Jewish Intermarriage

I think the title is stark. I wanted something more provocative, as if the title weren't provocative enough. Or bleak. Or a dirty pairing of words.

Halachah (Jewish religious law) dictates that one Jew can only marry another Jew, and only if both Jews are halachically legitimate. This means that, in one interpretation, most Orthodox Jews cannot marry a non-Orthodox convert, because O rabbis do not recognise the legitimacy of non-O rabbis. A halachically legitimate Jew is one who was born to a Jewish mother, and also means an Orthodox Jewish convert; yet it also means a Conservative convert, yet one who would not be recognised by most of Orthodoxy (thanks to their rabbis); while a Reform convert, usually would not be recognised by the other two movements. Marriage and conversion seem to be seminal signposts for Jewish identity and "survival".

Where faith and religion fit, is another question. Amazing, if you think about it, since Jewishness is based on Torah, which sounds a wee leetle bit, like a religious thing. And yet, it seems that often, the idea of religion takes a back seat to bigotry (via Jewlicious). Or perhaps devotion to a Jewish G-d doesn't matter, as much as your pedigree.

I think that this is the dilemma. There are Jews who just want to ensure the survival of the Jewish people. And there are Jews who want to connect "religiously". And there are Jews who just want to connect religiously. Of course, there are always the Jews who don't want to connect on any terms but their own.

Regarding, "religiosity". The former want to connect with the rules, and the latter want to connect with faith, where belief is integral.

I place myself in the latter category. I keep wondering, what would it take, for a man to attract me? A beshert. A friend. Would it suffice, if he were a dyed in the wool, got the papers, Jew, who never or infrequently goes to shul and rarely gives tzedakah? And even if he did, would that be enough? What about the Jew who doesn't care about shul but gives generously to the community? What about the Jew who does not see his Jewishness as more than a nonsensical, huh?...label?

As a female, I am privileged because my babes would be Jewish (for argument's sake). Actually, I am waiting for the day that the Conservative movement finds a halachic interpretation that renders all Jewish males, Jewish progenitors. Meanwhile...

I was thinking about my closest friend, L. She is not Jewish. I think she has a Buddhist soul.

When I roomed with her, given that the space was hers, this is what happened, with her blessing: I slapped a mezuzah on the doorway; there was Jewish art on the wall; my rather copious set of Jewish books resided on a living room cabinet. I brought in people who needed a place to rest for Yom Kippur during the break. She knew where I went and what I did, Jewishly, and we talked about it. She attended shiurim (classes) along with me, as well as community dinners. She was at my Beit Din, and she watched me dance with the Torah.

I lit Shabbat candles, and she chanted the English. We went to synagogue together on many Friday nights. She didn't attend on Saturdays but she drove me to morning minyan, waking at 6 am to do it, an awakening that normally would kill her. On the festivals, she was there to witness the blessings. She recognised the importance. I remember Chanukah especially, because we would say the blessings and watch the candles flame in the face of the Christmas lights over there. She kept my dessicated lulav and etrog, and the case I carried the former in.

She watched me chant Torah for the very first time. She read the prayers for my mikvah immersions to help in healing me from terrible trauma. She placed her hand on the sofer's hand in beginning the scribing of a new Torah scroll. What a cool moment!!! She bought me the most gorgeous tallit for my birthday.

When we speak about my personal issues, she is the one who puts a Jewish spin on it, and sometimes it irks me to hell. For many Shabbats, we sat on the balcony reading Torah-like stuff. She drove me to all J events. She made sure I was there on time. She joined me in some. When I needed to do chesed, she helped me. At temple, L was considered a part of it all. More than one person came up to her and asked her why she didn't convert to Judaism, cause they thought of her as so much a Jew.

Okay, a religious Jew, but clearly not in the halachic DNA. It was more than just love. She was interested, involved. It all did something for her. It mattered.

Yet I can marry a born Jew, who couldn't give a flying leap about being Jewish, or the guy who doesn't even know what it means to be a Jew (and I have met them). And I can convert according to the religious aspect and marry a Jew who couldn't care less about the religious aspect and Torah and no one has to know, and some who couldn't care less about Jewish survival. Or I can meet the Jew who loves Torah and Judaism for its own sake, as I do. I figure that's pretty rare.

I can be blessed with the likes of my beloved friend, L, who understands and somehow is involved. It reminds me of X, who was married to A for several years before he was moved to convert. What helped convert him? A man who now is a dynamic force in the synagogue, bringing Jews closer to the Torah? His daughter, who was raised Jewishly, fiercely so, and whom he later marked as an impetus for his conversion- "when I look at you I know there is a G-d".

