How To React To Inter-Dating

This is a fabulous attitude. As both a child of intermarriage and someone in a serious relationship with a Catholic, I know that it's a) hard work and b) totally possible to find common ground. It was the small community I grew up in, not the intermarriage thing, that made raising me Jewish a challenge for my mom; she did a great job regardless. I won't ask my guy to convert, but my kids will be Jewish, my boyfriend understands this, and we'll do the best we can if and when we take that step.

Take me back, baby.

I strongly oppose intermarriage, but u may be on 2 something.  Did you see the recent study that has been published in a number of places which has shown little to no correlation in the non-Orthodox community between the amount of Jewish involvement of children and the status of their parents (ie. intermarried or both Jewish)? It basically shows that people who care about Judaism will have Jewish kids, and people who dont, wont.  Regardless of who they marry.  Sort of.Then again, check out an article by the editor of the LA Jewish Journal a number of months ago where he advocated interdating for women who are having a hard time finding nice Jewish boys to date.  In my neighborhood - that got him nice and ostracized real good like.

But it all goes back to my previous post in the negia realm - as public policy we have to oppose intermarrigae.  One on one can be different case by case.

Intermarriage is a fact of life though. You have a man and a woman that fall in love for instance. The man who say loves a Jewish woman certainly does not see a Star of David when he looks into her face anymore than the Jewish woman sees a Crucifix when she looks into the man's face.

Love is very strong indeed.

Thank you so much for your reaction and your article.

I was not born Jewish, I fell in love with a Jewish man and am in the process of taking conversion classes and figuring out what I believe. We received so much support for our relationship from both my parents, his parents, and our Jewish and Gentile friends alike. Without this support I never could have found love, or figured out what I believe and come closer to G-d. Intermarriage and inter-dating are serious issues that raise a lot of questions, but your approach is one I fully support.

I wish you a happy marriage too and may you be blessed with heathly children!

The parents, the intermarrieds, have the good life. They got to make the decision. And they know exactly who and what they are. Because they always were that, so there's no issue. They merely married someone who was something else, and it was interesting to see another way. It is the children of these marriages who do the suffering. For them, the conversation is internal, like when your left rib thinks your right rib killed Christ, and your right rib asks endless questions and longs for Moshiach, alone, with no tribe, and the wars are inside your personal bosom. You have a snake inside you and it is biting the walls, and the snake is part of your hard-wired, factory-built, anatomy and will never go away. They have no idea who they are, because they are both things, and neither. (The grandchildren could care less, and are never Jewish-thinking.) But I am a liberal! In the sense that I strongly respect other cultures! I respect their right to have Christian inlaws and grandchildren. What makes you think this is any more fun for them than it is for us? I don't believe in stealing other people's children no matter how cute! Keep your mitts off. They belong to someone else. Thou shalt not steal.

I mean no offense - I just had to rant my rant. I have intermarried relatives, and I love everybody. But there are big problems, and the extreme view needed saying. You might as well know what you are in for. Try reading the Half-Jew internet sites. Keep a handkerchief handy. You are going to cause a lot pain. To others. YOU will have a nice time. YOU will never know what the big deal is. YOU like whom you like. Your kids will have a life you can never, ever, ever, ever understand. Not deeply.

Two points, no metaphors.

One, if you've ever had a bad relationship, a really bad relationship, there is one question that remains after it ends--"Did we love each other or did we actually hate each other from the get go?" Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, both are very strong feelings.

Two, there are ten lost tribes out there somewhere, who, deep deep within, would like to come back. Anyone got a better idea how this reconnection can take place? Bottom line, can you really judge another relationship when even the two people involved are struggling to figure it out--and may get it wrong? For me, there's too much data and I don't have enough brains to sort it out.

This would be a wonderful time for a Yiddish expression...but, you know, assimilation...

I'm very weary of Gentiles "converting" to Judiasm because of their Jewish partner.  Most of these "conversions" are performed by shady "Rabbis" who only do it for the money.  These Gentiles will only be Jewish until they divorce and then will go back to being a Gentile.  I've seen cases of this and the children end up paying the price.  This is a big problem since 70% of interfaith marriages will end up in divorce.

I'm pretty sure that Catie didn't care anything about Judaism or Jews until she met her Jewish boyfriend.  It sounds very phony to me that now all of a sudden she wants to become a Jew.  The fact that his parents didn't express any concern about him not marrying a nice Jewish girl sounds to me like he didn't come from a strong Jewish background.   He should have just converted to whatever Christian sect Catie's family is and forget about Judaism which he probably never embraced anyway.

