Something has been weighing on my mind lately. I am now more or less an adult, with the duties of an adult, and I realize that it is now up to me and my peers to take on the task of continuing Judaism. It is with us that Judaism will adapt and thrive or stagnate and die; it us up to us to create a new Jewish generation, or to allow our numbers to dwindle. The task of survival is ours, and the ship is ours to steer. We can make of this inheritance what we want.
I feel ready and more than willing to accept this charge, but I am full of questions. What will the sanctuary look like in this generation? What will we prioritize, what will we reject? How will inspire this Jewish generation, how will we inspire the next?
I feel that Judaism is profoundly, desperately relevant to me and my life. I weep into Haggadas because they speak in my voice. Underneath a lot of miscellany that is at turns disturbing, bizarre and unimportant, I find Judaism to be the most beautiful system of thought in the world. I have no quarrels with science, and I have been an atheist, and at the end of the day I believe in God. To me, God is the inexhaustible source of strength that allowed our ancestors to survive, and God is the light that suffuses the universe, and God is not a magical bearded man but rather an almost unutterable experience of truth. And I know in some part of my bones that Judaism — this infinitely adaptable culture of the book — is the reason that we have not been wiped out, the reason that though we have faced persecution in every century we have not just survived but thrived, and continued to have a loving and beautiful culture.
So I don’t need any convincing. I’m in. But it’s my impression that most of peers don’t feel this way. I would like to share this with those of my peers who find themselves longing or curious, because it is the most wonderful thing I know. I also want badly to be in community with those who, like me, are already in love Judaism and Jewish culture (including those who have very different ideas about God).
To these ends, I would like to ask some questions of my fellow Jews. (I especially want to talk to Diaspora Jews of my generation who, like me, are concerned with this task, but all responses are welcome. I also respectfully ask my non-Jewish friends not to participate in this thread.) I’m specifically saying “Judaism and Jewish culture” because this task is just as cultural as it is religious, and because I very much want to hear from atheist and agnostic Jews, who seem to be the majority in my generation. Also, folks are more than welcome to ask more questions and/or offer up thoughts not covered by my questions. Feel free to respond to as many or as few as you like.
- What do you like about Judaism and Jewish culture? What do you dislike?
- Why are Judaism and Jewish culture important? Why is it important to preserve them?
- What is your relationship with Judaism as a religion? Do you feel connected to Judaism? To a temple community, to a minyan, to a study group? If not, would you like to be?
- Are you affiliated with any of the movements? Which one, and why? If not, why not? What do you like and/or dislike about it?
- How observant are you? How important is observance to you? How observant should others be? Are some kinds of observance more important than others?
- What practices or ideas are most central to your Jewish identity? (i.e. eating bagels, loving books, celebrating the High Holidays, not celebrating Christian holidays, keeping kosher, fighting for justice, etc.)
- Ideally, what will Judaism and Jewish culture look like in 10 years? In 25 years? In 100 years?
- What are most critical issues for the Jewish community to address right now? Israel, intermarriage, declining synagogue attendance, something else entirely?
- What are the key qualities for Judaism/Jewish culture to embody or functions for it to perform?
My own answer to the last question, briefly: I want Judaism to be a living, adaptable source of love, sustenance, guidance and justice. I want Jewish communities to be passionate, welcoming, and deeply committed Judaism as the community interprets it, and I want there to be a lot of room for interpretation.
What do you want Judaism to be?
June 10, 2009 at 5:18 am
I guess I’ll kick things off by just listing what I like and dislike about Judaism/Jewish culture.
Likes:
-rich intellectual history (Talmudic tradition, focus on education)
-rich history of concern with social justice (prophets, Talmudic tradition, secular+progressive streams)
Dislikes:
-over-reliance on tradition meaning that the bad things get left in (including a lot of immorality)
-very hard to find a person with Jewish religious views that don’t have a little bit of chauvinism
Funnily enough, the good and the bad seem like 2 sides of the same coin :)
I think it’s no coincidence…
June 10, 2009 at 10:08 am
Michael — right on. Thanks for sharing!
June 10, 2009 at 10:12 pm
[...] the always-interesting author of Dear Diaspora, posted some of her thoughts on Judaism. She begins: Something has been weighing on my mind lately. I am now more or less an adult, with [...]
June 10, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Daisy,
You know how to ask the big questions! I’ve posted more answers and thoughts over at my blog, but wanted to share a few things over here as well. Thanks, as always, for such interesting posts!
