The Hebrew-less Jew

I started taking Hebrew at the Manhattan Jewish Experience and it's awesome basic training, once a week with people often in the same boat. Check out www.jewishexperience.com! I'm even getting bat mitzvah'ed there! :)

by the National Jewish Outreach Program, NJOP.

http://www.njop.org/

http://www.njop.org/html/hebrew.html

It is so sweet and touching that you want to go further with this. That you are not satisfied with things as they are. Many people would not notice, or if they did notice, not mind. Not enough to sit down and write about it. 

You may have to do the right-wing thing, and get an Orthodox conversion. No, that's not like a Fraternity hazing. Then, this blockage will lift. There is a reason for this blockage, speaking religiously.

Or, you can just go on as you are, no biggy. But, you are saying it is not so totally OK as it is. Just saying. Talk to any Chabad.

No offense intended at all, but no, perhaps you are not Jewish enough. Orthodoxy says Jewish identity is transmitted through one's MOTHER, not father. There is a way out of that however. Please don't get mad. No offense is meant.

I'm an American goy who became semi-fluent на русском языке after the age of 18, and who has found the Arabic, Hebrew, and Korean alphabets all easy to learn without actually speaking the respective languages (though of those three, the Hebrew alphabet is the only one that I've more or less totally retained).

 And my 2 ¢ is that the blockage must be totally psychological -- you can't remember the Hebrew letters because you don't actually want to, possibly because you don't truly think that Hebrew is "cool," so you don't feel motivated. 

הגיון

Yes, you're less intensively a Jew if you don't know Hebrew. No, it doesn't make you a bad Jew.

Hebrew is the foundation-langauge of our culture and history, so a large part of our literature can't be appreciated first-hand if you don't talk the talk. But of course, many Jews--and not just modern ones--have gotten through life and even contributed great things to our national heritage without knowing much of the Hebrew langauge. And there we've acquired other national languages over time--Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic--yet hardly any Jews have known them all.

 So if you are motivated to try, by all means do your best to learn Hebrew. But if you've got a bad ear for langauge, or no time, that's ok. Be comforted by the fact that you are keeping Hebrew-to-English translators like me in business.

Haim Watzman

South Jerusalem

Yiddish is where it's at, baby.  (Or Ladino.)  And as a fellow (albeit secular) halfsie, I can tell you from experience that the threshold of "Jewish enough" tends to be pretty arbitrary, and subject to change depending on other people's insecurities.  It's pretty hilarious when you go from being "Jewish enough" to help pay for Seder ingredients, but "not Jewish enough" to escape the goy jokes during the meal.

There is no right amount of Jewishness.  This is a stick people in the Jewish community use on everyone.  I have been told I am 'too WASPY' (I'm 100% Jewish, as far as I know) and also that I"m "too Jewish" (I get picked up by a guy who is falling all over himself for me until he 'confesses' that he's Jewish... when I say I am, too, I'm toast...) depending on why the person want to hurt me, and the setting.  I have been told that the 'perfect woman' is a gentile willing to convert, but not be religious.  Or a foreign-born Jewess, or a short Jewess, or .... whatever. I even once spent two whole days with a guy I was set up with who said I was 'clearly prepped because you are pretending to be perfect for me (I was not pretending to be anything) but I'm not going to fall for it.  You're too Jewish to be perfect for me. I could never love a Jewish girl.'

Let me report to you in no uncertain terms that anyone (even a 100 per cent gentile, I know a few who have had this said to them) can be 'too Jewish" and anyone (even a 100 per cent Jew like me) can be not Jewish enough or 'too Waspy'.   Anyone who even brings up this subject is a waste of your time, and a waste of space on planet earth.

I know that a large part of the reason I am so insecure about my religious identity is because of men I've dated and their judgments on my Jewishness. When I was dating a modern Orthodox guy, he considered me "not Jewish enough" because my mom isn't Jewish, regardless of my level of observance or the depths of my beliefs. [Although, as Julie G. very cleverly pointed out, I am always Jewish enough for people to ask me to chip in for seder ingredients, even if everyone spends the meal telling me I should convert if I want to be taken seriously!] When I dated a secular guy, he called me "too Jewish" because I actually believed in G-d and didn't just boil Judaism down to matzoh ball soup and holidays. It took a long time before I could define my faith in my terms, and not a man's. I'm still struggling to decide where I belong (as this post indicates), but I'm a lot more confident than I used to be.

Thanks so much for your comment, it really struck a chord with me.

Orthodoxy is like moving to a law-abiding city, after foraging for berries, in constant terror, in the old Wild West. No, it's not perfect. But it beats wandering around moon-calf, wondering what Jewish time it is, duh.