I know that there will be cries of bigotry against my comments but Gentiles will never understand why so many Jews are against intermarriage.  When half of your family was wiped out in the Holocaust and you see the decining mubers of Jews around the world it's heartbreaking.  Intermarriage is a sign that Judaism will be on the verge of extinction, except for Israel, in a couple of decades. 

Most Gentiles and many Jews don't care if Judiasm disappears but I do and so would my murdered ancestors who would be shocked and saddened at what is happening to the Jewish community.   I don't care if you don't agree because you will never understand!

But you should not write off converts so easily either. Many people are attracted to Judaism.

BTW, I am a gentile that wants to see Judaism endure and grow as well. After all it is the mother of monotheisms.

Anti-intermarriage, we'll leave your baseless judgment of Catie aside for now, since there's really no way you know whether, as you claim, it's "phony," or whether her boyfriend showed her something that struck her as really meaningful (hey, you find it meaningful - is it so surprising that someone else might, too?)  I guess we should also leave aside your judgment of her boyfriend's family and Jewish upbringing, since you have no idea whether they actually didn't express concern, whether they expressed support because they knew she was converting, or whether they were concerned but ultimately agreed to support their son whom they loved in what he chose to do.

 I am actually most interested  by your comment that it "sounds to [you] like he didn't come from a strong Jewish background.   He
should have just converted to whatever Christian sect Catie's family is
and forget about Judaism which he probably never embraced anyway."  From the story, I actually gather the precise opposite: if he never embraced his Judaism, and his parents really didn't care, why would she be undergoing conversion?  The fact that she is shows that he still does have a sense of his Jewish identity and values it.

 In fact, in the intermarriage debate, you sort of have a point:  you show that intermarriage itself isn't the problem; the problem is that Jews don't feel connected to or find meaning in Judaism.  If they're intermarrying, that may be a symptom of uncommitted Jews; if so, we need to work on solving that problem.  That's a problem that arises much earlier in such a Jew's life.

(Of course, however, this is not true 100% of the time.  I know children of intermarriages who have emerged with strong Jewish identities...and I know those who have not.)

Benjamin,

Let's say you are correct that intermarriage is more of a symptom that a problem in and of itself. Go right to the teachers, who don't feel the meaning, who therefore can't teach meaning. That tends to be our historical problem, to not only do the deeds but to understand why, and to love it. History also has a way of telling us when we're getting it and when we're not. Being the Chosen Folks, it's a tough gig.

BT: you say that people "lucky" enough to have two Jewish parents "know exactly who and what they are." Thank G-d life is not so 2-dimensional. Throughout history the greatest mystics and sages of all religions have said that to truly know oneself, to know "exactly" who you are, is a greater blessing than all of heaven and earth combined--a rare feat achieved by only the most enlightened seekers.

To say that you know yourself just because of your ethnic identity is a pathetic reduction of the human experience to nothing more than mere bloodline. Alas, your tribal identity may be a part of who you are, but when you relax into the false notion that you "know who you are" because of nothing more than bloodline, you end up only calcifying your identity in arrogance--ethnic pride and xenophobia become petty substitutes for a deeper, truer identity as a human being. That's why you can't have a comment thread about intermarriage without someone making an absurd reference to the holocaust, as if diluting the bloodline were equivalent to mass murder. On the contrary, "anti-intermarriage"--it's not that I "don't understand" your feelings. It's that I recognize them for the symptoms of neurosis that they are.

And I know I'll get flack for this, but it's true--The impulse that causes people to compare intermarriage to murder is the same thing that drives people to fly planes into buildings. When you're whole identity is tied up with the tribe (or religion, or nation), you'll see everyone first and foremost as either inside or outside. And no matter how strongly you plead you "tolerance" of the "outside" people, you'll always see them as a little less than fully human.

Frankly, whether or not my kids end up being half-Jewish or 100% Jewish, I hope they are one day lucky and determined enough to really learn who they are, something this pure-bred Jew admits to being far from achieving. But whatever they become, I hope they can resist the temptation to settle into a false identity that comprises so much letter than who a human being really is.

--Z

Z Bird, I hear you, but perhaps a certain amount of angst is simply normal for a Jew! Perhaps a Jew longs for Moshiach, and can never have complete peace, until then. Maybe you are just fine.  

Perhaps people intermarry to escape this normal angst? Perhaps they should not, because it is really normal, and not a problem?. Shabbat  Shalom! 

Who in hell are you? The Jewish Joseph Goebbels maybe.lol

Well, I did say "perhaps" about the Normal Jewish Angst thing. It's just an idea.

As for racial purity, there is no such thing; we all have many kinds of ancestors, obviously. But intermarriage still has the consequences it has. It just does.

