Is that even possible for most people who have been in the US for more than a generation or two? Of course, there are some, but aren’t most of us a blend?
My ancestry on my father’s side is Dutch. The first members of the family to come to the United States came in the mid 1800s. My dad’s siblings all married people of Dutch descent. Most of my cousins married people of Dutch descent. Many of their children have married people of Dutch descent. 100%? I don’t know. But yes, it’s a thing. It seems to go along with the particular religious beliefs of the extended family.
So I looked up jewish population since it is repeated here many times that jewish offsprings should marry each other to preserve. 14 million. Compare that to Norwegian 5 million Fins about the same 5 million, Swedish 9 million, Hmong 3-4 million. I think there are many others who should worry about preservation before jewish people. They may not have a same religion as a group but they share the same language that will be gone.
[quote]
Only those grandparents who try to impose their selfish wills or guilt trips on their children and their families will become outsider[\quote]
That is just not true. There are plenty of reasons why grandparents could be excluded, not of the grandparents’ fault.
“Think about it - either you believe in a loving god or you don’t. If you do, then he will NOT be peeved about your grandchildren worshipping him in a different way.”
I think you’re missing the point that’s been made several times that this isn’t primarily about religion for a lot of people. It’s about traditions being preserved or forgotten here on Earth.
Anyway, for a traditionally religious Jew, God gets royally outraged about Jews abandoning their Jewishness. There is no unconditionally loving God in the Old Testament. Frankly, that’s a Protestant idea, and a recent one. The Jewish God has expectations and rules for Jews, and you are supposed to toe the line. It’s not fair to ask a religious Jew to imagine God your way.
“I think there are many others who should worry about preservation before jewish people.”
I’m pretty sure that it isn’t a zero-sum contest, and that everybody who’s concerned about preserving their own culture can work on that in their own way.
Though there may be prejudice in some quarters against converts, religiously there is absolutely no difference between the offspring of Jews by choice and Jews by birth.
Igloo, I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. There are Swedish and Norwegian Jews; there may be Hmong Jews for all I know. If my children ended up marrying Swedes or Norwegians or Hmong, so what? That’s a separate question from their religious identity. You’re also trying to compare two different things. Jews have both a cultural/religious identity and a national identity. There are Jews of almost every nationality in the world. But Swedes and Norwegians are people who live in Sweden or Norway, or who consider that their homeland.
Except in Israel, where reform converts aren’t accepted as jews. Heck, they hardly accept reform jews at all.
Ah, jym, now we’re talking about a whole 'nother level of mishegas. For the kinds of examples people have mentioned in this discussion, we’re not talking people who are Haredi orthodox. They’re just people with prejudices that have no basis in Judaism.
Someone upthread suggested that jews could make aliyah to Israel (well they said go to, or back to Israel). That is untrue and not really relevant in this discussion. Was just pinging off of that.
I am an atheist and my husband was raised as a Catholic, although as an adult he is non-practicing. I always gave his mother, who was very devoutly Catholic, so much credit for never bringing religion into our relationship. We were married in a civil ceremony and our children are not baptized. While I know it bothered her, she never once made any comments or applied any pressure on me. She gave our kids Catholic Bibles and took them to her church when they visited, but only with our permission. We have always encouraged our kids to explore different religions and our DD1 is a practicing Christian.
My husband is 1/2 Hispanic although most people would not guess that, and his last name does not reflect that. He still remembers how hurt and bewildered he was when his 1st HS girlfriend broke up with him the day after his Mom picked him up at the GF’s house and her mother realized he was Hispanic. My family moved to a small So. Calif. town that was about 1/2 Hispanic when I was in HS and I was shocked that many of the kids were not allowed to date across cultural lines- it went both ways. My brother still lives there and that situation still exists somewhat. I can’t imagine putting any kind of restrictions on my kids and would welcome into the family any relationships where there is mutual respect. I would hope my kids would be comfortable enough in any relationship to know if cultural or religious differences might become an issue at some point.
I’m with zoosermom. That’s just not true. There are lots of reasons a grandparent can be frozen out. One is religion, but it’s certainly not the only one.
When it IS religion, it is sometimes the young adult’s choice. Back in the day, I knew two families whose kids became Moonies. They didn’t have a heck of a lot of contact with their grandkids, and it certainly wasn’t their choice.
chocchipcookie - not sure why you said I missed the point of the thread. I’m fine with my kids marrying outside the faith they were raised in, but would not want them to marry into a family that didn’t like them or was heartbroken because they weren’t Jewish and weren’t raising their kids in the Jewish traditions.
My grandmother decided when she started having grandchildren that she would only be in our lives if we were raised Jewish. We’ll leave out the fact that she married a Catholic and didn’t raise her own kids Jewish. (She and my grandpa divorced early on so it’s not like he was stopping her.)
