I was listening to comedian Mark Maron speak to writer and comedian Carol Leifer on Maron’s popular podcast WTF. He was asking about what it was like to come out of the closet to her parents after years of being married to a man and living a heterosexual lifestyle.
Leifer described her parents as surprisingly supportive and happy that their daughter had found a woman to love.
“So you’re not disappointed in me?” she asked.
“We were disappointed in you when you married that Gentile,” Leifer’s father said. “Not now.”
Leifer went on to explain that the fact that her girlfriend was Jewish actually made the situation more palatable to her parents. It turns out that as long as she was marrying a Jew, it didn’t matter if it was a woman or a man.
Maron, also Jewish, laughed, and when I’ve mentioned this exchange to others since then, they have laughed as well.
I did not think it was funny.
Being married to a Jewish woman and not being Jewish myself, I did not find any amusement in this story.
It’s a story I live with constantly, and it never gets funny.
A few weeks ago, Elysha, Clara and were visiting a local Jewish Community Center with a friend to let the kids play on the indoor playscape. I sat down on a bench beside two older men waiting to play racquetball. One of the men was talking about how annoyed he has been with his daughter for marrying outside the faith. The other man said, “My daughter did the same thing. Eventually you accept it. You never love it, but it won’t always bother you as much as it does today.”
Later on, I met a woman responsible for arranging cultural events for the community center. We began talking, and the fact that I am an author came up. She mentioned that she might like to have me speak to the community center’s members sometime.
“Are you a member of the JCC or thinking of joining?”
Another woman said, “Oh, Matt isn’t Jewish. His wife is.”
“Oh,” the first woman said, and the conversation fizzled out.
Later my wife asked what I thought of the JCC and wondered if I would ever want to become a member. I told her that while I thought the place was great, I didn’t think that I could ever feel completely comfortable there and explained why.
To her credit, she understood completely.
It’s a difficult space in which to live, married to a Jewish woman but not being Jewish myself, and the difficulty exists only because of the Jewish demand to marry within the faith. It creates a situation in which I often feel not only like the outsider but also the interloper, and it leaves me wondering where I stand in people’s minds.
Take my wife’s family for example. Elysha’s parents, sister, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandmother have embraced me like one of their own, and I’m so grateful to them for their love and generosity. Her immediate family in particular have made me feel at home in a way that no other family ever has.
I love them all dearly.
And yet in the back of my mind lingers this thought:
Certain members of Elysha’s family, like many Jews, would never have considered marrying outside the faith, and therefore none of them would have ever considered me marriage material for themselves or their children.
Had it not been for Elysha, my membership in their family would have been unthinkable for some.
Had they or their children been looking for a suitable spouse I would have never been considered.
Here’s a good way to think about it:
It’s socially acceptable, culturally expected and commonplace for Jewish parents to impose the expectation that their children will marry within the Jewish faith. It is a belief that is publicly articulated, and to do otherwise in some families can damage the family beyond repair. Some Jewish parents have gone so far as to disown their children and mourn them as if they had died.
It’s something that Mark Maron and Carol Leifer can laugh about despite the unfortunate truth behind this belief.
But what if we replace the word Jewish with black or Hispanic?
What if Leifer’s parents had said that they were disappointed in her for marrying a black man?
Would she have been so willing to tell that story on the podcast?
Would it have been as amusing?
I don’t think so.
What if the man outside the racquetball court had been upset because his daughter had married a Puerto Rican?
Would he have been so willing to share this disappointment with a stranger sitting next to him?
I suspect not.
And what if Elysha called her family tomorrow and said that after much deliberation and conversation with me, she has decided to forgo Judaism in favor or another religion or no religion at all?
While Elysha’s family is one of the most understanding and accepting of Jewish families, I suspect that this news would not go over well with all parties.
At least at first.
I suspect it could be a source of disappointment and even anger for some.
But what if Elysha called her family tomorrow and told them that I had decided to convert to Judaism.
I suspect this news would go over quite well.
This dichotomy never entirely leaves me.
When I hear people like Maron and Leifer joking about these issues on a podcast or a man openly expressing these beliefs while sitting beside me in a community center, it makes me feel like an interloper again.