There have been a lot of studies of identical twins raised apart that seem to show them having more in common than "nurture" would cause them to have. As if "nature" played some role, though much lesser than "nurture", but it may not be nothing at all. So, maybe people are not blank pieces of paper when born, and maybe there is some hereditary component, about who you are. There is something tragic about that, as it limits free choice. But life does have a tragic aspect, a limited aspect. Properly viewed, these born-in qualities are material to work with, and make something good out of. That is the task.

Of course everybody has rights! Yes, I think the Jewish position is different from anybody else's. That is a little weird. But it is just what I think, based on my experiences, and it in no way means anybody else is in any way lesser, or bad.

...is normal for  HUMAN BEING.  BT--I'm not sure where you're from or how much you interact with non-Jews but I can assure you from my own experience that Jews have no monopoly over existential angst. 

As for the Moschiach being the answer to this angst, I think it's really a matter of semantics.  I've heard "Moschiach" defined in many different ways, from the founding of Israel to Jesus Christ.  I see no reason why "Moschiach" can't also be a euphemism or metaphor for spiritual enlightenment.  On the other hand, if by mentioning "Moschiach" you propose that some angel or super-prophet will appear to save humanity from all our troubles, I think you'll have more luck waiting for Santa Claus.  

As for intermarriage--I think that whether you're pro or con, you have to start by asking why people should not intermarry rather than why they do, at least in America.  Because if 99% of the people in your country are not Jewish, you don't need any deep psychological explanation for why Jews end up falling for non-Jews. 

I will acknowledge, though, that people unwilling to face themselves will do different things to escape existential angst.  And where one person will flee to tribalism and religiosity, another may flee in the opposite direction (ie: secularism, assimilation, intermarriage).  

--Z

Tamar,

your approach to dealing with your friends' interfaith relationships is far better than those of most people. instead of getting all hysterical because they're not "following the rules", you take a different route and it seems as though everyone you have spoken with in regards to their interdating is willing to be open with you about their present and future plans. i commend you for your efforts.

while it's often considered taboo to discuss religion on a first or second date (or even a few weeks into the relationship, because let's face it you have no clue if you're going to marry this person or not), it is actually crucial to get this stuff out in the open sooner than later. it allows your partner to get to know you better and vice versa and there won't be any surprises later on. even if there are religious differences that doesn't mean the relationship is doomed. people can find common ground in certain teachings...or discover they both hate Christmas. who knows. i recently read an article in the Jewish Week that mentioned one reason why non-Jews are so attracted to (observant) Jews is because of their strong identities and the importance they place on family. you never hear stories of non-Catholics being attracted to Catholics because of their firm stance on, say...birth control. that was probably not the best example to give, but you get the idea.

and seriously, anti-intermarriage's comments are teetering on the brink of insanity. your remarks are NOT going to get people to in-marry by scaring the s*** out of them or being hostile to them. this method does NOT work. and in relation to Catie and her conversion (which i wish her the best of luck in and hope she and her Jewish boyfriend have a wonderful life together), don't judge people you don't know. why? because it's disgusting and disrespectful, just like some of the comments i read in an article about college students who choose to convert to Judaism only to hear others tell them to "go back to their own religion" and "no Jewish boy will ever marry them." do you know what it's like to hear things like that? no. did it ever occur to you that many of these people are converting out of a sincere desire to do so and not all of them are just doing it to please their girlfriend or boyfriend's parents? no. the fact that Catie is the one converting and NOT her boyfriend obviously means she finds value in Judaism and that her boyfriend wants to raise a Jewish family. doesn't the Torah teach us to hold converts in high regards, or did you skip over that part? my feeling is you did.

What about Ruth in the Bible?!

Ruth is among the most renowned converts to Judaism. yet people often forget that. they also forget that Moses was intermarried, as was Queen Esther.

"they also forget that Moses was intermarried, as was Queen Esther"

Didn't Zipporah convert or otherwise become Jewish (before the Torah was given)? She was the one who circumsized their son. Esther is a different story. She "married" the King under duress.

why do you think the locals persecuted Zipporah et al ? could they have been the daughters of an hebrew priest of those of his people living in midian ?

Its kind of like the word "Jew" some 2000 years ago "Yudas" in the greek meant either a blood member of the tribe of Judah or a resident (native?) of Judea perhaps totally devoid of Jewish ancestry.

Shalom 

Looking at the examples of Ruth, Zipporah, and the like is generally given as the reason why modern Judaism accepts conversion.  In the historical contexts of these figures, however, they married into the tribe, they didn't choose to embrace a comprehensive religious philosophy. 