Is there anything more emotionally dangerous than non-Orthodox dating? The person opposite you isn't clear what he is, or wants. Meanwhile, your tender little pink heart is both beating to quarters, and, getting older by the minute. Better stay home.

Go to Chabad. Get up to speed. Then see what experienced, trained, people think about your Situation. They can help. Rules can help. Anarchy isn't as much fun as it's cracked up to be.  

Some of the issues you've raised remind me of an interesting interview Heeb did with Dave Berman of the Silver Jews. http://www.heebmagazine.com/articles/view/150

“I’m going to love the Jewish God and follow the Jewish God, even without club membership.  I feel it’s a new kind of gift to God.”  

Or you could go to Chabad.  Whatever.

Hazak. 

As a convert, I struggled with the right level of observance and even the right stream in which to convert. Would I be considered Jewish "enough" was a real question, so I share your angst. The problem for me was that I struggled (and still do) with pretty much every language other than my native English tongue. However my cranial filler is wired, I locked in on English early on and have excelled at that. Every other language I've tried, starting in high school, has been a complete disaster.

So here I am, in my late twenties, more than half a decade removed from the mikvah, and I still am not as fluent as I feel I should be with Hebrew or the elegant nuances of the Jewish liturgy. How much of that is internal? How much of that is legitimate? What's the difference?

I don't know, but I think what I'm trying to say is you're not alone and the fact that you're having the struggle is proof enough that you've made a real and admirable commitment to the Jewish faith. All of those Jewish men who gave you the complex of being too Jewish or not Jewish enough... they probably could use some of that commitment in their own lives.

Total aside, but this does seem to be a bit gender-based. As a man who went through a Reform conversion without a Jewish girlfriend as an excuse, I've almost never been questioned on my Jewish bona fides. If anything, born-Jews tend to look on in awe or think I've got some secret elixir they can give to their own kids to keep them Jewishly engaged. I don't, and I'm quite ordinary, but I'm also a guy. So no complex. It's a thought, and a sad one.

More power to you! I'm a 55 yr old biological Jew, with parents who celebrated Chanukah and Passover, and never affiliated. I didn't learn Hebrew until I got jealous of my kids who were learning things I didn't have the chance to.  So at the ripe age of 43, I ended up with what I billed as the 30th anniversary of what would have been my bat mitzvah.  What started me off was singing in the liturgical choir with an amazing choir director who insisted we know what we were singing. The sounds of Hebrew became comfortable in my mouth as we learned the liturgy through music. Reading it became a lot easier after that.  When you're ready, you'll be ready.  Good luck!

 Susan

I believe in the presumption of good will.

Bradford, you make a really interesting point with the gender-bias. I'm the last person to consider myself a feminist, but I definitely do see what you mean and have encountered many people who believe that women who convert to Judaism must only do so for a significant other.

On another note entirely, the more I think about this, the more I realize it really just takes a certain acceptance within yourself. Sure, it's difficult to ignore people who appear to be casting judgments upon you, and it may be even harder to ignore the panicked feelings of anxiety that come up when you're faced with an unfamiliar situation, whether it be reading or understanding Hebrew, knowing the proper customs in a synagogue, or being able to follow a conversation with somebody who is much more versed in Jewish practice, culture, ritual, whatever. But if you accept what you don't know as just part of the path to learning and bettering yourself, I think it makes the journey so much easier.

When I decided to accept Judaism, I felt the need to take off my star of David when I knew I was going to be surrounded by Jews, because I was embarrassed to display a symbol of Jewishness and not necessarily be familiar with what was going on around me. But I found one good friend who I didn't feel embarrassed asking the "stupid questions" to, who taught me many of the nuances of Shabbat services and Passover seders and the like, and one good book (Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Telushkin) that sufficiently explained the basics of everything I should know, and I've finally gotten to a point where I know enough to get by, but also am comfortable enough in myself and in knowing that I'm serious about learning that I'm not ashamed to ask questions. Raised with the choice to decide but without having to actually convert, I realized over the summer that I really am a "Jew by Choice." I'm proud of it and I'm proud to tell my story, that Judaism was not something that was thrust upon me in my earliest years, but something I embraced as a young adult. And so when I go to classes every week, I'm fine with saying, "hey, I'm new at this." It goes for anything--knowing your Jewish trivia, understanding Jewish ritual and practice, or reading Hebrew. And I've found that if you're comfortable enough in your decisions and convictions, people are happy to help you get wherever you need to be, whether you learn to speak Hebrew or not. It doesn't take an Orthodox conversion to "set you straight." It might not even take learning Hebrew. It may just be reaching a point where you're okay with what you do know and what you don't.

avoid people who speak English and you will be speaking and reading in no time. It worked for me.

the more cult-like it appears.Were i to undertake learning another new language it certainly wouldnt be one spoken by such a small slice of humanity. Peraps Mandarin, or Russian...the better connect to the tribe of Mankind...

