Feelings about DCs’ non-Jewish partners

[Lentilcakes]

This has just started to crop up in my family. Out of 4 first cousins ranging from 22-30 only one is with a Jewish partner/seeing someone Jewish. And she’s female so any kids would be Jewish anyway.

in my family - out of my parents’ generation it was a similar scenario. Only my mum and my paternal aunt married Jewish men. The men married out so most of my first cousins aren’t Jewish (and the jewish one sadly died).

It looks like my DC will be one of the last Jews from my line. My late cousin had two sons - I’m not really in touch w them now but I don’t think they have children (they’re late 30s/40s). My dad was much younger than his siblings hence the age gap.

What are your thoughts on this scenario? It makes me a bit sad, but my DCs’ happiness is my main concern.

I was the first in the known history of my family to marry out. There definitely was widespread consternation but DH made the commitment to raise our DC Jewish, which we did. But more than that, we lead a Jewish life--practices, rituals, holidays and I describe us as a Jewish family with one non-Jewish member.

Hang in there. Wrap them up in your life as much as you can (and they agree to.)

@SpuytenDuyvil - that’s nice to hear. I think it’s different when the woman is Jewish as then your children are automatically Jewish, but when it’s a son it’s different.i do know a couple of women who converted pre-marriage, but it’s a big ask.

My son has only just started seeing this girl, but we did have a chat and we said in a couple of years, if/when he’s single can he just think about looking for a Jewish partner? At least we’ve planted the seed! He has a mix of friends- most of his ‘home’ friends are Jewish but uni friends aren’t. Now he’s just finished uni so is mixing with them both.

I married a Jewish man who started out life as not-at-all observant Reform. We had a child and now I (and technically DS) are in the process of converting via the Orthodox Beis Din in London: I wear a sheitel, follow tznius, taharas hamishpachat - the works. Even down to the order you cut your fingernails! It’s something we decided as a family post 7/10, but was instigated by me. One of my biggest fears is my son marrying out. Makes me sound like a hypocrite, right? But it’s how I feel. He’s too little to be in that position and when the time comes I hope beyond anything that I will have done enough.

Having written this, I’ve kind of lost the thread of what I was trying to get across. Empathy and solidarity, really.

Edit for typo.

Our DS did marry out. DIL is the most wonderful young woman who comes out of no religious tradition at all (which I find hard to understand.) She is an enthusiastic attendee at holiday dinners and, while I think DS will have to lead their family in the tradition, I think she has a good role model of how to do it in DH. We live in the diaspora. We have to do as much as we can do.

I’m not sure whether this will be helpful or not because I’m not from an observant family. My generation in my family have all married out. They are mostly male and all of their children have wanted to be Jewish and are going through the process even at young ages. My DH isn’t Jewish but very much feels like he’s one of us. I can see him converting one day but that will be up to him. He’s also very happy for our DC to be brought up Jewish.

As the child of someone who married out, I'd say @SpuytenDuyvil is right in that it's about how welcomed the partner is (and how interested they are). I remember being told that marrying out was one of the biggest threats to Jews. It made me feel so disconnected from the person saying it, and really put me off engaging with the group he was leading, even though the whole point was to bring Jews together.

@JemimaPergolaTrout- wow, that really is a big change for you all.
I know converting via the Beis Din is a big deal (both converts I know did) I didn’t know you had to cut fingernails in a certain order.
its very hard to stop the children doing anything. Both mine went to a Jewish secondary, fairly ‘Jewish’ unis, we live in north London so the works! DD is as woke as you can get 🙄, but weirdly quite in to being Jewish (not Israel), and DS is not interested in religion at all but thankfully not ‘woke’ (I think we all know what that means). At least he’s kept up with Jewish school friends so that’s one thing!!

All we can do is do our best. I’m glad you have a lovely DIL. That’s great.

@Diamond82 - I’m not observant but I was brought up that way. I haven’t kept Shabbat since I was 15, but we do the festivals, but kosher meat etc. it’s good the children wanting to be Jewish but it wasn’t like that w my relatives at all. The two cousins I still see don’t have much affiliation but my aunt by marriage (the non-Jew) is very pro-Israel (in Ireland so you can imagine!) and always talking about the dwindling community (my uncle died years ago, sadly).

I would def welcome the partner but in my heart I’d be a bit sad.

I was thinking about this recently. My husband isn't Jewish but the children and I are and we have a Jewish household with a few family traditions of his around Christmas and Easter. The kids are 100% Jewish and my daughter just had a big celebration for her Bat Mitzvah.

We live in Scotland, so there are only a handful of Jewish people anywhere. It would be vanishingly unlikely that either of them would find a Jewish partner unless they move elsewhere. Our community is mostly intermarried families with a variety of ways of navigating through these challenges so they have plenty of models for how it might work.

My husband isn't religious at all (outside an intense love of over-eating around a Christmas tree once a year), but has joined in the traditions with enthusiasm - not the prayers, but he builds our sukkah, makes tzimmis, helps the kids make hamentaschen - anything involving food or physical labour he's all in. We host non-Jewish friends for lots of these thing and it's very much a part of my kids' lives. I can only hope they carry some of this into their adulthood.

I was raised in a conservative Jewish home (in the states) so we kept kosher and went to synagogue every single week for hours and hours and it was the entire framework of our lives. I very much rebelled against that and was distinctly non-practicing for years... until I had my own children and found it was actually important to me to pass some of this down. So things can change a lot in your 20s and 30s. A whole branch of my family disowned me when I married out (was also the first in generations - even including most cousins etc) and I will never do that to my kids. They know they can marry who they like and I will welcome them, and hopefully make the traditions a joyful experience for them as well.

@PurpleThistle7- sounds like you have a great husband there. I was brought up similarly (assume conservative is like United here) - I also went to shul every week, all my friends were Jewish, my school and clubs were Jewish etc). I only had non-Jewish friends from uni onwards! Seems mad now.
Think I was conditioned in to marrying someone Jewish but we haven’t put that big pressure on our DC but they know we’d prefer it esp w DS (being straight and a man!).
We do all the main festivals too but DS in particular isn’t interested in at all - wouldn’t fast on Yom Kippur or keep Pesach out of the house. - even though they’ve both grown up doing so and DS has the most Jewish friends as he’s bothered to keep up friendships from school.
i feel it’s probably more important for you to keep up tradition as you’re living in a non-Jewish part of the uk. Where I am every second house has a mezzuzah so it’s all taken for granted a bit.

@Lentilcakes I grew up a lot like your kids and really pushed back on it. My kids are being raised more secular Jewish as I had to find a way through without making myself uncomfortable.

And you’re totally right - it became super important to me when I found myself raising Jewish kids without any other Jewish people around. I hadn’t quite thought that through before it became relevant. They’re the only Jewish children at both their schools (primary and secondary) and they only know a handful of Jewish families through our liberal synagogue and we aren’t super close with any of them really. So I had to create our own community at home all by myself which has been challenging at times - Judaism is meant to be practiced collectively!

My children - my daughter in particular - are proud to be Jewish and quite open about it, but the last few years have been challenging and my son has really struggled. They’ve both had some bullying at school and it’s been quite hard to keep up the positivity.