a Jew is more a question of citizenship than religion. Jewish Law is quite distinct from Jewish belief. According to traditional Jewish Law, if your mother is a Jew, you are a Jew in the sense that you are a citizen of the nation of Jews.
It’s just like you’re a US citizen if you’re born in the United States, even if you leave as an infant, are raised in another country, have a passport from that other country, and have no particular feelings of identification with the US. If you come here and show your birth certificate (and do a lot of painful paperwork), you can get a US passport.
To extend the metaphor, conversion to Judaism is like becoming a naturalized citizen of the US. If you’re born a Jew according to the traditional legal requirements, you don’t need to undergo conversion to be counted as a Jew. Just like you don’t have to go through naturalization if you were born in the US.
Calling Jews a “nation” is problematic. It’s been the basis for discrimination for a long time.
Judaism is a religion. It’s like any other in that it determines it’s own membership rules. The rule is that the children of a Jewish mother are Jewish. It may seem to be a rather minimal standard for entry into a religion, but that hasn’t stopped people from being killed on that basis.
Around here the JWs seem a lot more into fighting against interfaith marriage than the Jewish community. They make even the Mormons seem open and open-minded.
Mileage seems to vary greatly. A former girlfriend (Methodist) married a Jewish man back in about 1980 and she and their children were basically shunned by most of his family and friends. Another friend about the same age did pretty much the same thing and was welcomed warmly; their one child was fully accepted into the faith although there was a couple extra steps thrown his was; almost a sort of conversion. I guess like any religion it depends on the branch/exact denomination and a lot depends on the people involved. In short I don’t know that there is an easy answer or fast reply.
From someone without a religion and no familial religious interests in any way, the concept of interfaith marriages being a problem seems baffling to me. Any religion or any person that would impose such restrictions seems inherently problematic to me.
Marry who you love, if that coincides with a religious alignment as well then fine great I suppose. If your family or religion puts pressure on you simply because you are marrying outside of a faith then I don’t reckon much to them as a family or as a religion.
Maybe it has, but, functionally, Judaism is a religion; Jews are a people/nation. There is an existential quality of being a Jew that is separate from belief and practice of the religion. Just ask a secular Israeli Jew.
Jews are a nation. Israel, the United States, France, Germany, China, are all nation-states. They are all entities and categories that lack any objective reality. They’re all things based on stories people use to organize themselves into groups, for good or ill.
Once again, nobody’s forcing a person born to a mother who is a Jew, but raised in another faith, or without religion at all, to behave according to the religion of Judaism. But that person is a citizen of the nation or Jews, whether they know it or acknowledge it or care one whit about it.
Norway introduced civil ceremonies in 1845 in the “Dissenter” laws which loosened the grip of the State Church. As well as making it legal for citizens to leave the church, it created a way to get married by civil authorities.
Purely secular Jews got killed in Nazi Germany
I’m 100% atheist. If I were born Christian, any type, I’d not be Christian any more. But I was born Jewish and am still Jewish in the tribal sense even if I don’t practice Judaism any more.
It depended on the family. In the 1930s my aunt married a Catholic. My grandfather had no problem with it at all since my uncle believed in the true religion - the Brooklyn Dodgers.
But I strongly suspect my grandfather was an atheist, but you didn’t come out in those days.
My kids have had no problem being the product of a mixed marriage, and my older daughter was active in Bnai Brith in a temple - a reform temple, but no problem.
It is worth noting that not all Jews agree on that. Karaites, as far as I understand, specifically recognize only patrilineal descent (as well as conversion, integration into the community, etc.)
Note that Reform Judaism has a different take. Either parent counts if raised with the identity.
One rabbi I know has the line of not caring about Jewish sons or daughter in laws but about Jewish grandchildren.
Many Reform congregations are more mixed couples than not with very active participation by both.
Interfaith marriages could also be a basis for comedy. In 1926, a silent film, The Cohens and the Kellys had a Catholic familyand Jewish family, neighbors in an apartment building. feuding with each other. Unbeknownst to all four parents the Catholic son and the Jewish daughter fell in love and got married secretly, until her pregnancy outed the relationship. Her father shunned her but the catholic son and his wife and daughter were taken in by his family. In true schmaltzy fashion her dad eventually gave in. There was also some hoo-rah about an inheritance they shared, because it turns out an aunt in a previous generation, who became wealthy, had married out of her own faith. A very funny movie.