Early 20th Century Catholic and Jewish Questions

[nyxelestia]

I'm writing about two men from New York, starting in the Great Depression and WWII, and ending in the 21st century, and I'm trying to develop some background for them to use across two separate stories, possibly even more

Comments

[michelel72]

If Bucky were embracing Catholic practices, though, would he still be considered Jewish?

Judaism is matrilineal. His mother was Jewish, he's Jewish, end of.**

(** Everything religious has caveats; there may be very small communities/traditions that would debate the point, but for your purposes: He's Jewish.)

Doesn't matter what other faiths/practices he dabbles in or swears to or whatever; he was born to it, and he either adheres to what he's "supposed" to do or he doesn't.

As my Conservative-ish friends tell it, badly filtered through my memory (= check this somewhere if you decide to rely on it), most forms of Judaism are enjoined to discourage converts. By which they mean people-not-born-to-Jewish-mothers-who-want-to-"become"-Jewish-anyway. There's strife in several communities about whether conversions into Judaism from outside are valid or sufficient or possible, etc. But none of that applies to Bucky; he can't "convert" to what he already is.

I can't promise you he'd necessarily be welcomed ("back") without suspicion if he came into a particular Jewish faith community with a strong Catholic-training background, but that's more of a social (people-being-people) question.

[nyxelestia]

This divergence is the source of most of my questions, honestly. Most of my knowledge of Judaism comes from Persian Jews and Secular Jews, so while I have a pretty good gist of Judaism as a cultural heritage, I know very little about is as a religious one. Aspects of religious identity I do know about, they often are very general and I usually know about specifically from controversies and debates (i.e. most of what I know about Passover and Seder plates initially came from debates over the inclusion of non-traditional items like oranges and olives).

I've definitely heard the "you have to be born Jewish to be Jewish" thing before, but again, I've heard about this mostly whenever it was fought over, so I'm not sure how prevalent this mindset actually is. I know a lot of people who view Judaism as an ethnicity more than a religion, so they believe you cannot convert into it...but I also know plenty of people who do view it as faith and about knowledge and spiritual choice, not just bloodline. The impression I've gotten is that most Jews will not encourage conversion the way most other religions do, and many will even actively discourage conversion, but only very Orthodox or Conservative Jews actually bar or do not recognize conversions.

One thing I have planned is both the actual Catholic and Jewish institutions as relevant to the story are very progressive (the town this story is set it is incredibly progressive already, in canon, so I'm just expanding on that), so I have a fair amount of leeway as far as tradition and doctrine are concerned. I just need to figure out what the traditions and doctrines exactly are, so I can stretch or break them in a way that makes sense for the story.

[michelel72]

My circle of friends is largely Jewish (I'm not), generally Conservative to Orthodox (though those very broad categories contain a wide range), and not secular.

As far as I can tell, your actual research point isn't about "recognizing" conversions, though, is it? The controversies tend to be about those born to non-Jewish mothers (or, in Israel lately, those born to mothers who themselves were not born Jewish but converted before having children, IIRC). Conversion is a loaded term. But, regardless of that, you have Bucky being born Jewish, so again, there is no conversion to recognize or not (unless you're also researching broader ideas for a different character).

(Unless you want him to have been born to two Catholic parents and he's drawn to Judaism because of an uncle's wife or something; then he'd have reason to "convert", since he wouldn't already be Jewish. That would include its own set of problems, though; honestly, I'd recommend you just drop the term "convert" entirely and work with a Bucky who chose to reconnect with/embrace Judaism belatedly, since that's what you've been describing.)

Speaking as an outsider, I've found jewfaq.org to be a reasonable starting point (back when I was trying to write a Jewish character, for a story I never ended up writing). It sounds like you're probably dealing with a Reform community (or maybe Reconstructionist, which is rarer), but mind also which timeframe you're talking about. The "progressive" version of either religion in the 1920s-1940s would not work the same way as the "progressive" version of today in all matters, so don't conflate Bucky's search for a faith community in WWII with How Things Work Today.

[nyxelestia]

Yeah, there's no conflict about Bucky not being born to a Jewish mother, it's just about his own childhood experiences, issues with his cultural heritage/identity, etc. But in both stories, his mother was Jewish, so he is Jewish either way from that Orthdox perspective. For the purposes of this story, though, I'm not too concerned about Orthodox standpoints.

What was 1920s-1940s Reform Judaism like? How might early 20th century Reform Jews (Reformation Jews?) react to an interfaith family? Or to someone born to a Jewish mother, raised Catholic, but then coming (back) to Judaism later on in life?

In the 21st century, the bulk of his experience/knowledge is coming from a secular Jew (one who for all intents and purposes is basically a Jewish Atheist that moonlights as a warlock) who'd been raised in a Reform environment. Additionally, he's learning a lot of things "backwards". i.e. Since he "died" before the world really discovered/realized the extent and systemic nature of the Holocaust, he doesn't actually know about it. He learns when, upon asking why there's an orange on the Seder plate, his descendent mentions opting to not include an olive (which he typically does), and explains why. Bucky has to ask "since when is there a Jewish state?!", which leads to Stiles having to explain the Holocaust and the history of Jewish peoples during and after WWII, and the complications with Israel-Palestine, and this is how Bucky learns about the Holocaust.

It's ultimately a small part of his broader story - trying to reconnect with his cultural heritage and his religion are only small parts of figuring out his sense of self and his identity in the aftermath of 70 years of brainwashing.