Would your child be allowed to date someone of a different race/ethnicity/creed?

Great Debates
141

Not so long ago, we had a thread about an interfaith couple (woman was Catholic, man was Jewish, neither were practicing), and basically the guy’s mother was absolutely livid and against it to the point of throwing a public hissy fit at the funeral of her father-in-law when her son came with his Catholic fiance in tow. Several of our Orthodox and stricter Conservative Jewish Dopers pointed out that in the Jewish faith, children marrying outside the faith, without the fiance converting, is inherantly frowned upon. So, perhaps parents would feel it appropriate to WARN their son or daughter if he or she were dating someone who was Jewish, (if they weren’t themselves). Basically, it has to do with Jewish law and how it Judaism passes through the mother. (If the mother isn’t Jewish, the children won’t be, unless she converts). It’s very long and complicated.

I’m not saying that all Jews are like this, or that I personally agree with it. But perhaps thirdwarning just doesn’t want to see her daughter get hurt.

142

Okay, apparently I’m not doing very well explaining this. And I know I’m not, because I wasn’t really satisfied with what I said, myself. Let’s try it again. Yes, I told her I didn’t want her dating him because he was Jewish. And yes, I was trying to protect her, but not quite in the way that Guin describes. Actually, his mother loves her, and his parents are the only ones in either family who married within their faith. So that’s not the problem. It is more like anu-la 1979 mentioned. Her faith is a pivotal part of her life, and determines much of what she does. Marrying someone of a different belief would mean that she would either have to compromise on things that are too important to compromise, or that large parts of her life would be separate from that of her husband. I don’t think that’s the best way to run a marriage. And yes, I do know there are many people who make it work.

And there’s the question of children. She will want her children to share her beliefs and it would make her very unhappy if she had to compromise on that.

The reason I mentioned her age in my second post is that at that point I wouldn’t have allowed her to date this boy. As she gets older she makes more and more of her own decisions, and as I tried to make clear in that post, I wouldn’t forbid it now. I would advise against it, but that would be it. And if she decided to go against my advice that would be the way it was.

So, see if this is any clearer. My feelings on the situation haven’t changed, but she is getting older and I’m willing to give her more freedom to make her own choices. As parents do with pretty much everything kids do.

She also has more leeway in her dating life in general now. At that age she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone with a boy. Not until she was 16. Now it’s more a matter of “tell me where you’re going and we’ll agree on a time to be home.”

And as I mentioned before, any person my kids decide to share their lives with will be part of our family. No matter what.

143

I understand what you’re saying, and I won’t tell you you’re wrong (although everyone’s wrong a whole bunch of times when raising a child :wink: ). But I have to respectfully disagree. If anything, I think her being so young would have been reason to give it a big green light. The reason I say this? When I was 15, I dated a Mormon (my family was Catholic), and my mom flipped! She went on and on about how “their beliefs are too different from ours! It’ll never work!” I’m like, what exactly is it that will never work? We are 15 freakin’ years old! We’re not talking about marriage, we’re talking about seeing a few movies together, going out for pizza or ice cream. At that point in time, the religious differences made almost zero difference to us! Now, of course, even if this makes sense to you in retrospect, it’s not like you can go back and do something differently. I’m just putting in my coupla pennies.

Interestingly enough, and having nothing to do with thirdwarning: these things were very important to my mother. But when I finally married at the ripe old age of 27, she was so relieved I wasn’t going to be an old maid that she didn’t much object to me marrying an atheist. :smiley:

144

You may be right. (And in my own defense, I didn’t go “on and on”) :slight_smile:
As it happens, looking back, I probably didn’t need to do anything anyway. I think she would have come to the same conclusion on her own. And I understand what you’re saying about things not being serious at that age,but with this kid I’m not so sure about that. But please don’t get the impression that I made a huge big deal about this even at the time. My telling her not to date him happened almost at the same time she decided the same thing, so it was pretty much one conversation about that. And then a couple of casual ones about dating Christian guys.

The younger daughter was in on a little of that, so she heard my opinion on the subject. If the situation came up with her, I’d probably handle it differently, since she’s a different kid. And she’s older now than her sister was then. Actually, with her, I just kind of hope most of these things don’t come up. I don’t know what I’d do, exactly. She’s a great kid, and she behaves herself, but sometimes I think it’s just because what I tell her happens to coincide with what she would do anyway. She seems to be God’s way of telling me I’m not as much in control as I would like to think.