What do you like about Judaism and Jewish culture? What do you dislike?
I like the feeling that, in the very liberal form of Judaism in which I was raised, it’s possible to modify and change rituals and ceremonies to speak to what is important to whomever is performing them.
As an example, at this past Passover, the Seder I went to consisted of Passover Jeopardy, led by the hostess, followed immediately by dinner. Likewise, the year before, the Seder consisted of people going around the table and giving voice to oppressions which still exist today. In both situations, I felt a connection with Jewish history without feeling obligated to engage in a long ritual in which I, personally, don’t find much value.
I dislike the feeling I get from many that being a “good Jew” includes being a Zionist. The sense of Judaism which I grew up with had nothing to do with Israel, and everything to do with a connection to the history of Judaism, of social justice, and of education.
Why are Judaism and Jewish culture important? Why is it important to preserve them?
I honestly don’t know, any more than why any other culture is important. I think Judaism is important because we place importance into it, because it encourages reflection and a connection to history, and because it’s as valid as anything else that’s out there…
This is honestly what I’ve struggled most with. I dislike much of the Tanakh, think there’s just as much immoral or unjust stories and laws as moral and just, and have difficulty connecting modern Judaism with ancient. At the end of the day, I’m not sure it’s the same boat.
At the same time, I do think remembering where we came from is important (for any value of ‘we’). I really don’t know how to reconcile being pulled in those two directions, though…
June 10, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Trackback.
June 10, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Rebecca — thank you for sharing! I’m delighted you’ve taken up the topic at your blog. I totally hear you about being pulled in two directions, and not knowing how to approach the immoral and unjust parts of the Tanakh. What an enormous dilemma. I’ll have to think more about it.
David — I’m really excited to read your post, which I will do right now. : D
June 10, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Rebecca, re: the Theseus paradox — I actually think there are really strong threads running through Judaism that are old, old, old. We’re still telling the same stories, and we still know the year on an almost-6000-year-old calendar. We still have the raging passion for justice that goes back all the way to the prophets. We still have the respect for argument and interpretation that goes back to the Talmudic period, and rabbi-led and study-centered Torah Judaism that goes back to the destruction of the Second Temple. Some of us still speak nearly perfectly preserved medieval languages (Yiddish and Ladino).
We may have thrown some big things overboard and slapped on a fresh coat of paint, but this is the same boat. That, actually, might be the most profound part of Judaism, for me: the knowledge that it really is a more or less direct connection to my ancestors, going back for thousands of years. Because, not coincidentally, we’ve moved around so much in that time, it’s the only one I have. My great-grandparents and I wouldn’t be able to speak to each other, and they wouldn’t recognize my country. But we could light Shabbat candles or recite the v’ahavta together, and be connected in that way.
June 11, 2009 at 11:50 am
I feel like I need to think about these questions some more before I tackle all of them, but I do want to address one aspect of this one:
I’ve been thinking about this in terms of language – why exactly I’m studying Yiddish, a language I’ll never speak on the street, and what I plan to do with it. Ideally, I’d love it if there were a Yiddish revival and people made an effort to start speaking it again, but I know that’s not going to happen, so where do I see it in 25 or 100 years? I think I envision it sort of like Latin for Ashkenazis – a language we consider immensely important, and make sure our children learn in school (when my dad was a kid, he went to Yiddish school! Can you imagine?), so that they can understand Yiddish poetry, fiction, theater, etc.
Obviously, though, I wouldn’t want Yiddish studies to come at the expense of Ladino and Judeo-Arabic studies (which, unfortunately, it already seems to be doing).
Actually, I guess this brings me to a couple of the other questions. If it’s my job to continue Judaism/Jewishness (and that was a pretty major lightbulb moment for me, by the way, since I still have a tendency to think of myself as an outsider), then this is the way I want to do it: by reviving our secular cultures and keeping them alive. When I was a kid, I thought Jewishness was something you *only* did in a synagogue – and I didn’t really fall in love with it until I learned otherwise. Celebrating holidays (and, more recently, Shabbes) is central to my Jewishness, but speaking and reading Yiddish and learning/creating Jewish history, thought, and art is just as central.
I recently read an essay by someone who claimed that you can only really be a secular Jew if you live in Israel. What!? It’s exactly that type of ignorance that’s erasing our history.
