Thank you, Ginger!!!
This just in, from a blogger, via the JewishyIrishy comment boxes:
I've been reading up on Judaism, and asked Seth to take me to a Shabbat service, but I'd probably be a lot less interested if the goal were conversion. As an ex-Catholic atheist I'm allergic to forced religion. Thus far, I've gotten a very warm feeling from my explorations, because it's a choice, and because I'm finding it much more amenable to my sense of the world than Christianity ever was.
Exactly! The idea of setting forth a "goal" for our intermarried non-Jewish partners might kill the very organic way our partners often come to love and understand the tradition. The more evangelical we get, the likelier we are to push them away from us. There's a reason that many of them abandoned their own faiiths, you know... I'd like to think we can show them how smart, open, and amazing Judaism is... attractive on many level based in CONTENT!
The night I realized this... was the night my husband handed me my own copy of "As a Driven Leaf" (which I'd never gotten around to reading) and suggested that he really thought I'd like it. The night he tackled Alter's new translation of the Torah I said to myself, "What does it matter if he converts? I'm not Kosher either, by a lot of people's standards." The day he physically held me up, wearing a NYYankees yarmulke, while the Mohel sliced my son in the livingroom... I loved him like never before, and forgave him for that whole Yankees thing.
In other news, SLUT for FAITH has been reprinted for Valentines Day, over at SoMa Review... If you don't know SoMa, you REALLY should...John Spalding is a rockstar.
I've been reading up on Judaism, and asked Seth to take me to a Shabbat service, but I'd probably be a lot less interested if the goal were conversion. As an ex-Catholic atheist I'm allergic to forced religion. Thus far, I've gotten a very warm feeling from my explorations, because it's a choice, and because I'm finding it much more amenable to my sense of the world than Christianity ever was.
Exactly! The idea of setting forth a "goal" for our intermarried non-Jewish partners might kill the very organic way our partners often come to love and understand the tradition. The more evangelical we get, the likelier we are to push them away from us. There's a reason that many of them abandoned their own faiiths, you know... I'd like to think we can show them how smart, open, and amazing Judaism is... attractive on many level based in CONTENT!
The night I realized this... was the night my husband handed me my own copy of "As a Driven Leaf" (which I'd never gotten around to reading) and suggested that he really thought I'd like it. The night he tackled Alter's new translation of the Torah I said to myself, "What does it matter if he converts? I'm not Kosher either, by a lot of people's standards." The day he physically held me up, wearing a NYYankees yarmulke, while the Mohel sliced my son in the livingroom... I loved him like never before, and forgave him for that whole Yankees thing.
In other news, SLUT for FAITH has been reprinted for Valentines Day, over at SoMa Review... If you don't know SoMa, you REALLY should...John Spalding is a rockstar.
2 Comments:
i meandered over here via booklust, and glad i did. as the child of a Mixed-Non-mixed marriage (mom coverted; grandma was Methodist, grandfather Orthodox Jew), this is facinating stuff for me, and, as a participant in a mixed-mixed-mixed marriage, a great read. my mother had a less-than-terriffic conversion experience...
Laurel, I like your passion and idealism about Judaism, but I think Judaism is more complex than simply saying everyone should just convert if they feel like it or just lived in an intermarriage, no big deal.
I am a convert to Judaism who grew up with a Japanese father and a Irish Catholic mother, so I know all about letting things work themselves out. But, as I live more and more as a Jew, I can see what born Jews deal with everyday and the struggles they face against assimilation and intermarriage.
I think Judaism is for everybody who wants to be Jewish, I just think that we can't pick and choose because then it is just like anything else, a fleeting involvement and then on to something else. anyway, shalom
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