Rockvillemom,
I haven’t read the entire thread, only the first three pages – but I have to ask: Is your fear of exclusion based on the other party not inviting you to join in Christian holidays/rituals or your reticence to participate in them because it’s not your faith?
If it is your reticence to participate in activities that are not of your faith, then it seems the “fear” is entirely self-inflicted. I symphathize with your desire to preserve Judaism as a family tradition and understand the fear of it being subordinated by a faith you do not share. However, the answer to the question you seek is probably not the one you want to hear.
Now, if your fear is based on the potential in-laws proactively not inviting you to family activities because you are Jewish – that would be another matter all together.
My children are both mixed race and mixed faith. My family is both buddhist and christian. My in-laws are christian. I am atheist. It has never been the case that either side of of the family was “dis-invited” from any holiday or family gathering, even the ones that are faith-based such as my dad’s funeral (buddhist). Everyone was invited. Frankly, no one would be turned away if they showed up un-invited. The decision to participate was made by each attendee. That has always been the case. I do not think of my participation in Christmas as a contribution to eroding my family’s buddhist traditions, nor do my in-laws consider their participation a buddhist funeral an erosion of their christian faith.
Do you think that by participating in Christian family activities, you are being unfaithful or otherwise undermining Judaism?
Pizzagirl - The same thing with the passing of the Torah happened at my reform temple as well. Not to our family, since both parents and all grandparents are Jewish, but to friends where a parent or grandparent wasn’t Jewish. It was noticeable and awkward, but it’s Jewish law or custom.
As far as patrilineal or matrilineal passing of religion, for reform Jews, if either parent is Jewish, the child is considered Jewish. My sons had several classmates at religious school who had non-Jewish mothers. I was raised orthodox, where you’re only Jewish if your mother is Jewish.
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When my mother (his granddaughter) married a Jewish man in 1964, he said - “Well, he may be Jewish, but at least he’s not Italian.”
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lol (I’m half Italian…but I know that there was a time when some “white people” didn’t want their kids marrying those olive-skinned Italians!)
A friend of mine with an Irish dad and an Italian mom tells the story of their courtship. When Irish son brought home his Italian fiancee, his mom said, “ok she’s pretty, but couldn’t you find a white girl?”
If that’s your synagogue’s policy–and I have no problem with that as a policy of religious observance–it should’ve been made clear to your family in advance. I’d fault the rabbi and the congregation for not mentioning that up front.
Our (conservative) synagogue says that non-Jewish family members don’t come on the bimah. They do read prayers to the congregation from the front of the room so that those family members can participate in the service.
If I was attending a grandchild’s Catholic confirmation or a baptism, I similarly wouldn’t expect to take part in the service because it’s not my faith. I wouldn’t be delighted about the circumstances for other reasons, but not because of a Christian religious ceremony not including me.
“Pizzagirl - The same thing with the passing of the Torah happened at my reform temple as well. Not to our family, since both parents and all grandparents are Jewish, but to friends where a parent or grandparent wasn’t Jewish. It was noticeable and awkward, but it’s Jewish law or custom.”
Right. I get it. My point is more – I have sometimes seen a lot of hypocrisy when Jewish people express “shock and horror” that their child is marrying a non-Jew / grandchildren might not be raised Jewish, but if they heard that a Christian friend expressed “shock and horror” about their own child marrying a Jew, it’d be all “oh, how can they be so prejudiced.”
Oh, here’s another fun anecdote! My sister and I had a very obviously-Jewish last name even though we weren’t really raised with much of anything either way. (Think something like Goldenberg.) When my sister’s fiance sat down with his (Catholic) mother and sisters and said - I’m really serious with this girl named XX XXX, I’m thinking of marrying her - his mother stormed away from the table because of the obviously Jewish last name. Even though my sister had zero problems being married in their Catholic church, raising their children Catholic, and could out-Christmas this woman any day of the week.
I have sort of worked my husband around to a place of - if our kids married non-Jews, he’d probably give them some grief over it, and then let it go, but it used to be something I worried about majorly, as it’s just so foreign to me. My parents’ differing religions was a complete and utter non-issue for us.
One good friend’s brother married a non-Jewish Chinese woman. The friend’s parents–highly observant Jews–weren’t too pleased. The woman’s parents–who’d emigrated from China to the US–weren’t too pleased. The groom’s parents were upset in part because there aren’t many Jews in the world, and marrying outside the faith wouldn’t help increase the Jewish population. The bride’s parents were upset because there are SO MANY Chinese in the world–couldn’t she have found one of them to marry!!!
Actually, @mamabear, I’m sure all of us hope our kids’ marriages and how they choose to raise kids won’t break anyone’s hearts.
Somehow, this thread reminds me of South Pacific’s “You Have to be Taught,” where Nelllie and Joe talk about why they are having issues about race in their relationships and how prejudice is drummed in at an early age. Nellie’s love is the widower of a Polynesian woman and Joe’s love is a Polynesian woman.
The largest Reform temple in my area (approx 800 families) is half mixed marriages. Non Jews are allowed onto the Bima and allowed to read. This temple is one of the oldest in North America, founded in 1887. It’s extremely welcoming to everyone. But H and I decided to send S (adopted from Korea as an infant) to nursery school at the Consevative temple because it was an hour longer than the nursery school at reform temple. We also sent him to their camp instead of the JCC’s because it was out in the county instead of in a building in the city. By the time he was five he knew more Jewish things then I did! Then we sent him to sleep away at a camp which was 99% Jewish but not religious. Then we sent him to a Catholic no diocesen prep school for high school where he had to take religion for 4 years ( but not dogma) and go to mass once a month - where he didn’t have to participate just sit there. We sent him for academic reasons but had no qualms over the fact it was a Catholic. All these different religious experiences were good for him, IMO - even though none of us are “believers” and instead just feel a cultural connection to our religions.
