Photoessay #2831 - Intersection/Intermarriage

I have been writing about all of the intersections in Judaism in my own life that are mentioned in Jonathan Sarna's "American Judaism."

This one's a tricky one....intermarriage

Meaning that Jewish people marry people who are not Jewish.

I did.  All of my siblings and cousins did.

Why?  Just turned out that way.  And, just from a cursory reading, mainly there wasn't much resistance to going either way.

But that does not mean that I married a Christian or that we had any Christian symbols or practices in our home.  We do not have a Jewish-Christian home.  Not at all.  Other than the obligatory but very minimal Christmas gatherings.  My husband does not consider himself a Christian and we consider ourselves to have a Jewish home.  Well not very Jewish.  But definitely NOT Christian.  His parents made some paltry efforts with Baby Jesus children's books and trying to spirit my oldest away to Christmas bell services behind my back.  We stopped all that.

Now, my in-laws loved me, really they did, but they never could figure out why I continued with all that Jewish stuff and my husband went right along with me.

Of course, we went all-out on the mixed race thing with family members (including children) with Korean, Cambodian and Filipino backgrounds.  In fact, it seems that most people I know have a whole bunch of Filipino relatives (including us).

But it's a huge demographic shift.  My genealogical background is not diverse; Ashkenazi Jews all the way with German branch on my mother's side and the Eastern European branch on my father's side.  No French stuff, no African-American, no Native-American.  When I went over the charts with my grandmother if somebody didn't marry a Jew, she just didn't talk about them any more.

When my mother and aunts married, they married Jews.  They didn't necessarily marry for long and the spouses didn't always remain Jews but they started out that way.

But look at the huge shift, everybody on my level on the first cousin level.  All married non-Jews.  My parents didn't object.  I think they would have been happy if we had married Jews.  The identity does disspipate to some extent.

Our wedding did not look like this picture but I thought it was a sweet picture.  From the Mosaic Magazine site.