She’s really just a terrible person but that is her stated excuse. As a grandchild, I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything. I don’t need people who love conditionally in my life. JMO
I got to age 12 and decided to add the convert-to-Judaism perspective. I was raised Catholic (as were both of my parents and all of their parents), but I became interested in Judaism when I was nine. It started out as a historical curiosity, then we moved to Germany and I read Anne Frank, saw Dachau, and it all came alive. I read a lot throughout HS and college and dated several Jewish guys, not really realizing where I was heading in the process. DH did not care if I converted or not (nor if I took his last name or kept mine), but I sought out a rabbi to study with and completed conversion before we were married.
My parents weren’t entirely thrilled, but my dad told me on the way to the ceremony that his mom had to converted to Catholicism from Southern Baptist when she was 14 and then raised six devoutly Catholic kids, so as long as I had religion in my home, he was good with it. DH’s parents were far more concerned that DH should marry a nice Jewish girl. They were not very observant, but had ritual objects in the house, ate kosher and ethnic foods, and certainly were culturally immersed in Judaism.
That said, out of the five kids my parents raised, one is still Catholic. She has been divorced twice and is now married to her third husband. We go to NJ for Pesach and Thanksgiving, and to Georgia over winter break. Even though I converted 32 years ago, it still feels uncomfortable to be down there in December. It’s not my place, not my holiday, and the religiosity is overwhelmingly fundamentalist. (When I was in HS, the area was considered Catholic mission territory (<2%).) My family didn’t come for my kids’ Bar Mitzvahs. There are many reasons, not having to do with disapproval, but the lack of basic intellectual curiosity probably is the primary reason, and the one which most divides me from my family.
We belong to a conservative shul. We don’t keep kosher. I am on the board and am involved in several activities there, including reading Torah, doing catering and running a couple of social action projects that let me use my creativity. Both guys went to Hebrew school through confirmation and stayed involved in shul life til they went to college. S1 has since decided he’s agnostic. His marriage was nonreligious. S2 identifies as Jewish and I expect he will probably marry within the faith, though I don’t know how that will translate in terms of observance.
There are many “Jews by choice” in our shul. Most of them were women and originally Catholic. There are parallels that are attractive, and many who I’ve talked to like the Jewish tradition of questioning why we do certain things and learning the different interpretations by various rabbis over the centuries. We converts tend to take up the mantle of our Judaism pretty seriously and raise our children with the intention of sharing the community and faith we have adopted.
I will take joyfully whatever future grandchildren I can get my hands on, whatever their religious, ethnic or racial variety.
My daughter was raised Christian -Presbyterian. She has been dating a Jewish boy for 2 years. I am fine with it.
I watched someone disown a son for marrying a Muslim girl and decided I would never do that.
I confess it would be hard to see either of my daughters marry a man who practiced their faith in a way that didn’t honor women. What I really want for my kids is a happy marriage.
@veruca Faith often has little, if anything, to do with the way men behave. I doubt there’s a tenet in any religion that says men should be treat women as inferiors. Unpleasant men * do * like to cite religion as an excuse for their actions (a pathetic excuse if there ever was one, IMO), however. Which is why if faith doesn’t matter to you, look at character. An abusive “religious” man is no man at all.
As to preserving culture: it’s a nice thought. But it SHOULD not be used to drive a wedge between in-laws.
Hmm…when someone adheres strongly to a belief system which says women should keep silent in places of worship, should not be in positions of authority over men, should be subservient in all things (using, in the example of certain fundamentalist Christian sects, Christ and his church as a metaphor)…it’s bound to color how he sees women in secular situations. There may be a chicken and egg scenario with some adherents-- are they drawn to that faith system because they see women as inferior or does it create that opinion-- but there’s a definite correlation.
I suppose there’s something akin to Godwin’s law that can be invoked for bringing up the Duggars and the Quiverfull movement as an example (or Dennis Prager, author of “The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code”, who states wives should submit sexually whether they want to or not because the Bible says so), but there you have it.
Consolation (post 177): For many people of faith (any faith), their theological beliefs ARE some of their core values. I can share the core values of being kind, compassionate, and generous with my Buddhist, Muslim, and atheist friends. However, one core value (for me) that we do not share is the belief that it is important to be an active part of a Christian faith community and to worship in a Christian church. I don’t think they are “deficient” for not doing something that is part of their belief (or non-belief) system, but I would have a difficult time if my child married someone who did not share that value. As I said before, though, I would do my best to welcome and love that spouse.
I could certainly substitute the term “core beliefs” for “core values” in my former post.
Me too!
Hanna: Post # 204: Thank you 