June 11, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Julie, thank you for your response! I look forward to reading any further thoughts you have. Is the role you’re imagining for Yiddish (which I think is a wonderful, wonderful idea, by the way) similar to the way Hebrew is for American Jews right now?
If it’s my job to continue Judaism/Jewishness (and that was a pretty major lightbulb moment for me, by the way, since I still have a tendency to think of myself as an outsider)
I think this feeling is endemic among young Diaspora Jews. I’m working on a post about it.
f it’s my job to continue Judaism/Jewishness . . . then this is the way I want to do it: by reviving our secular cultures and keeping them alive. When I was a kid, I thought Jewishness was something you *only* did in a synagogue – and I didn’t really fall in love with it until I learned otherwise. Celebrating holidays (and, more recently, Shabbes) is central to my Jewishness, but speaking and reading Yiddish and learning/creating Jewish history, thought, and art is just as central.
Yes!
June 11, 2009 at 4:53 pm
If it’s my job to continue Judaism/Jewishness (and that was a pretty major lightbulb moment for me, by the way, since I still have a tendency to think of myself as an outsider)
I think this feeling is endemic among young Diaspora Jews. I’m working on a post about it.
I curious if that outsider feeling is common among younger Jews across the board or if it is mostly felt by those of use who come from mixed families without a strong Jewish identity or those from very secular backgrounds (who I think do represent a very large percentage of this generation). That is, is it generational or situational?
My feelings of responsibility for continuing Judaism really shifted when I had my son. I realized I really needed to make my Jewishness concrete, something that infused our daily lives, or my son probably would not have any Jewish identity because he would not have the types of family connections to it that I did.
I’m going to try to answer some of these questions (which are really thought-provoking) later tonight.
June 11, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Daisy, (re: re: Thesus) (::grin:: sorry, I couldn’t help myself…)
You’ve beautifully expressed many of the connections I do feel to Judaism: being connected to history, the importance of justice and of debate, and of a continuation of tradition.
But I feel like there’s a barrier I can’t push through, of seeing those positive elements having been historically mixed (particularly in Biblical times) with things I want no part of: slavery, subjugation and genocide of one’s enemies, rape, and so on. I realize this is emphatically not the Judaism I was raised in, but I don’t know how to get past my own discomfort with those portions of its roots.
Does that make sense? I very much want to connect to all that you rightly say is wonderful about Judaism, but don’t know how without feeling like I’m also connecting with that which I abhor.
chingona:
I think it’s both generational and situational, but probably the latter has a larger effect. Thinking of the Jewish friends I have, and of my background, most were raised in families that sent their kids to Sunday and Hebrew School, but were only actually observant on the High Holidays (this describes my family as well). The one or two close friends I know who seem to have a stronger Jewish identity were raised in households that, while not observant even to the extent of keeping Kosher, did see Judaism as part of their lives outside of Rosh Hashannah/Passover/etc.
June 12, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Hi chingona!
The generational/situation distinction is a good one; like Rebecca, I think it’s both, but I’d guess the latter is a bigger factor. Then again, as you mentioned, there are more secular Jews and Jews with a non-Jewish parent in this generation than ever before — the two can’t really be divided.
I’d love to read your answers to the other questions!
June 12, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Rebecca — it’s an important and troubling issue any way you slice it. But Judaism, at this point, is a non-dogmatic religion. You don’t have to accept any given tenant to be a practicing Jew. So when we encounter things in the Torah that we find abhorrent, I think being horrified is just as (if not more) legitimate and Jewish as (than) any other response. Maybe we’re obligated to read about rape and other violence, but we’re sure as hell not obligated to condone it — especially when it’s obviously in direct contradiction to Jewish tradition and law. The point is to wrestle, and, frankly, sometimes wrestling means a punch in the face.
Hillel famously said “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the commentary.” And the rabbis who wrote the Talmud agree that any midrash that promoted hate or cruelty was illegitimate. We’ve been dealing with the problem you raise for a long, long time — radically reinterpreting the abhorrent passages (in a way that is grounded in Judaism) is a deeply traditional thing to do. And that’s when they even require reinterpretation (i.e. a law requiring we stone someone) — when it’s just a horrifying story, I think it’s appropriate to let the story stand and say, “Here is an example of violence,” “Here is an example of hate.”
I hope that helps. It’s something I struggle with, anI have a lot more thoughts about it, but I don’t have the time to write more right now.