So, what does it come down to? The halachic Jew, from no matter what stream, who meets the criteria, or the person of faithfulness and understanding- I know it sounds so Christian. I also do know that, Z, and her husband Anth, also embody that anomalous mix, just like L and me. Ask her: Matzah and Marinara.

Bottom line, I find myself saying, I would take the person of faithfulness who can relate. Period. Because some people are more Torah-like in their living than born Jews, even "religious" Jews. And, yeah, that does matter.

The Duck Days of Summer

Today I Am a Duck


© Barefoot Jewess

Dancing in the Dust

One year, during the dog days of summer, helicopters circled, flags undulated and tefillin straps sashayed, dry trees rustled, huge speakers blasted out the music from a little booth. The music was a compilation of Middle Eastern dance tunes, called Middle East Grooves*, sung largely in Hebrew with a smattering of Spanish and rap and who knows what else, thrown into the mix. I bought the CD at the Israel Independence Day Festival in Los Angeles. You can't listen to this music without rising from your waking sleep and taking a spin. Even if you are by yourself in a small, cluttered room somewhere in the soggy Diaspora. I especially love a rockin' multilingual fusion cover of The Animals' Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood**.

I remember that festival well. That one year, we were 50,000 strong and there was almost no write up about it in the LA papers. You have to be there to appreciate the intense liveliness of the gathering. Firstly, how often do we in the Diaspora get to experience such a massive number of the tribe all in one place doing our Jewish thing? Out of the masses, this little booth was manned by a few young men, browned and gleaming from the sun, who would take turns dancing in the dust. Dancing for their lives. Once in a while others would shyly join in. The beat was contagious for those few hardy souls who would twirl and dip and sweat some more and for the rest of us standing, mesmerised, just sweating.

It was difficult to leave, hard to tear my eyes away from the fire, the energy, the life inside this dirtbowl. It's like being at the ocean and watching the light play over the waves, and the endless surf rushing in, infinite and varied, the mercurial changeableness of its colour riding the waves,and somehow you cannot break away from it. Meanwhile, over in the distance, a green oasis- in the welcome shade of some trees, people danced the hora, ever so lightly, barefoot. No matter where you stood, you couldn't help but glow, couldn't help but sweat, and swallow gallons of sweet water, even the recently introduced magical-Kabbalah-water which, at that time, the Kabbalah Centre acolytes were handing out freely and generously. Or the bottles of water handed out anonymously by Messianic "Jews" before the gates, while we snaked along in ribbons of waiting, our throats parched. All the while flags fluttered and snapped in the breeze and helicopters circled beating the air with their wings.

I remember how amazed I was by my first experience of the Galilee in Israel. It was so lush, so impossibly green, so fertile- black soil, verdant hills, and cows (photo)! More than a gentle, pastoral land, it positively raged with life. My ignorance of Israel was monumental (still is)- I expected desert everywhere. On our return from the charcoal iron plains (photo) in the Golan Heights we stopped at a kibbutz where once again we were being shepherded in to view one of a seemingly endless stream of films- this one about the human legacy of the wars. But before that we lingered in the shop which served up food, drinks, and souvenirs. I was getting desperate to buy something . I hate dwelling on the politics and war- I don't deal well with any of it. I found myself a soft, green, hooded IDF sweatshirt; this was the first time that I noticed the emblem: a sword entwined with an olive branch. I wear it proudly.

I was the last person left at the shop, deliberately straggling, and the fellow at the counter indicated that I follow the rest to see the movie. I refused, saying I could not do it. That I could not watch. He quietly placed his hand on the counter and gestured side by side, saying in broken, accented English, that Israel is both things, the beautiful, yes, but you cannot dismiss the terrible. For Israel, they go together. That Israel cannot have one without the other. I could only agree with him. He saw the truth of it.

I remember the very first Jewish festival I attended, a couple of years before. It was held on a college campus in the San Fernando Valley. It was relatively small in size, with the requisite little booths from synagogues and lots of brochures, and enough food and music to satiate the belly and the soul. Neshama Carlebach was playing that year. My friend and I sat way up on the hill, under the feeble shade of some palm trees and watched and listened. The heat was intense, the earth was bone dry. I really didn't know who Neshama Carlebach was, and it was the first time that I heard Am Yisrael Chai.