Were i to undertake learning another new language it certainly wouldnt
be one spoken by such a small slice of humanity. Peraps Mandarin, or
Russian...the better connect to the tribe of Mankind...

Well, as someone who majored in it, let me steer you away from the Great and Powerful Russkiy Yazyk. (© Ivan Turgenev) The major disadvantage of Russian is that although it's spoken as a first language by at least 160 million people, the vast majority of these people are Russians. As a wise man (I'm pretty sure it was Anthony Burgess) once wrote:

"The Soviet state wished to remake man. If one has known Russians, one can empathize."

What I'm trying to say, less delicately, is that they're batshitsky. 

הגיון

Ah yes, the tribalism. But as far as cult-like behaviors go we've got nothing on the cult of Mao and Stalin! Very connected to mankind they were...

Lenin was a Jew, Trotsky, Stalin was a Jew, and the soviet empire was a zionist  state controlled by Jewish oligarchs. Wanna talk holocaust?

Wow, everything you write about is my life too.  I agree that a year living in Israel would be the best way to learn to read, write and speak Hebrew.  I have been working toward that goal for a while a now.  I am from Nashville, Tn and although I have Jewish ancestory on both my Mother's Mother side and my Father's Mother side, it is far removed from me. I grew up in a non Jewish home (Southern Baptist) and I have heard all the same things from not being Jewish enough to being to Jewish and I agree that those people were a waste of my time and energy.  Follow your heart and if it is important to you to learn Hebrew, as it is to me, then your heart will lead you to where you need to be.  Think of the beaches of Tel Aviv, sitting with good friends and good food, your mind and your tongue will wrap intself around Hebrew to allow you to communicate with your friends and G-d understands the language of the heart..no words needed. Shalom 

 Lenin was a Jew, Trotsky, Stalin was a Jew, and the soviet empire was a
zionist  state controlled by Jewish oligarchs. Wanna talk holocaust?

Я Вам сердечно предлагаю приглашение отсосать у меня гоевский ХУЙ, мудак блядь козёл.

(I extend to you a heartfelt invitation to suck my goyishe cock, you foul creature.)

הגיון

First, I want to welcome you to Jewcy, as an occassional passerby here who is enjoying your different viewpoint.

Shootingsparks also thinks that Brown Brothers Harriman, a white shoe bank whose original firm, Brown Brothers, was founded in 1818, and is famous in NYC for not having hired a single Jew even to clean a toilet in it's about 200 year history, is a Jewish firm because, so he says, Brown Brothers was involved in slavery... if you can follow that logic.  So, the fact that there is no connection between either Lenin or Stalin and the Jews would never stop him from saying there was.  That's just him.  Hedefines anything bad as Jewish. 

Tribal Law.

Orthodox and Conservative Judaism accept a tribal definition of who is a Jew.

Jewish tribal law defines a Jew as either a person whose mother is a Jew or a person who has had a kosher conversion.  Under this definition you are not "Jewish enough" or  "too Jewish."  You either are or aren't Jewish.  There are no half-Jews, no quarter Jews.  If you believe in the Jewish faith and aren't a Jew under this definition, you are a Noahide.  If you are a Jew in this definition and reject Judaism (but not if you were raised as a non-Jew, that gets complicated) you are a mushumid.  

A Noahide is a co-religionist, but not a Jew.  A mushimid is a Jew, but not a co-religionist.   Mushimid is sort of Jewish for traitor.  Noahides are like immigrants with green cards.

If an Orthodox man is dating a non-Jew that's his issue, and he is wrong to put his issues on the non-Jew, and the more so if the non-Jew is a Noahide.    However, I can say this. If you are knowlegable about Judaism already, and you are a Noahide, conversion is not a big deal.  Orthodox Jews go to the mikvah regularly.  Women go at least monthly, men may go as often as once a week, or as infrequently as once a year, but they also go periodically.  Female conversion involves a test (easily passsed by a knowledgable Noahide) and a dip in the mikvah.  If you then marry the Orthodox man, you'll be back in that mikvah every month for years to come.  I've gone to the mikvah, and it looks like a Baptist baptismal font... although it's probably that the Baptist font looks like a mikvah.

Any non-Jewish man or woman can convert and become a Jew.  As far as I know, there are conversion forms for men and for women, but there is no form of conversion for intersexuals.  A convert is 100 per cent Jewish, even if they have no Jewish ancestry.  A person with 63 great-great-great-great grandparents who were Jews, and 1 matralinial great-great-great-great grandmother who was not a Jewess, is not a Jew, unless one of their female ancesstresses had a kosher conversion.  The Hitlerian 98 per cent Jew is a Gentile, while the convert, a Hilterian non-Jew, is 100 per cent Jew according to Judaism.