June 13, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Daisy,
That makes a lot of sense. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts, when you have the time/energy to ruminate on them.
June 14, 2009 at 10:20 am
Rebecca — I will work on a post about it. : )
June 14, 2009 at 11:19 am
[...] Comments Daisy on You know what bothers me?Daisy on Love Letter #3 (What do you wa…Avendya on You know what bothers me?Rebecca on Love Letter #3 (What do you wa…Sungold on [...]
June 14, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Thank you! Yeah – I think so. Of course, how is the role of Hebrew changing now that it’s the first language of one very large subset of Jews? Is modern Hebrew now a “foreign” language, like Spanish or French, in a way that Biblical Hebrew isn’t? (I’m not even sure how different the two are, since I don’t speak either of them.)
If I were in charge of my own school – and if I knew anything about the pedagogy of language studies at all – maybe I’d start young students off with a course called Introduction to Jewish Languages, in which they could get some basic familiarity with some combination of Hebrew and Diaspora languages. Then, when they got older (high school age, maybe), they could specialize in one of them and work towards proficiency.
June 14, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Julie: I really like that idea! I would love to see Diaspora languages take a more central place in Jewish culture, especially Ladino — my grandmother’s first language, which most people, Jews included, have never even heard of (IME).
And I would really, really love to see usable language skills play a bigger role in Jewish education. In Hebrew school, like many Reform Jews, I acquired what I used to fondly refer to as “the world’s stupidest skill” — reading Hebrew letters, with almost no Hebrew vocabulary, such that I can do a decent job pronouncing a Hebrew text… And have absolutely no idea what I’m saying. It makes one good for participating in a service, but absolutely useless for studying and, you know, independent thought. Sigh.
Although the combination of being able to read Hebrew and growing up in New Mexico have given me a really nice head-start at learn Ladino, which I’ve been (very casually) trying to do. I wish I could take a class, but they definitely don’t exist anywhere within a hundred miles of me, and possibly don’t exist at all. : (
June 15, 2009 at 9:36 am
I personally agree with what Michael says. Judaism really has its positive side, but also its downsides, although few.
June 15, 2009 at 4:58 pm
So, I’m still working on the questions (was offline for real-life stuff most of the weekend), but I had a few thoughts on language/secular Jewish culture.
I would really like to see the preservation of secular Jewish culture, but I’m uncertain how that happens and what that looks like in a country and a time where we don’t live in ghettos. In some ways, I wonder if intermarriage isn’t actually more of a threat to secular Jewish culture than it is to Judaism as a religion or a religious culture.
Obviously, there’s a lot of secular Jewish culture in the United States, but it has entered the mainstream in such a way that while Jews recognize it as Jewish, it’s unmarked in the popular culture. And the more time goes by, the more that type of humor and sensibility isn’t limited to Jews.
But I don’t really know what a distinctly Jewish and yet forward-looking secular Jewish culture looks like. (Which is not to be discouraging at all of what Julie envisions – I admire that vision – just an expression of certainty.)
On languages, it would be really cool to see the Jewish languages preserved and studied more. I’m Ashkenazi, and my grandmother grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household, but I don’t understand even half of the slang words that have slipped into English. In some ways, I relate more to Yiddish culture, but I have a real fascination with Ladino and Sephardic culture because I speak Spanish already and I have a strong amateur interest in obscure hybrid languages that arise out of specific historical circumstances. To me, learning Ladino – which I only even heard of a few years ago – would be two great tastes that taste great together.
June 15, 2009 at 10:44 pm
What do you like about Judaism and Jewish culture? What do you dislike?
I like that Judaism allows for engagement with and struggle with the texts and the traditions. I like how argumentative Jews are. I like the emphasis on action and ethics. I like how rooted it is in daily life and mundane activities.
I don’t like the chauvinism, the fights about who is in and who is out and who counts, the obsession with intermarriage.
Why are Judaism and Jewish culture important? Why is it important to preserve them?
Every culture and religion represent unique ways of looking at and engaging with the world. If Judaism goes away, an entire civilization is lost. But it has to be meaningful and relevant to people. There’s no point in preserving it as a museum piece.
What is your relationship with Judaism as a religion? Do you feel connected to Judaism? To a temple community, to a minyan, to a study group? If not, would you like to be?