Soon, a hora line magically appeared down below, increasing dancer by dancer, then, spiralling inwards. The music was slow, hypnotic, almost hushed, and kept building and building. Am Yisrael Chai repeated over and over again. Until the music and the movement turned to fire, until, dead centre in a wheel of people, a huge blue and white Israeli flag ballooned out above the crowd, floating and fluttering. Several dancers had also covered themselves with flags, like a tallit, like capes that supermen and wonderwomen wear. They danced and they danced on the parched ground, like dervishes, like I imagine David danced, until human and flag dissolved into each other. And there was a moment, in watching them and a sea of Jews, when all sense of place and time became lost, a blur, and I was there with them, everything was one- and we were dancing at Sinai, proud, ecstatic, joyous, unquenchable, Am Yisrael, and it was a moment when I knew exactly why I had become a Jew.



*Described as "The Best of Israeli, Moroccan & Middle Eastern Music". None of the music is labelled.

**I tracked down the unusual cover to a group called, Alabina; the track is called "Lolole".

Coming soon: Dancing in the Dust II- The Word Jews Toss Around Promiscuously. (I figure if I announce it, then I will have to make it so.)

More Jewish

Yes,... your lifestyle may be more Jewish than most, maybe even more Jewish than mine, but so what? It’s Conservative and its just not something I believe in. I concede that you may be closer to G*d than me, you may be more spiritual, you may be a better person but I do not accept the authority of your Rabbis, just as you chose not to accept the authority of mine.

I appreciate bald statements. This reply is from ck over at Jewlicious, #389. I can't think of a worthy comment except to think that this is bigoted.

Simple Offerings

My best friend L emailed me today with something that stumped her. It was more of a wondering. She wondered why Ms E, who is 98 years old, did not phone her when she needed a ride to go shopping. L has stressed that Ms E feel free to phone her; my friend is the most naturally kind person I know.

Ms E has to be the coolest chick around. She had 3 husbands, of which the third turned out to be the love of her life; she also inherited his children. He was not Jewish but the children's mother was. Ms E's grandfather was a rabbi. His son, her father, was a socialist and an atheist. So was Ms E.

Ms E had a career in journalism. That is amazing, for a woman in the early days of the twentieth century. She often supported herself and her husbands. I like to ask people who have been on this planet much longer than I for words of wisdom. She reminded me of the Serenity prayer which asks G-d to grant us the wisdom to accept the things one cannot change, change the things one can, and the wisdom to know the difference. She said whoever wrote it forgot another line: to not accept anything unacceptable.

She told me that at one time, she was felled by bouts of ulcerative colitis. She got rid of husband number 2 and the colitis went away. My ears pricked up at that. I don't think that it was a miracle; but I think that she was wise. And that she is right about that prayer.

Every year, we gather to celebrate her birthday. We go to some steak house, and she orders a fancy drink and a nice slab of meat, which she finishes. Nowadays, it's a triumphant and defiant and hopeful countdown, like the ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve. She wants to make it to 100, fiercely. She walks with a cane, and she continues to live in her own house. She is one of G-d's great moments. Not only because she lives and continues to thrive, but because she relishes life, and is curious about people, still. Me, I'm thinking I might get jaded by that age.

She doesn't dwell on her Jewishness, though she is proud when presented with it. My friend gave her the book, The Gifts of the Jews for Chanukkah, and she loved it; for her, the accounting is like a curious historical artefact . Being Jewish is largely a label to her, a heritage, less important than her socialist leanings. When she dies, she is perfectly content to return to the earth. She does not believe in a soul and she does not care. She gives a whole new meaning to acceptance and faith.

It turns out that the reason she did not phone L about shopping was that she didn't want to "put her out". I know how she feels. I used to get a ride to services (which otherwise takes me almost 1 1/2 hours in travel time one way, 2 hours return)but then I stopped going for a while. Each time, I would have to phone and ask these people for a ride. In all the time I have been away they have not phoned me nor inquired why I was not going to services, etc. To give them their due, it is not as if they are obligated, anyway; and they have been kind. But for me, it becomes awkward.

I have a friend who, before she was my friend, used to offer me a ride all the time when I was sojourning in Los Angeles. She even stopped her car while I was walking, to offer me a ride. I rarely took her up on it, but in the meantime, she took on the image of someone I could depend on. I learned from her, and from the incident with L and Ms E, that the most important thing in doing chesed (deeds of lovingkindness) is to be sensitive to the needs of others, to scope out that need all the time, like radar, and to offer, offer, offer, so extravagantly, to the point of annoyance. And believe me when I say that my lala friend got annoying.

People say Judaism is so complicated. No, it is quite simple. Like my dear and wise Ms E, it does not accept the unacceptable.