According to my coworker, it was some sort of recognition of a congregant having a new grandchild, period. Neither the child nor its parents had to be members of that specific congregation, but the child had to be Jewish. If the child wasn’t Jewish, it was as if it didn’t exist.
@MichiganGeorgia :
“I have to say if the SO was a wiccan I would be concerned”. I am genuinely curious, why would that be a problem and let’s say being Jewish or Muslim or atheist wouldn’t be (if I read you correctly). I have known a lot of wiccans, and I have met some really good people, some people I didn’t like, a few I would lock my doors to, but not very different from any other people of various faiths I have been around.
Evangelical or fundamentalist Christians? Many evangelical denominations are not only fine with marrying outside, you can physically marry “outside” inside the sanctuary and you can bring your own supplementary clergy, as well! Fundamentalist Christians? No.
Not a fan of that practice. Have never seen it at any congregation I have belonged to.
Liberal Protestants have very different, I think, cultural traditions, than Jewish congregations do. My church allows anyone who feels called to receive communion, while Catholics don’t at all, and some other Protestant denominations allow others with whom they are communion partners. Despite what others may not understand, much of mainstream Protestantism is very open, accepting, welcoming and tolerant.
Oh wiccan hate. That’s one I haven’t seen in a while.
I was wiccan in high school before transitioning into a full non religious atheist. I was wiccan for the first several years I was on CC. I still hold many of the tenets dear including reverence for nature and the idea of 3 fold karma. Not because I believe in karma but I do believe that if you do good or bad in the world, it well come back to you in a magnified form.
The core idea of wicca is “if it harms none, do what you will.” Still seems like pretty sound advice to me.
What troubles me is what happens to the child who, through no fault of his own, ends up with intolerant grandparents who can’t accept the fact that the parents were raised in two different religions. I can think of two sets of grandparents who allowed such differences to create a wedge in their family.
The first set of grandparents pointedly, and publicly, ignores one set of grandchildren and fusses over the other sets. They make a habit of walking right past these children (ignoring their existence) at school sporting events on their way to sit with the others. The other grandchildren get treated to expensive trips, birthday presents, and Christmas gifts. Not only has it destroyed the relationship between these people and their child, it’s done a lot of damage to the relationships between their children too.
The other set of grandparents didn’t seem to make too big a deal about the differences until the 4th grandchild was born (so 10-12 years into the marriage). They never seemed to care too much for the child’s spouse, who converted to their religion before the wedding and agreed to raise the children in it, but they weren’t overtly disagreeable. After their (only) grandson was born these people suggested that their child’s spouse should ask for a divorce and go back east (where spouse’s family was from) and leave them to help their child raise the grandchildren. That didn’t end very well for them.
There’s no excuse for such horrible behavior.
OK, the ignoring one set of grandchildren act is bizarre. If my kids were the “favored” ones, I would still disconnect from the grandparents, just to avoid being part of their game.
Sometimes kids drift or disconnect from their parents even if religion isn’t the issue. And it seems to me it’s more the new couple bonding closely with the wife’s family, and ignoring the husband’s. I’ve seen plenty of advice here to go to great lengths to stay on good terms with a new DIL. Good to know in advance. In my case, way way in advance.
@rockvillemom:
Thank you for sharing your original post, I would never criticize someone like yourself posting about your feelings and beliefs, they are your own. With Judaism, it is especially complex, because as I understand the faith and the history of it, it has been a struggle for a long, long time to keep the identity, the book of Leviticus for example as it is in the Hebrew Scripture to a large extent came out of the exile in Babylon, where the Jews were faced with living in a place not their own, surrounded by those of differing beliefs, and the traditions especially in Leviticus were strenghtened to define something that said “This is what it means to be a Jew”, and to allow that identity to stay intact…and then you had the battle with the secularized hellenic Jews versus the orthodox Maccabees, the split kingdom, then the diasphora that has lasted almost 2000 years (even within Israel there are big battles about what it means to be Jewish, from what I understand). The struggle you may have with your kids to me is understandable, and what I respect is if your kids do go outside the faith, they are still your children, which tells me the one element that is supposed to be in all faiths and sometimes is lacking, love, is there:).