I grew up very secular in a family that was not so much indifferent to Judaism as conflicted about it. When I was little, my father told me Yom Kippur is when they try to make you apologize for being human. But when I was a little older, he told me it’s good to take a day to really reflect on the year, how you have lived up to your expectations for yourself and how you have failed. But we weren’t even High Holiday Jews, that’s how secular we were.
I always felt drawn to Judaism, wanted to learn more about it, wanted to go to Hebrew school, but didn’t because of how my family was. As an adult, I feel like an outsider, trying to find my way in. So I feel connected and disconnected at the same time.
Because of my upbringing, I feel like I’m more knowledgeable about Judaism in theory than in practice. I feel at home in Jewish ideas and Jewish thought. I feel like an outsider in my ignorance of ritual practice and in not reading Hebrew.
June 15, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Are you affiliated with any of the movements? Which one, and why? If not, why not? What do you like and/or dislike about it?
I currently attend a Reform synagogue. It’s been okay, a good place to get my feet wet, but I’m not sure it’s the best fit for me. But I think it’s the congregation (basically, way too large) rather than the movement that’s the issue. I’m going to be moving to another state, and I plan to do a bit of shul-hopping when I get there. I’m really intrigued by Reconstructionism.
How observant are you? How important is observance to you? How observant should others be? Are some kinds of observance more important than others?
To an observant Jew, I would probably seem minimally observant but I’ve come a long way from how I grew up. I light candles, try to keep Shabbat for family time, don’t eat chametz during Passover, fast on Yom Kippur, teach my son to say the Shema, attend services about once a month. I add a little more each year, but it’s not my goal or intention to reach an Orthodox level of observance. I don’t keep any kind of kosher. I think the most likely way for me to start would be by going back to being a vegetarian. I think some kind of observance, particularly some sort of Shabbat observance, is important to maintaining Jewish identity, but I’m hardly one to tell others how observant they should be.
I’m a bit of an odd duck in that I’m an atheist who finds a lot of meaning in ritual. It gives me a way to express gratitude and humility, a way to connect with tradition. The more I go into it, the less I’m sure atheist is really the right word for what I am. A lot of what you described as your idea of God are the ideas for which I think of God as a shorthand, if that makes any sense.
What practices or ideas are most central to your Jewish identity? (i.e. eating bagels, loving books, celebrating the High Holidays, not celebrating Christian holidays, keeping kosher, fighting for justice, etc.)
Books, fighting for justice and keeping Shabbat all are important, but the foundation of my Jewish identity is not eating sweet bagels (Want something sweet with a hole in the middle? Get a donut!) or pastrami on white bread with mayonnaise. I’m only half-joking.
Ideally, what will Judaism and Jewish culture look like in 10 years? In 25 years? In 100 years?
Ideally, it will be vibrant, secure in itself, engaged with the outside world, drawing strength from the past but not trapped in it. Judaism will make room for a lot of different ways of being Jewish, while still somehow being recognizably Jewish.
I hope it will have come to terms with intermarriage and made room the children of intermarriage who identify as Jewish – we’re 2 percent of the population and we don’t live in ghettos, so intermarriage is here to stay. I think this will mean that Jewishness will be less ethnically based, and I think I ought to be okay with that, but I feel conflicted about it, even though my own son is only one-quarter Jewish by ethnicity.
June 16, 2009 at 12:46 am
JB: fair enough. : )
June 16, 2009 at 12:50 am
Chingona, thank you for sharing! I really appreciated everything you said. (I know I sound like cheerleader throughout this thread, but it’s entirely sincere.)
I’m a bit of an odd duck in that I’m an atheist who finds a lot of meaning in ritual. It gives me a way to express gratitude and humility, a way to connect with tradition. The more I go into it, the less I’m sure atheist is really the right word for what I am. A lot of what you described as your idea of God are the ideas for which I think of God as a shorthand, if that makes any sense.
It makes a lot of sense. Your experience sounds really similar to mine. Some time ago I was bouncing between being an atheist and agnostic intellectually, but that framework had no room for these incredibly profound experiences I was having via Judaism. I eventually made a conscious choice to “believe in God” — though that’s bad framing, because in this case I think of “believe” as an action one can voluntarily perform more than I think of it in the literal sense. I’ve found this to be a much better existential fit for me, and to be a more accurate expression of my experiences. Virtually everyone I know is an atheist, so I have no idea how typical my experience is. But basically I feel like the atheist vs. believer framing is often just beside the point, at least for Jews. (As I’ve written.)