We celebrate all the holidays but, tbh, it’s more about the food and just being with family than anything religious. I tried to have a Xmas tree for a few years but couldn’t take the scent, so we bagged that and H just puts up som tiny white lights on the mantle and hangs our stockings. Depending on the year the menorah is out at the same time. H is also in charge of making the latkes because his are better than mine.
@zoosermom --good point about the fact that fundamentalist and evangelical are not the same. I was careful to mention only the former in my quote upthread f or that reason. Jim Wallis, for instance, is evangelical and extremely liberal/progressive–I’m a huge fan of us, though not evangelical in any way myself.
This is an interesting thread! In Islam, inter-faith marriages are actually regulated by the religion. Muslims can marry ‘people of the book’ (i.e Christians and Jews) but cannot marry people who don’t believe in God unless they convert to any one of the three religions, although there is a common misconception that it MUST be to Islam (which is obviously preferrable). If the parents of a girl or a boy refuse to accept the marriage, they have the right to elope. However, the boy/girl are obligated to stay in contact with their families - specifically the parents - and it is encouraged to send them gifts, call them often, and even put a grandchild on their laps to ‘soften them up’ (barring, ofcourse, severe mistreatment from the family’s side). Likewise, disowning is heavily discouraged (sadly it does happen a lot, though I think that’s more to do with culture). Now if the husband and wife are of different faiths, the kids may join in Jewish or Christian rituals, as long as they observe all the islamic rituals e.g the 5 daily prayers, fasting Ramadan etc. They are also bound by islamic laws (no alcohol, no gambling, eat halal food etc.). To the race side of things: Islam strongly encourages marrying into different ethnicities/cultures/races and heavily promotes diversity. Personally, I know my parents will let me marry whomever I want to marry and will be supportive. My mom actually told me that if I marry a Christian and we do Christmas at her parents, she fully expects us to join her for both Eids. She did however tell me that she prefes I marry someone of the same religion, for the sake of expediency (she says my wife might hate me if I say no pork lol). Race doesn’t factor into our conversations.
Many people are surprised to learn that denominations that they consider mainstream or WASPy are technically evangelical, and that evangelical is something totally different from fundamentalist.
In some cultures what “Islam encouraged” is overruled by tribal customs, for example in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, cousin marriage is strongly, strongly encouraged.
I would TOTALLY understand a Christian parent being upset because their child was marrying someone who wasn’t going to carry on their family’s faith tradition. Similarly, I can understand what it is like for a parent of any faith whose adult child converts to a different faith.
I think this thread is fascinating. I don’t think I ever thought much about it. My 4 grandparents included a Presbyterian, a Christian Scientist, a Baptist, and a Methodist. My upbringing included services at all of those churches, as well as Southern Baptist and Lutheran when those were the churches convenient to my parents’ home.
My FIL is a devout Catholic and MIL was a Methodist who converted. All their children were raised Catholic and all but DH married Catholics.
I consider myself spiritual, not religious, so DH and I have taken our children to a variety of church services like my parents did. We didn’t have them baptized or christianed, which seemed to bother my in-laws quite a bit in the beginning, but I didn’t feel we had the right to impose our religion on them. It never even occurred to me to consider putting religious limitations on their prospective mates. It makes me wonder if, in addition to the “how many college loans do you have” question, the children need to ask prospective mates if the parents will forbid marriage before they allow themselves to get too serious.
I also find this thread interesting and enlightening.
As someone whose future-dh was told “to leave his trash on the curb” – in other words, I wasn’t allowed in their home – I’ll just leave it as interesting and enlightening.
While this thread is surely interesting and enlightening, I agree…some aspects are a bit sad, in my view. I’d like to think that family supersedes religion…that if one’s son/daughter, grandchild, etc. marries someone of another faith (or race, or sexual orientation), that the loving bond between them is more important than the faith/race/gender of their offspring’s spouses. As I wrote upthread, I care more about my relationship with my kids and with their future spouses and their relationships with one another, along with their happiness than what religion/race/gender they are. Maybe it is because I am not super religious and I think of my religious background as my cultural heritage and that I passed it onto my kids and they can pass it onto their own kids, no matter who they marry. But family bonds matter way more to me than all the rest and so, I can’t fathom breaking that bond, or even tinging it, over this issue. But that’s just me.
Even though I was raised with not-much-of-anything-at-all (secular Christmas and secular Easter, plus a lot of bagels and lox), I did have the “benefit” (from my IL’s point of view) of this very-obviously-Jewish last name. My FIL has sort of taken that and pretended that I was raised Jewish, even though the first seder I ever attended was when I started dating my husband and I had never gone to any Jewish services aside from going to bar mitzvahs as a guest. Periodically he likes to sort of pretend that I was raised Jewish in some comments he makes and I get a little bit of secret pleasure out of reminding him that indeed, I wasn’t and yet his son married me anyway even though “real” Orthodox Jews wouldn’t consider me Jewish.
Yeah, it was. But his dad had never met me so it was easy to not take it personally. Still, it showed me what true bigotry is. And it ensured that I will never treat my kids’ significant others in such a disrespectful manner based on what I think I know of them.