Reform is more complicated.  Reform treats Judaism as a religion.  However, they have substituted any Jewish ancestry plus the belief in Judaism or conversion as a defination of who is a Jew.   I'm not clear why Reform hasn't just demanded a declaration of belief, perhaps with a dip in the mikvah from everyone, without regard to ancestry.  Perhaps someday they will.  But for now, that's their definition.  I'm not sure what Reform does with mushshumids. I was raised in the Reform movement, but left it in the mid 1970s.

In sum, for Judaism, there are not 'part' Jews.  Next time you get the part-Jewish stuff, you have my permission to mention me.   I'm 100 per cent Jewish by ancestry and religion, I keep kosher and I, too, have been told I'm 'not Jewish enough' or am 'too WASPY' 

To be fair,  should mention that my family is not Fresh Off the Boat, and when somebody was trying to figure out what type of Jew I was (Litvak, etc.) and I told them I was "An American Jew"... by the time they got the list of countries my ancestors came from, they agreed.   I'm not very ethnic.    I am strongly committed to the Jewish religion.   I am also a technical Jew.  I respect your committment to the Jewish religion whether it is as a Jew or Noahide, and we are both part of the Jewish religion.

I also welcome the exploration of our religion and traditions by both Jews raised outside the faith (there's a Hebrew word for 'redeemed captive' which applies to such people)  and non-Jews, who find Judaism attractive or interesting. 

I think Judaism is very interesting, and I think I'd find it interesting if I were a committed Christian, even if only as a matter of history and context. I've studied Christianity as part of my interest in understanding my country, which is over 80 per cent Christian. (Some sects that self-identify as Christian are disputed by other Christians, hence the conservative number; one thinks of Mormons, for example.)

Beyond ritual issues and marriage, the subject of who is a Jew is irrelevant.

ONE MORE THING I JUST REMEMBERED.   Jewish have three 'classes'.  I'm an Israelite, as any convert would be.  We also have Cohens and Levites. A male Cohen must marry a born Jewess who has never been married before to have children who are also Cohaneem.  If he marries anyone else, his children are Israelites.  Cohens can be a pain about this, but if they want their kids to be Cohens, they are technically correct that they must marry a never married born Jewess.  If the temple were rebuilt, the High Priest's mom would also have had to have been a virgin when she married his dad. Like Charles and Diana.  And we all know how well that worked out.

So any divorced Jewess is in the same boat as a convert with regard to Cohens. However ,if John and Mary O'Conner both convert to Judaism before having a daughter,  Sarah, Sarah is a born Jewess.   If Sarah is a virgin and marries a Cohen, her son can be the High Priest if the temple is rebuilt.  

Barbara's remarks just reminded me of the fact that I forgot to point out the bullshit nature of Shootingblanks' gurgles - especially vis a vis Stalin and Lenin. So I owe her a thanks for the follow-through.

Barbara, get a life!

I too could barely read Hebrew.  However I teach religious school at my temple and one year I was asked to teach 2nd grade.  I told my educator (principal) that that was they year that they learned Hebrew and that I didn't know Hebrew.  Her answer to me was, "You will!"  And so, I learned Hebrew that year - with the help of my class aide - along with my 2nd graders. 

I still can't read Hebrew - but know the letters.  I'm not good at sitting in a classroom so I am trying the do it yourself method with workbooks meant for - well 2nd and 3rd graders!

Get yourself a good workbook from Amazon and make yourself sit down every week and do a certain number of pages.  You'll get it. 

Dear Friends:

I'm disturbed by the idea expressed in several of these comments that a person's ancestry is relevant to their ability to learn Hebrew or their entitlement to learn it.

It is sort of implied in some posts that if Lilit Marcus had a Jewish mother, instead of a Jewish father, she'd be a "real" Jew and entitled to learn Hebrew or would find it easier.

That is confusing religious identity boundary issues with linguistic issues.

Some people are "good" at languages, the way some people are "good" at art or "good" at math, or "good" at sports. It's a complex mixture of genetics (sometimes runs in families) and nurture, being encouraged to learn by one's environment.

A dip in an Orthodox mikveh will not automatically improve someone's ability to learn Hebrew.

I have more to say, but I'd think I will write a post about this issue.

Cordially,

Robin Margolis

www.half-jewish.net

www.inclusivistjudaism.net

I empathize.

That's one of the reasons why I developed Ulpan La-Inyan - so that Jews (and anyone else) could learn to speak, understand, read and write Hebrew - with confidence and joy.

 Check us out: www.ulpan.com