I need to go to bed now, but I will respond to more of your comment tomorrow! : )
June 16, 2009 at 9:51 am
Virtually everyone I know is an atheist, so I have no idea how typical my experience is. But basically I feel like the atheist vs. believer framing is often just beside the point, at least for Jews. (As I’ve written.)
This is tying your linked post there back to this post. I think you’re absolutely right that Judaism values correct action over correct belief, but looking both at older texts (think Maimonides – I believe with perfect faith … etc.) and the way people who are Orthodox talk about God, I think there is a fairly strong tradition of valuing belief and having a relationship with a personal God. I wonder to what extent more liberal, skeptically minded people (like you and me, perhaps) have downplayed this question of belief to allow ourselves to continue to be Jewish.
I think sometimes that if I had grown up Protestant, I would be the kind of nonbeliever who eschews all religious practice, but if I had grown up Catholic, I’d have a similar relationship to Catholicism as I do to Judaism (though lack of a hierarchy to contend with definitely helps in having a progressive Judaism).
(And I appreciate you saying you appreciate the comments because I feel a bit self-consciously self-important posting two monster comments like that.)
June 16, 2009 at 10:32 am
I think you’re absolutely right that Judaism values correct action over correct belief, but looking both at older texts (think Maimonides – I believe with perfect faith … etc.) and the way people who are Orthodox talk about God, I think there is a fairly strong tradition of valuing belief and having a relationship with a personal God. I wonder to what extent more liberal, skeptically minded people (like you and me, perhaps) have downplayed this question of belief to allow ourselves to continue to be Jewish.
There is a fairly strong tradition, but I think that, even in Orthodoxy, it’s a significantly less central question than it is in Protestantism, where (from an outsider’s perspective) it seems like “do you believe” is frequently the only question. You certainly may be right that liberal Jews have further downplayed it, though. Then again, of course, liberal Judaism is the Judaism I (we) inherited — it had been downplayed before we got here.
I think sometimes that if I had grown up Protestant, I would be the kind of nonbeliever who eschews all religious practice, but if I had grown up Catholic, I’d have a similar relationship to Catholicism as I do to Judaism (though lack of a hierarchy to contend with definitely helps in having a progressive Judaism).
I totally hear this. My dad’s half of my family is Catholic, and I grew up around a lot of Catholics living in the Southwest — I’ve thought a lot about the similarities between Catholicism (at the average observer’s level) and Judaism, as contrasted to Protestantism. Both Irish Catholic and Hispanic Catholic culture have always struck me as very similar to Jewish culture. So much food, so much guilt.
(And I appreciate you saying you appreciate the comments because I feel a bit self-consciously self-important posting two monster comments like that.)
Hey, I’m the one who solicited monster comments! I’m delighted to receive them. : )
June 16, 2009 at 10:59 am
Every culture and religion represent unique ways of looking at and engaging with the world. If Judaism goes away, an entire civilization is lost. But it has to be meaningful and relevant to people. There’s no point in preserving it as a museum piece.
Amen!
Because of my upbringing, I feel like I’m more knowledgeable about Judaism in theory than in practice. I feel at home in Jewish ideas and Jewish thought. I feel like an outsider in my ignorance of ritual practice and in not reading Hebrew.
I’ve felt like an outsider, too, mostly because the American Jews were so different from family — they were fully assimilated, they didn’t have a personal connection to the Holocaust, and as a nerdy queer I couldn’t fit into the preppy temple culture…
But reading these comments, and talking to my friends, I wonder: is there anyone who doesn’t feel like an outsider?
I hope it will have come to terms with intermarriage and made room the children of intermarriage who identify as Jewish – we’re 2 percent of the population and we don’t live in ghettos, so intermarriage is here to stay. I think this will mean that Jewishness will be less ethnically based, and I think I ought to be okay with that, but I feel conflicted about it, even though my own son is only one-quarter Jewish by ethnicity.
My stance (and I say this as someone who lives with her goyishe girlfriend) is that Judaism should be completely welcoming to families who commit themselves to raising Jewish children and making a Jewish home, even when one parent isn’t Jewish. Intermarriage is, indeed, going to happen — and we either lose those families and their kids forever (which would be a tragedy), or we figure out a way to welcome them.
