I dunno, Hil, I think cultural identity finds a way of replicating itself, but maybe that's the half-Jew in me talking.

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I dunno, Hil, I think cultural identity finds a way of replicating itself, but maybe that's the half-Jew in me talking.

Case in point. My mother married someone who never learned French and she never spoke to me in French growing up. And yet, after a brief stint in business school and investment counsulting, I eventually became a French professor, and now an editor of French books. The blood, she is strong.

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I dunno, Hil, I think cultural identity finds a way of replicating itself, but maybe that's the half-Jew in me talking.

Do you think your kids will identify as Jewish?

(I can't find a way to ask that question that doesn't sound accusatory. But that's totally not how I meant it. Mostly, just curious. Most of my cousins within my generation -- I'm the youngest of my generation, and some of the "my generation" cousins are close to twenty years older than me -- married non-Jews, and only one of them is raising the kids Jewish. The others bring their kids to Grandma's for Passover and Chanukah, but they have Christmas and Easter at home.)

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It's annoying, because I can't even imagine putting myself out there if I was completely against the idea of a relationship. What's the point?

I am Gris and it drives me up a damn wall!

I wanted someone who was madly in love with me for a change. Turns out I'm way happier when I don't have to second guess the relationship.

Agreed. It's just a matter of it being nice to know where things stand.

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Do you think your kids will identify as Jewish?

In some ways I'm a better test case for your point since I was raised by one Jewish parent and one Catholic one, and tend to identify more strongly as culturally Jewish than I do as Catholic. That said, several of my Jewish friends insist I am NOT Jewish, and most of my Catholic friends will point out I'm NOT Catholic either, so consider all labels self-identified. As for how my kids will identify, I don't know, right now they are being raised as I was, without membership in a particular church or temple. But we do celebrate some Jewish traditions as well as Christian ones.

Several of my friends are *more* religious than their parents were. I can see why they wanted to marry Jews. But yeah, I guess I find it confusing that someone who hasn't been to temple or celebrated a seder in years feels compelled to marry a Jew. A preference I can understand, that's more about being with someone who comes from the same background.

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Several of my friends are *more* religious than their parents were. I can see why they wanted to marry Jews. But yeah, I guess I find it confusing that someone who hasn't been to temple or celebrated a seder in years feels compelled to marry a Jew.

Religious observance isn't really a terribly good indication of cultural identification. I know plenty of people who aren't observant at all, but they certain identify as Jewish and want their kids and grandkids and so on to, too. (Actually, from the early 1900s through the 1950s, that would have described a pretty big portion of the Jews in NYC -- from the socialists who held Yom Kippur balls through the people who were just not religious but knew that they were Jewish in the same way that their neighbors were Irish or Italian.)

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Aww Brian and Stewie are at the Art Institute of Chicago. But that Picasso isn't in the same room with that Seurat anymore. Oh duh they're doing Ferris Beuller.

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the long awaited cat video. Hopefully it's worth the long wait. [link]

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yah dat was good.

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whew

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