According to you I'm a Nazi because I'm proud to be Jewish and want Judaism to be perserved.  You're just an ignorant dumbass Goy who knows nothing about Judaism.  You will never understand my comments because half of your family and people weren't wiped out by an evil monster.  You grew up a privileged Gentile who has no idea about the hardships that the Jewish people have had to endure.  Shut the hell up!  You're too stupid to even have a dialogue with.

Zbird is just another self-hating Jew whose dating a shiksa so of course he supports intermarriage.  His kids won't be Jewish so who cares what this wimp has to say.  Comparing me to Islamicfacist just because I have Jewish pride shows what a confused self-hater he is.  He's the one with a complex about being a Jew.  I'm very comfortable with who I am.

I critized Catie because she basically admitted that she was "converting" because of her Jewish boyfriend.  She wrote that she had no idea what she believed in.  Does that sound like someone whose serious about Judaism?  NO!

"In the historical contexts of these figures, however, they married into the tribe, they didn't choose to embrace a comprehensive religious philosophy"

What is the basis for this claim regarding Zipporah and Ruth? Didn't both follow Jewish practice following their conversion? Didn't Ruth convert well before she remarried?

With Jews like "anti-intermarriage" who needs Nazis?

Seriously, you suck. 

Yaakov, I may be splitting hairs, but I don't think it's accurate to state that Ruth and Zipporah "converted."  In both cases, we're talking about people who married into the Israelite family. In Zipporah's case, it was even before the Israelites established the second covenant with God, that is, the receipt of the Torah at Sinai.  Ruth's case is closer to "conversion," in that she chose to stick with the Israelites regardless of marriage.

My point is simply that we're talking about people who joined the Israelite tribes long before they were called Jews, long before they called their religion Judaism, and long before there was any comprehensive process or ceremony for officially converting. To say that Ruth and Zipporah "converted" is anachronistic; it is more accurate, in my opinion, to state that they accepted the religious mythology of their husbands more than that of their original families.

That said, my point is only a historical one.  As the son of a convert myself, I welcome any reasonable justification for conversion, which, as I said above, the story of Ruth, at least, is generally accepted to be.

--Z

Zipporah's daddy was a priest of midian NOT a midianite priest.... why do you think the midianites chased the girls from the well ? i'm pretty sure that some midianites had not fallen from the faith of Abraham.

The Midianites were the seed of Abraham. The Moabites were the seed of Lot.
They were of the Abrahamic tribe and perhaps after many generations they had fallen away from his faith. this seed line being "pure" was brought back into this faith. They definitely had common ancestry.

Shalom

You got no fucking business calling me a privileged Gentile! I did NOT grow up privileged asshole. Now you have every right to feel proud of being Jewish. I understand your concern for your people. I know all about what happened during WW2 as well. A friend of my father was with the US army when they liberated Dachau so I'm more than sensitive okay.

I just feel Catie should not be condemned simply because she's converting for her boyfriend. At least she's making an effort. She for the sake of her boyfriend is willing to adopt his faith. Good God give her credit for at least that!

Sorry for sounding off so harsh but I am not going to let anyone push me around here!

So having Jewish pride = Nazism?  What an ignorant Judenrat pig you are.  Hitler liked Jews like you; wimpy and too scared too offend the Gentiles.  Go screw yourself, no else would want to, ugly kapo idiot.   

The crybaby Chevy**** is back.  Don't give me that shit about understanding about what I feel.  You don't have a clue and never will.  I don't appreciate being called a Nazi and believe me if you said it my face you would be in the hospital and so would the she-male.  You don't know anything about Judaism and I'll let you in on a secret; no else at Jewcy does either.  Trying to find real Jews here is like trying to find real Jews in Saudi Arabia.  There aren't any. 

Your heart and soul are filled with so much burning, fanatical hatred that you can barely put together a sensible sentence. You'd probably would love to do some mass genocide on gentiles if you could get away with it!:-(

I'll say a prayer for you regardless though that such bitterness and hate can be cleansed for your heart and soul.

Shalom!

You can insult my family, and you can call me wimpy, and you can call me a shemale, and you can call me ugly, and an idiot, and a "kapo," which is a term I don't understand, but you never, ever call me ignorant. I know all and see all. I AM ALL-KNOWING, AND SELF-AWARE ENOUGH TO KNOW WHEN I AM BEING A JERK, WHICH I AM NOT. I AM CRAIG.

Well, I'm over it. 