June 16, 2009 at 3:08 pm
My stance (and I say this as someone who lives with her goyishe girlfriend) is that Judaism should be completely welcoming to families who commit themselves to raising Jewish children and making a Jewish home, even when one parent isn’t Jewish. Intermarriage is, indeed, going to happen — and we either lose those families and their kids forever (which would be a tragedy), or we figure out a way to welcome them.
As someone whose mother is a non-Orthodox convert (whose conversion would be challenged based on how we were raised), who has non-Jewish relatives and who is intermarried myself, I completely agree.
My only little bit of wistfulness is wondering whether some of the aspects of Jewish culture I recognize (like having strong opinions about bagels) will even exist in another generation or two. Kind of ties back into my uncertainty about what a secular Jewish culture would look like in this country. But really, that was probably going to happen anyway, as we get further away from our immigrant past. Those Jewish identities were a product of their time and place – a way of being Jewish in Eastern Europe (in my case) that had a lot of elements of Eastern European culture, refracted through a Jewish lens – and so our American Jewish culture, will be very American, but refracted through a Jewish lens. There was Judaism and Jews before bagels, and there will be Judaism and Jews after bagels (and there has been Judaism and Jews without bagels ever).
June 16, 2009 at 3:09 pm
And I had never popped over here before David linked this post. I like your blog and the way you write and think about things. I probably won’t comment too much on the gender posts, but I’m enjoying reading them.
June 17, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I totally relate to your wistfulness about Jewish ethnicity and culture. But I agree that those sorts of shifts are inevitable. I think the solution is to participate in the creation of a new Jewish American culture, which incorporates elements of the Eastern European culture with wholly new components.
And, I’m really glad you enjoy the blog! I hope you’ll stick around. : )
July 15, 2009 at 10:45 am
[...] post is up at Feministe! I’m not cross-posting it here, since it’s just an expansion of this post. If you didn’t participate in that conversation, or if you have more to say, or if you just [...]
July 16, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I like the idea of a Rabbi as someone who performs community service. I remember when I was 11 and very depressed and my mom took me to see the Rabbi for advice, he recommended watching “The Frisco Kid” and some other comedies to cheer me up. I like the fact that there is little to no talk of what happens when we die. I like the idea that we do what is right not for a reward, but because it is the right thing to do. I like that we’re expected to decide what the laws mean every generation. The story of Rabbi Elazar is perhaps my favorite (You can find it perhaps one third of the way down this page http://www.mainemason.org/mlr/rabbiweber.htm). I like that we recognize that there are times the rules must be broken to stay healthy.
I don’t like the idea that women can’t be Rabbis. I don’t appreciate the suggestion that I should only hear a woman sing if I’m married to her (Honestly, it seems like more than half of my favorite vocal artists are female). Things of that sort.
- Why are Judaism and Jewish culture important? Why is it important to preserve them?
I don’t know. I know that I want to preserve it, I don’t want to think of a day that I’ll say that the french call bread pain because they were introduced to matzah first and no one will groan at such an awful joke. But I have no conscious reason for it.
I’m not fully practicing. I do the fast days, I keep peasach, I try not to eat pork or seafood. I rarely go to services though. I keep telling myself that when I’ve settled down I’ll go, that I’m just not in a situation where I’m prepared to join a community yet. Maybe when I get into graduate school. I’ve been going to something at UCSD called “Sushi with Rabbi Jeff”, and that’s been interesting. It’s my first interaction with an orthodox Rabbi.
I do love books. I can’t sell them. When I have more books than I have shelf-room, I find ways to give them away (most recently, I’ve been using book mooch). I also like bagels. I know that when I get married, I’d like a Jewish wedding to a Jewish woman, but if I fall in love with someone who isn’t Jewish and she doesn’t want to convert, I’m not sure if that’s a deal breaker or not. I could possibly convert to agnosticism (and be a Jewish agnostic) or atheism. I wouldn’t, however, give up the fast days.
I like some ideas of reconstruction, and that seems to go in the spirit of the story linked of Rabbi Elazar, that we need to re-interpret the spirit of the law every so often. I’m not involved with any reconstructionist groups that I’m aware of though.
July 16, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Oh, sorry, I posted that here instead of at Feministe because I thought I couldn’t post at Feministe. As it turns out though, it’s Feministing that doesn’t agree with Livejournal and gives me trouble when I try to post. I’ll post in Feministe too.