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.
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.)
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.
the long awaited cat video. Hopefully it's worth the long wait.
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It's an interesting conversation because cultural identity and religious affiliation are separate for me. My parents would have been much happier if I'd married a nice Japanese boy (I told them I'd have been happy to marry a nice Japanese boy, but I'd never met a Japanese boy who wasn't my cousin, what with the whole growing up in small-town Ohio and all.) but that was strictly cultural identity, and not religious (my mom grew up Buddhist, but my dad grew up Christian).
But I won't pretend that it hasn't figured in our current conversation about whether or not to have kids. My sister has lovely half-Japanese half-Caucasian kids. Who were raised in Africa and speak French and Toma. Who knows what their cultural identity is. If we do have kids, it will be strange to me because they will have a completely different experience with their ethnic background and cultural identity than I did, and I'm not altogether sure what the best method guiding them in that area would be.
Why am I earwormed with "The Battle of New Orleans"?
I think that, especially growing up around NYC, Judaism as both religion and cultural identity doesn't seem weird to me at all. I once totally confused someone at college who asked me about the ethnic makeup of the town where I grew up, and I replied something like, "Well, of the kids in school, I'd say about 25% Irish, 30% Italian, maybe 10% other sorts of Catholics, 25% WASP, 5% Jewish, and most of the rest Asian." Apparently most of the rest of the country would classify that as "About 95% white," but that was definitely how we all thought about it.