Craig-

Kapos were Jews who collaborated with the Nazis in the concentration camps. None of us even remotely familiar with the site would dream of thinking of you that way, despite the pathetic ravings of mr. or ms. anti-intermarriage, whose own sanctified and proper marriage, should it exist, must be a real bundle of laughs.

She-male, well, who knows...but kapo? Ridiculous.

I get it now.  Thanks Ismail (and Eli, who emailed me). Look, just because my great grandpa handed a list over to the SS with names on it doesn't make us kapos.

..He thought he was doing a good thing and would trick them by just throwing a bunch of random names onto it. Who could've known that "Feldman," "Goldstein," "Silverberg," and "Goldenfeldfarbenbergman" were all Jews?

I don't know...I'd hate to see what Craig would do if someone left an html tag open...

saying prayers for anti-intermarriage.lol

Oh, the crybaby can't take the heat.  You and Craig called me a nazi which are fighting words.  As you can see I don't take too kindly to being called a nazi.  So stop acting like a whiny victim when you started the fight.  Be a man for once in your life and take responsiblity for your words.   That applies to you to Craigyboy.  If you don't want to be verbally chastized you shouldn't have called me a Nazi just because I have strong beliefs about being Jewish.

You're a laugh riot Chevy****.  Save your pity and prayers for your family and yourself.   It's obvious your father wasn't around because your responses have been weak.

The person who needs prayers is Ismail who supports murdering Jewish children and destroying Israel.  

You're a confused individual who equates being proud of being Jewish with wanting to murder Gentiles.  You're don't know anything about Judaism.

I can't take a person seriously who uses the name of a group that murdered millions of Jews.  That's not cool and no one here will tell you anything because as you can see they have weak Jewish identities and are friendly to anti-semitic terrorist-supporters like Ismail. 

I have Gentiles friends who are not ignorant like you.  You give them a bad name.  I don't hate anyone just because I stand up for my heritage.   You need to be educated.  Ask God to help you become smarter because you need help in that department.

What are you anti-intermarriage? A desciple of Meir Kahane I bet!lol

Apparently there was some confusion about what I said, because I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were a Nazi, anti-inter. I implied that you were a jerk and that you were accomplishing a similar goal of the Nazi movement by being one of the least appealing Jews ever to walk the Earth. You're giving people a lousy impression of Jews and, frankly, if every Jew talked like you, I think everyone would probably take a little longer pause before decrying Nazis.

(Of course, if they're good people, they would still come up with the same recourse: mass-murder is a bad thing, even when the victims are obnoxious and possibly militant. Just so we're clear.)

Watch your thoughts together, though: Ismail seems victimized because you are/were angry and overreached with your assertions about him and his beliefs and made a victim of him. He's trying to argue on a logical level with you, but you seem content to block out all discussion based on your initial disagreement and stereotyping of his (and my) identity.

But I appreciate you taking the time to tell us all about what Ismail is, and how confused people are. It's great! Keep doing that! We're going to have a conversation over at the adults' table while you do that. If you feel able to get past your internal barriers and discuss things with us (without making unilateral character declarations), you can join us.

Otherwise, if you stop goading me, I'll stop goading you. And if you're really ticked off, or offended, go get a band of like-minded blockheads together and see if you can actually do some real, Nazi-style judgment and destruction. Then I'll actually parallel you to one, and you can feel righteous in your indignation.

Maybe I came on a bit strong but I just thought anti-intermarriage was being unfair to Catie. I know most Jewish people are good and decent with a strong sense of honor, justice, and fair play. I just don't like seeing a bad apple or two screwing it up for all of you!

Hey guys very interesting discussion. I've not Jewish (Caribbean American) And I fell in love with a Jewish woman. We were forced to break-up because of course I was not Jewish. She told me she really wanted her kids to grow up Jewish. I would have supported her and encourage our children to be jewish (We were just dating, I was kinda taken back by the fact she asked me about that). I would have converted to help. I just sometimes cannot stant the division. I was raised Christian but you dont' have to be a rocket scientist to know that Christianity grew out of Judaism. I just sometimes do not understand how the world works, its works to divide and separate instead of unite. How can I ask my lover to ignore Judaism if anything its one of the reason why I love her so much, strong faith, strong family values, who wouldn't admire that. I'm just saddened by our break-up to this day, She is my first and last thought ever day since I last seen her. Wondering if there is any chance of change in the world. Reading this article gives me a glimmer of hope but...who knows. I just wish people realized that because they are with someone "different" that they have to abandon theie culture and religion. It can even be enhanced. I'd never ask her to choose me over Judaism. If we had kids, I'd be all for it. It just bothers me the divison, the angst. Does God love all of us and made us. What happened after Adam and Eve that got the world thinking they so different from one another.