When Mr. Right Hates Israel

From The Seesaw in The Jewish Daily Forward

Can I Marry an Anti-Zionist?

I am an unmarried 32- year-old woman who is very ready to settle down and have kids. At the beginning of this year I met a really great guy. I am okay with his non-Jewishness because it will not interfere with my Jewishness or my kids’ Jewishness. I am not okay with his politics on Israel, which he calls an apartheid state. I tell him he hasn’t read enough, but he says the military occupation, settlements and large numbers of Palestinians who have died are all he needs to know. I am a Zionist, my father was born in Israel, and I am wondering if this should be a dealbreaker, or if that is ridiculous and I should just get over it.

Red Flags Only Get Redder

HAROLD BERMAN: In the midst of an otherwise satisfying relationship, many find it easier to overlook red flags, hoping they will go away. But red flags only get redder, and you are wise to be addressing them now. First, you don’t know that his “non-Jewishness … will not interfere with” your or your future children’s Jewishness. Although there are certainly examples of relatively tension-free interfaith marriages, many otherwise strong interfaith relationships still must labor hard through myriad issues that aren’t apparent before the wedding. What you envision is not a sure thing.

What is a sure thing, however, is that your boyfriend’s attitudes toward Israel will have an impact, likely adverse, on any long-term relationship you develop with him. I write this as three Israeli boys were just found brutally murdered by Palestinians, and groups like the Presbyterian Church have expressed much the same attitude toward Israel as your boyfriend. As someone who calls Israel home, and who every single day interacts with Palestinians at close range, I can say unequivocally that your boyfriend doesn’t have the facts.

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My New Girlfriend Is Way Too Enthusiastic About Judaism

The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. Join the discussion by commenting on this post, sharing it on Facebook or following the Forward on Twitter. And keep the questions coming. You can email your quandaries, which will remain anonymous, to: seesaw@forward.com

My Non-Jewish Partner is Too Enthusiastic About Judaism

Hi Seesaw. I am six months into a same-sex relationship with a woman and I can imagine settling down with this one. One issue though, and I know this sounds strange: she is a little too enthusiastic about Judaism. I am very happy that she is excited about my Jewish identity and raising our possible children Jewish, but it bothers me when she acts like she really “gets” being Jewish because she is a lesbian and therefore a minority who has suffered too. Not all outsider identities are the same and I feel like she cheapens Judaism by believing so. So, how do I make her feel welcome in my Jewish world while also helping her understand that she doesn’t totally get it?

I Think I’d Feel the Same

LAUREL SNYDER:
 This is so tricky, but I think I’d feel the same in this situation. Judaism is a complex identity/idea/history/culture, and what her immediate excitement suggests is that she doesn’t perceive the complexity. So my best advice is that you share it with her.

As you say, you don’t want to push her away. It’s wonderful that she’s willing to learn about your background, raise Jewish kids, etc. But Judaism isn’t just a minority status with candles and wine. Judaism can also be boring, exclusive, dogmatic, politically problematic, or violent. Loving Judaism means understanding all the layers of the onion. Loving despite, not just because.

When my husband and I married, I remember that he did some serious reading. He picked up a range of books, from As a Driven Leaf to the Alter translation of the Torah. That was great for me, because it showed me he was serious about understanding Judaism, and creating his own relationship to it, whether or not he ever converted. Over the years, we’ve watched Jewish movies together, visited museums, argued about Israel in the news, and struggled with how to answer our kids’ questions about faith/death/afterlife. It’s not always easy, but it’s honest.

I think that kind of dialogue has to be rooted in actual information. I think if your partner’s going to embrace your culture, she’ll need to embrace it warts and all. So I think books might be a great starting point for you guys. As well as a very Jewish tool.

Laurel Snyder is the author of books like “Bigger than a Bread Box” and “Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted To Be Kosher.” Find her online at laurelsnyder.com or on Twitter @laurelsnyder.

Israeli Life: Mothers

By Leora Eren Frucht for Hadassah Magazine

They were an odd couple, these two middle-aged women—one in a black hijab and ankle-length dress, the other in tight-fitting jeans and colorful T-shirt—standing there in the middle of the room, locked in a tight embrace.

Later on, several people would point to that moment as the most jolting and unforgettable scene of the afternoon in Jaffa.

None of them could have been more astonished than I—the
woman in the jeans and colorful T-shirt.

I had gone to Jaffa that day with several other members of my Reform congregation in Modi’in to meet Muslim families from the town of Jaljulya in an effort to get to know each other. A simple act, but one that flies in the face of the growing alienation and animosity between Jews and Arabs in Israel today.

Over the course of the year, a mob of Jewish teenagers beat up an Arab youth, leaving him unconscious on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem; an Arab woman on a shiva visit to the capital was stoned by a group of yeshiva students. There had been other violent assaults, hateful graffiti, slashed tires, even calls by municipal chief rabbis not to rent homes to Arabs.

Some might ascribe these acts to a handful of extremists, but I knew that this climate affected more than just the lunatic fringe. When my son was in fifth grade, his class went on a school trip to Jaffa, a mixed city of Jews and Arabs. There, his Jewish classmates had run down the street yelling hysterically when they saw an Arab woman, with her head covered, walking in their direction. “Terrorist!” some had shouted.

That is one of the downsides of living in a middle-class suburban community like Modi’in where everyone looks more or less like you. At best, Jews here—and in many other parts of the country—never get a chance to meet Arabs and, at worst, they fear and dread them.

I did not want my children to grow up to be like those on the school trip, so I jumped at the chance to join Neighbors Encounter, a project initiated by Stanley Ringler, an American-born Reform rabbi who lives in Israel. His idea was enthusiastically adopted by YOZMA, the Reform congregation in Modi’in.

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Jews and Christians: The Unfolding Interfaith Relationship

From The United States Memorial Holocaust Museum

The Holocaust confronted Christian leaders at the time and after 1945 with grave ethical and theological questions:

• How it was possible for 6 million Jews to be murdered by the citizens of a nation that was predominantly Christian?
• How did the Christian churches elsewhere in Europe and in the United States respond to the persecution and genocide of the Jews at the time?
• How have they dealt with the legacy of this history since the end of the war?
• How has the Holocaust affected Christian teachings?
• How have these questions been addressed within the interfaith Jewish-Christian relationship?

1933–1945

The Nazi rise to power in Germany was greeted by most Christians in Germany with optimism. They welcomed the new regime and particularly embraced its nationalism, and both the Catholic and Protestant churches there pursued a course of compromise and accommodation with the regime, particularly when conflicts arose over Nazi state interference with church programs. Among European ecumenical leaders, there were worries about the possible anti-Christian repercussions of a fascist ideology and fears of renewed German militarism under Nazism. In 1933 most European and US Christian leaders, however, took a "wait and see" attitude.

Throughout the Christian world, there was little condemnation of the most striking and ominous element of Nazi ideology: its virulent antisemitism and its threat to remove Jews from all aspects of German society. Indeed, many Christian leaders before and throughout the Nazi era cited Christian teachings as a justification for anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies.

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