I will be eating plenty, maybe even bacon (gasp!) and might even commit a sin or two.
But, here is my secret identity: I am half-Jewish.
So, what does that mean?
I have been trying to figure that out my whole life.
My kids are half Korean and this is obvious to the whole world. They can't deny it.
My brother is half Jewish too (duh!) and he has blond hair and blue eyes. He fits right into his adopted Scandinavian homeland. His heritage doesn't make him stand out in any way.
Judaism is a religion, so how can you be half? I don't think I have ever met a person who called themselves "half-Catholic" or "half-Muslim", so how can you be half-Jewish? I have met many, many people who call themselves just that. Is it a race or a religion?
I suppose they talk about the Jewish identity in Temple, but I wouldn't know, because I don't go to Temple. Are you allowed to call yourself Jewish if you don't go to Temple?
I know people who grew up Christian, married someone Jewish, and converted. Now they celebrate the Jewish holidays, study the Torah, and have banished the Christmas tree from their homes. They are considered, by some standards, to be Jewish.
I am married to an Asian. I can cook a mean Kimchi Jiggae. I have celebrated Chusuk and the Lunar New Year. I have worn a Hanbok. But no one would ever consider me Asian. "Honorasian" is the best I will ever do.
I suppose it would be easier if all Jews came from one place, like Israel. Then, I could say I was half-Israeli. It would separate the "people" from the religion. However, my family came from Hungary and Austria, so it would also be a lie.
I grew up with a Jewish grandmother (although she was, strangely, kind of anti-Semitic), and a Jewish mother. I love bagels, lox, gefilte fish, matzoh, matzoh ball soup, latkes and noodle kugel. I have celebrated Chanukkah and Passover. I utter familiar yiddish phrases like "Oy!" and "Vey!" Do I qualify?
I can't read Hebrew. I never had a Bat Mitzvah (although I do know the difference between a Bat Mitzvah and a Bar Mitzvah). I never went to Temple as a child. Do I fail?
My kids cannot deny their Asian heritage, they cannot hide it, but I can. I can choose to be one of the Chosen. If race cannot be seen, is it still there?
I know that in my heart, I feel Jewish. It is somewhere deep inside me, there is a connection that cannot be denied, a sense of cultural and culinary, if not religious, belonging. So, I will call myself a Jew and if that is a sin, I am sorry.
Have a wonderful Yom Kippur!
I enjoyed reading your musings, Deb. Very thought provoking. I think that, for many of us, Judaism is a culture rather than a race or religion. It is our ethnicity and heritage and, hence, how we can be half or whole, if there are other heritages coursing through our veins. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this day of reflection. (Full disclosure: I attended yoga class tonight for Kol Nidre.)
ReplyDeleteI have been pondering your comment for a couple days. As usual, your wisdom and thoughtfulness goes up a level beyond my meager brain's capabilities. You can't really be half anything can you? Every cell in our body is a sum of all of those that came before us. It is completely indivisible.
DeleteI have a girlfriend who has a Jewish mother and an Islamic father and, therefore, because Judaism is matrilineage-based and Islam is patrilineage based, is technically both.
ReplyDeleteBut let me also share with you a thought from a Jewish philosophical text called "Lekutai Amarim Tanya" (or Tanya, for short) It talks about a lesson about how people are divided into classes; the perfectly righteous, the average joe, and the evil sinner. And it asks the question, how can you be average? When you do good aren't you perfectly good at that instant? And when you do bad aren't you evil in that moment? How can you ever not be either one way or the other. (And the book spends a great deal of time discussing this and answering that question is well beyond the scope of what this comment could cover) What has always interested me is the question, which can be answered at a very simple level "well, you take the average," or you can wonder how you could ever be betwixed and between. Aren't you always *something* and what really is a mixture? Small wonder that reading your blog has brought that back to mind.