145

I couldn’t object to my children, should my husband and I have any, dating outside their race or religion. Like many other people have stated on this board, it all boils down to wanting any potential children to be happy. As long as whoever they date doesn’t hurt them (as in abuse them, mentally or physically), they can date or marry whoever they want, regardless of race, religion, or sex. I only hope that when we do have children, we’ll raise them in such a manner that they know what’s important to them, or that they will be capable of discovering what is important to them themselves and finding someone who shares and respects those values.

I’d like to consider myself pretty tolerant, and the majority of my family is very accepting as well. My grandmother and grandfather were one of the first interfaith marriages (he was Jewish, she was Christian) in the area, and my sister married someone whose parents are Slavic. Also, my husband is from India and was raised Hindu, though his father later began practicing Bhuddism, and his mom also converted to some other religion that I’m not familiar with. I know that my mom, since she came from a mixed family, withstood a lot of taunts when she was younger, and later from my dad’s family. However, my dad never commented on my husband’s race or religion - dad seems to have mellowed with age. My husband’s mother’s family didn’t like my husband’s dad because he was from a different cast in India and is also from the south and has a very dark complexion, while my husband’s mom’s family is from the north. Neither family appears to have a problem with me, though his grandmother called me “ghost-face” for a while, though she has since stopped (I’m pretty grateful, too - I wasn’t sure if it was an insult or kindly jibing; I suspect the latter, but there’s always possibility for the former.)

146

Among Orthodox Jews, the trend is not to date recreationally. Dating is usually done solely for the purpose of finding a matrimonial partner. As such, most Orthodox Jews don’t begin dating until they are in the 18-22 range (of course, when someone is ready to get married varies from person-to-person).

As such, when my children are of that age, I doubt that I will have the “power” to forbid them to not date any particular person.

However, it is still of supreme importance to us that our children marry Jews and no one else. It doesn’t make a difference to me if they are American, Israeli, Italian, Mexican, Polish, black, yellow or purple-with-orange-stripes-and-green-polka-dots. What matters to us (my wife and myself) is that our children raise their families and children in a manner that is consistent with Torah Law and live according to Judaism and its precepts.

To do so in an intermarried household is downright difficult, if not outright impossible. Some (Christian/Jewish, as an example) intermarried families raise their children with no religion. Some raise their kids as Christians. Some raise them as Jews. And some with a blend of religions and traditions. I find (from an Orthodox Jewish POV) all of these options troubling.

The thought that my grandchildren might be raised with no religion or as Christians would devestate my wife and myself. Obviously, when the goal is to see that one’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up as Torah-observant Jews, this represents the ultimate failure.

Even if they are raised as Jews (assuming, of course, that it is the mother who is Jewish [if not, the kids aren’t Jewish anyway]), they would likely be raised in an environment where the mitzvos (commandments) are not being kept - where the food served is not kosher, where Shabbos is not observed, etc. In addition, you’d have the awkward situations where one parent would have to explain to the other why they do things that don’t apply to them. For example, the Christian parent may pray to Jesus for forgivness. The child would observe this. Would the Christian parent allow the child to do so as well? Wouldn’t that violate the “rule” that they are raising the child as Jewish? What if the child wants to pray to Jesus for forgivness for sins? Or does the parent tell the child that praying to Jesus for forgivness is only appropriate for Christians? If so, wouldn’t the child ask why s/he isn’t a Christian and doesn’t have these rituals?

Raising them in a home where the religions and traditions are blended is also a troubling prospect. How can one (seriously) go to a synagouge on Yom Kippur and ask for forgivness for your sins from the past year and at the same time, profess a belief in a Son of God who died on the Cross to forgive the sins of mankind? How can one go to church on Easter to celebrate the Resurrection of the Messiah while at the same time state that one is still waiting for the messiah to arrive.

My goal (and my wife’s) is to instill in our children a love of Judiasm and it’s precepts; such as that their life’s goals will be our life’s goals - to see that the Torah is observed in their families and that the traditions and values contained therein are passed down to their children and their grandchildren. And to do so in an intermarried home is simply impossible.