While other religions place similar expectations on their children, the Jewish expectation to marry within the faith is especially strong. When we were engaged to be married, Elysha would come home at least once every couple weeks and tell me about the code that Jews use to determine if I was Jewish.
“What’s his last name?”
Sadly, had my last name been Dickstein instead of Dicks, our pending nuptials would have been received with considerably greater joy by some.
It’s the difference between tolerance and acceptance.
This feels like 99% acceptance.
“You can marry Elysha, but someone of similar beliefs could never marry one of my children.”
“You don’t have to be Jewish, but your wife and children had better be stay Jewish.”
As unfortunate as the sentiment is, it makes me feel lucky, because Elysha’s parents and family are outliers when it comes to their acceptance of me. Elysha’s parents embraced me immediately, without question or reservation.
I know Jewish parents who would make their child’s life hell of he or she chose to marry outside the faith, which I find amazing.
Imagine the audacity and selfishness required for parents to believe that they have the right to screen out potential spousal candidates based upon religious beliefs.
In today’s world of interracial and homosexual marriages, it’s almost medieval.
My hope is that with time, the Jewish community at large will become more accepting of interfaith marriages and make us less-Chosen people feel more genuinely welcome.
Making me good enough for Elysha but never for their own daughter is an unfortunate quality that the world could do without.
Wow- I loved this. First,because of the novel I’m writing (you know, the one whose query letter you and your wife, Elysha, argued about…What? You don’t remember??) Second, because I’m an Episcopalian married to a Jewish man. My husband actually takes communion with the rest of us Episcopalians, out priest is great and tells my husband that’s between him and God-I go to his synagogue and do leave my cross on (Jesus was Jewish after all). No snarky comments yet, but when the congregation found out I wasn’t Jewish, there was a shift in the way we were treated. Especially by the women for some reason! Third, I’d love to hear your wife’s opionion on inter-faith marriage; sometimes I think my character is making too much of it. And last, just because it was really well written!
My parents are holocaust survivors and I myself was born in an American Refugee Camp in Berlin right after the war.
2 of my kids have married lovely non-Jews, but will remain Jewish themselves and raise their children as Jews.
This is important to me and others like me not because I think we’re better in any way; it’s important to me — and to many other Jews — because I don’t want to do for Hitler what he couldn’t do himself: that is, I don’t want to have the Jews disappear.
The Christian world is very seductive — who among us is not jealous at Christmas! — but each of us knows someone who’s died just because of the “Jewish” label, and we need to keep ourselves vibrantly Jewish in their memory….
While I certainly understand the importance of ensuring that the Jewish culture remain alive and vibrant, I firmly believe that it is an individual’s right to choose his or her own path. We are given but one life on this planet, and personal freedom and choice must be prized above all else.
Happiness, truth and love are the essential qualities of life. None of these can exist if a child is not permitted to find his or her own way. None of these can exist if a child lives his or her life by the prescriptions and demands of others.
If a child grows up and chooses a path not previously envisioned by his or her parents, I believe this path should be honored and respected. Religion is a personal belief, not passed down by DNA or familial pressure but through study and introspection.
The threat of disowning a child or making his or her life exceedingly difficult, which are tactics used by parents of many religions in order to ensure conformity, are not honest nor just means of ensuring the survival of a people. these are merely the embodiment of the imbalance of power between two parties.
In the end, I want my child to know that her choices are not dictated by what is important to me or anyone else, but by what is important to her.
It is her life. Not mine.
Only then will I know that she can be happy.
I think I have to disagree with the way you stated your term substitution. Like with the raquetball folks, they stated that they had a hard job accepting their daughters had married non-jews. To make a parallel, your substitutiion would need to be that two black rauqetball players (and here i am making an assumption that they were not black) stated that they were disappointed their daughter didn’t marry black. The distinction is critical, as one is an inclusion, the other an exclusion. I’m not saying it is right, but rather pointing out that yes indeed, it would be harder to accept someone saying that that they specifically exclude you, rather than hearing that they wish not to include anyone who is different from themselves.