It is much like parents struggling with emotions with their kids being gay, or being transgender, or otherwise not matching their expectations or of being different or going against their own beliefs, that struggle is perfectly fine to me, it is natural and human, what I respect in your post is your love for your kids shows through, I wish I could say that was true of all parents, where often love is ‘I love you, but if you can’t do what I want, be what I want, that love is on hold’ which quite frankly isn’t love, it is self serving stupidity (and having worked with kids at risk as a volunteer, have seen kids literally beaten, treated worse than animals, abused, denigrated by those who are supposed to love them, and often thrown out of their homes because they are different…worse, the parents often do it afraid if they don’t do that, that they will be judged, which to me is a fundamental sin no God or deity would ever contenance toward a child)
@garland: Thank you. I deal with people all over the world, and they have this idea that somehow the US is full of these fundamentalist Christians who believe dinosaurs lived in the garden of eden and the earth is 6000 years old . I can’t necessarily blame them, since that has been presented as ‘faith’ in the US, by the media and politicians (it can’t exactly help that we have several presidential candidates that fall into this category).
A lot of people in the US believe in God supposedly, atheists and agnostics are maybe 10-15% of the population or so, but a lot of people believe in God but no one specific idea of God, and an overwhelming majority of Christians are not exactly biblical literalists, the mainstream Protestant churches and the Catholic church have no problem with science and evolution, fundamentalists at most represent 10% of the population (I have heard 25-30 million people),in contrast 60 million is the population of Catholics alone. There are probably around 10 million progresive Christians out there, whose beliefs are often a mix of beliefs from various faiths, and one of the fundamental natures of this group is that questions often mean more than answers, and more than a few of them may not even believe the so called Orthodox Christian view of Christ as the triune God and the whole washing away of sins that came out of Nicea in the 4th century. Put it this way, having belonged to a couple of progressive Christian churches and knowledgeable about others, I don’t very many of them would object to their kids marrying someone of a different faith, to the contrary, probably would be more happy if they didn’t lol. Many people are all of the above and/or non of the above, it is supposedly the faster growing group of people expressing belief (count me in this one).
And yes, @zoosermom, evangelical has some to mean the ultra right, Christian fundamentalists that have become the ‘evangelicals’ to the media and how certain quarters, political and otherwise, view Christianity.
One comment I wanted to make, that I heard several posters posit, usually about Judaism and Christmas. When I hear someone giving images of gift giving and a christmas tree as being religious, it truly bothers me, because Christmas despite what the uber religious want to claim, is really two holidays,one secular, one religious. Some people celebrate both, some people one (who celebrate it), but they are two different holidays. The Christmas tree has nothing to do with Christianity, there are fundamentalist churches who refuse to have trees because they in fact are of pagan origin, as are holly and mistletoe (they are all evergreens, they are bringing life into the house when all other plants are dormant), most people it simply is neat to have. Snowmen and sleighs and Santa are secular, and the gift giving, which supposedly came from the story of the wise men at Epiphany, is these days a purely secular tradition, based more in finding that killer gift for someone, finding a bargain, and a season of eating food that probably makes the guys who put out the recent WHO report blow steam out of their ears thinking about it (an Italian Christmas eve feast, while it has fish, also tends to have some big no no’s like Prosciutto, smoke sausage and the like lol).
While I fully respect someone who doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas in either of its forms, maybe to take away apprehensions about what it means, the tree and the gift giving and the like has nothing to do with Christianity, it really is a season that is supposed to be about friends and family and celebration (the secular holiday, not the one celebrated in churches and prayer), if the discomfort is in that Christmas is only a religious holiday of the Christian faith, it isn’t:).