So, to bring this back to the beginning of my post - no I wouldn’t “forbid” my child to see someone who wasn’t Jewish - it probably wouldn’t be in my power at the age that they begin dating anyway. But I would voice my disapproval (privately) to my child if they did date someone who didn’t share a commitment to living a life as the Torah dictates.

I know that this may seem harsh to some and seem like I’m issuing an indictment against couples who are intermarried. While the former may be true (Judaism isn’t a convenience, it’s a total life-long commitment) the latter isn’t so. I’m not here to tell anyone else (Jewish or non-Jewish) how they should raise thier children - I’m simply giving my answer to the question as raised in the OP.

Zev Steinhardt

147

Zev, would all Orthodox Jews more or less see things as you do? Is it heard of for someone from an Orthodox background to marry someone who converts? Would it be as difficult for you if one of your children dated/married a “reformed” Jew? Are Orthodox Jews ethnically diverse, or do they tend to come from a fairly homogenous background? Please pardon, or better, eradicate, my ignorance.

148

For the most part, yes.

Certainly. Provided, of course, that the convert observes the commandments.

Yes.

The reason why it would be difficult for me is because it would be nearly impossible to raise a family in a Torah-observant manner in such an environment.

For example, suppose I married a Reform (not “Reformed”) Jew. How could I possibly hope to impress upon my children the importance of kashrus when my wife regularly goes to McDonalds for cheeseburgers. How can I possibly hope to instill in my children the concept of the sanctity of Shabbos when my wife spends her Friday nights at the movies. How could I hope to stress the importance of the commandments to my children when they see their mother regularly flouting them. She’d be undermining my efforts at just about every minute; whether she meant to or not.

Even if we didn’t have children, it would be impossible to live in such a situation. How could I possibly hope to know that the food I was eating was kosher with a non-observant wife? Even if she tries to keep kosher in the home, her lack of knowledge about the law of kashrus would cause major problems: would she know what to do if some milk fell into a pot of meat? Would she know what to do if, by accident, you stuck a dairy fork into a chicken cutlet cooking on the fire (I’ve done that!)? Or would she say to herself “Oh, he’ll never know the difference…”

How could I know that she is keeping the laws of taharas hamishpacha (family purity)? How could I know that she’s not secretly (or unknowingly) bringing chametz into the house on Passover?

Even more fundamentally, how could I, whose life is defined by the Torah and it’s commandments, whose central goal in life is to lead a Torah-observant life (to which all else - occupation, hobbies, etc. is secondary), possibly live with someone who views Judaism as an optional exercise; where one can observe the commandments if one wishes to, but is in no way bound by them? How can I spend my life with someone whose goals, outlooks and values are so different from mine?

Let me sum it up this way: The central goal in my life is to see to it that my children are raised in an environment that is conducive to their becoming Torah-observant Jews and fine, upstanding human beings. If I accomplish that, I will judge my life as having been a success and anything else I accomplish beyond that (professionally, personally, etc.) is simply gravy. If I fail in that goal (God forbid), then what else I do in my life really doesn’t matter all that much anyway.

In the United States, most Jews are white and of European descent. However, that is not true worldwide. Jews come from all races and ethnicities.

Zev Steinhardt

149

That reminds me of a joke.

This guy goes to his dad, and says, “Dad, I’ve met a great girl, and we want to get married. The only problem is, she’s not Jewish.”

The father, answers, “Son, you know I only want you to be happy. But, trust me, don’t marry a Gentile. No good can come of it.”

“Come on, dad”, the son says, “Be reasonable. I’m not religious, and neither are you and mom. It shouldn’t bother you, and we really love each other.”

And the father says, “Son, I don’t ask for much. But please, don’t marry a Gentile.”

So, the son leaves, and talks it over with her girlfriend, and she agrees to convert. She converts and they get married.

A few months later, the son goes to his dad and says, “Dad, living with my wife is terrible! Since she’s converted, she’s become totally frum! I have to sneak around if I even want a cheeseburger, she left me starving on Yom Kippur, and if I even turn on a light on Friday night, she goes crazy and screams at me!”

The father says, “Son, I’m sorry about all this, but you brought it upon yourself. I tried to warn you, never marry a Gentile.”