A fair point, Marc. Thank you.
I do find your blog to be very intelligent, addictive and incredibly well written. You life-coachee is very lucky.
Thanks, Marc. Very kind of you to say. Happy you enjoy the blog.
I think that real happiness is only possible if one is committed to something beyond merely the pursuit of it. I think that keeping a flame alive in your heart for your people, for your relatives and those who died because of the Jewishness they shared with you. I think that anti-semetism and persecution of Jews is an on-going problem, and I think that a child and eventually adult who may, indeed, suffer from it, should at least have an understanding and feel a link to her people. I think this does not take any choices away from such a child — in this case, Clara — but instead, strengthens her. Paul Newman who was half Jewish said that he considers himself Jewish “because it’s harder.” Harder is strengthening. Being different — which Jews are, especially at Christmas — is strengthening. So many young adults want to be the same as everyone else, and that can be dangerous. Jewish kids know that they’re not the same, and the knowledge and acceptance and pride in this can make them stronger and safer. And happier.
Maybe they just didn’t want their daughter named Dicks?
That was indeed snarky.
You correctly point out that (probably) all one-faith families would like their children to marry within the same faith, as well as marry within the same ethnicity or race. This is human nature. So Jewish people — I am Jewish — feel more strongly about it. Big deal. Wouldn’t you too, if you consider that Jewish people make up 13-14 million in population around the world (depending on your definition of ‘who is Jewish’), out of nearly 7 billion people??? Would you be any different if one of your children married ‘differently’? If your son or daughter married a Buddist, or an African American, I am sure you would embrace them, but the intended would feel just like you anyway, ie., like an interloper. This is just human nature.
Most of my family died in concentration camps. As they were being deported, their lifelong neighbors stood outside their houses and screamed, cursed, thew garbage at them and, not long after they were interned, these neighbors looted and occupied their homes. Jews had lived in Germany continuously for 800 years before Hitler. So I think that for some the desire to marry Jewish comes not only from a place of wanting to continue the faith but also the fear that assimilation is temporary. Malcolm X had a great quote about this. He said
“He had made greater contributions to Germany than Germans themselves had. Jews had won over half of Germany’s Nobel
Prizes. Every culture in Germany was led by Jews; he published the greatest poets, composers, and stage directors. But those Jews made a fatal mistake — assimilating.
From World War I to Hitler’s rise, the Jews in Germany had been increasingly intermarrying. Many changed their names and
many took other religions. Their own Jewish religion, their own rich Jewish ethnic and cultural roots, they anesthetized, and
cut off… until they began thinking of themselves as “Germans.”
And the next thing they knew, there was Hitler, rising to power over the beer halls — with his emotional “Aryan master race” theory. And right at hand for a scapegoat was the self-weakened, self-deluded “German” Jew. Most mysterious is how did
these Jews — with all their brilliant minds, with all of their power in every aspect of Germany’s affairs — how did those Jews
stand almost as if mesmerized, watching something which did not spring upon them overnight, but which was gradually
developed — a monstrous plan for their own murder. Their self-brainwashing had been so complete that not long after, in the
gas chambers, a lot of them were still gasping, “It can’t be true!”
If Hitler had conquered the world, as he meant to — that is a shuddery thought for every Jew alive today. The Jew never will
forget that lesson…
… and then the Jews set up Israel, their own country — the one thing that every race of man in the world respects, and
understands.”
There are some Jews who operate under the assumption that beneath every non-Jew is an anti-Semite. I do not. My grandmother, who survived so much refused to paint with that broad a brush and I won’t either. But I can, to some extent, understand that sentiment. I had a friend in Tennessee- white, blond, blue-eyed and Jewish- who would hear the most appalling things from her social circle because they had no clue that she was Jewish. I knew a guy who would tell me things like” fucking cheap Jew bastards- but not you.”
I don’t know you. I have no judgements about you in any way. But I have been around enough people to know that everyone is very magnanimous until the pressure cooker heats up. Most of the women I have dated were African-American. And part of that, I think, is that they are, as a group, one set of people in America who understand intuitively everything I just wrote.