@musicprnt To say that Christmas, even in what you describe as its secular form, has nothing to do with Christianity is not understanding how many Jews feel about Christmas. I can love Christmas decorations, hum Christmas music and attend office holiday parties. But when it comes down to Christmas Day, I do not celebrate–at all. No celebratory family dinners, no going to Christian friend’s houses. I do nothing to commemorate the day, because it is not my holiday!
Think of it this way. If a group of Jewish friends asked what you did to celebrate rosh hashanah, you’d probably be taken aback if they seemed to assume you would celebrate it.
The issue with Christmas is that such a large majority of the U.S. population does celebrate–in varying degrees of adhering to religious values–that there is an assumption that it’s a holiday for everyone. But that is not the case!
Thank you musicprnt for saving me from writing about Christmas and its pagan traditions and secularism. . .Now, IMHO, Easter minus the Easter bunny and pagan ham is Christianity’s High Holiday.
RVM (and other Jewish parents here), I am wondering how you would feel if a non-Jewish DIL were to raise those grandchildren as Jewish and observe the High Holidays? My DD (not yet ready to marry!!!) was raised Unitarian Universalist, and I gotta say, she knows more about Judaism than Christianity and has a mom who would insist that her kids know their religious heritage.
All I am on Christmas is locked out of shopping and eating a normal meal. It’s really sad how Christian-centric the US is, and organized religion-centric the US is, when the country was founded by Deists who could respect religious figures but rarely if ever would be found in a church (barring wedding or funeral).
They may have “founded” the country as an entity, but many of the early influences were far more religious. Salem,of course, comes to mind, with Halloween tomorrow.
Growing up - before there were any intermarriage in my extended family, we always has a big family dinner at one of my aunts. There was nothing to do Christmas Day, not even anything on TV except the Yule log. School was out and the adults had the day off so we got together and had a holiday type dinner.
When I was very young and before Hanukkah was put on steroids and all we ever got was gelt, we always woke up on Xmas morning to find a stocking hanging on the mantle. Unfortunately for us, it was filled with an orange and an apple and a few pieces of candy. So disappointing.
H is sensitive about Xmas and we never celebrate it. But I’d say 90% of our Jewish neighbors have Xmas trees. We live in the South.
He is the one who would freak out abut the non Jewish spouse. I think he would be okay with a spouse who converted OR with one who agreed to raise the kids as Jews even if she didn’t convert. Would he be okay with a no religion spouse and completely secular kids? I wonder. Maybe he would be satisfied that the kids would know about their heritage.
What if we substitute Native Americans for Jews in this discussion. What if the concern was NA children marrying out or being adopted by non NA families so that that culture was lost. Like Jews, they are a tiny minority easily diluted by the majority culture. Or instead of Jews, help me think of another culture that is in danger of dying out through assimilation.
Interesting discussion and one with staying power.
Really hypothetical for me as we only have daughters, but I’d be fine with it.
I do wonder at what point Christmas will become so entirely secular that the majority of US Jews will have some celebratory dinner. Me, well, once we get through the end of the fall Jewish holidays–Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah–we are just DONE with big family dinners and celebrations. I tell my coworkers that it’s time for them to start shopping for Christmas, and for me to kick back and relax. 
Would love it!
@uskoolfish, it’s interesting that you wouldn’t go to a Christian friend’s house on Christmas. It never occurred to me to invite a Jewish friend over for Christmas dinner (it’s usually just family and we celebrate a secular Christmas)However, I have been to Jewish friends houses on Hanukkah- prayers were said, candles lit, etc. It’s not “my holiday” but it was still enjoyable.
H and I are Episcopalian (raised Roman Catholic) and we have gotten together with the same friends every year for Easter dinner. The H of that couple is Jewish. He is not particularly observant though. We always had Easter egg hunts after dinner when the kids were young.
“Despite what others may not understand, much of mainstream Protestantism is very open, accepting, welcoming and tolerant.”
I think we all know that. It’s the fundamentalists who have ruined it for the rest of you and who think they define Christianity.