(no subject)
A little while ago, B asked me if I would be disappointed if he wasn't Jewish when he grew up.
"What do you mean by 'not Jewish?'" I asked him.
We went around a few times and then he said, "Like Uncle."
This is fascinating, because my brother is Jewish. His family lights Shabbat candles every Friday. His kids say the Shema before they go to bed (which mine do not). My brother argued fiercely against having a Christmas tree when he and his non-Jewish wife moved in together. B, however, perceives him as not Jewish. E and I have talked about my brother, and she says that he should let his wife have a Christmas tree because he's not that observant. If he's not going to put more energy into Judaism, E thinks, his wife should have a Christmas tree. Judaism is important to my brother, I think, and for E and B to see him as not Jewish, or not Jewish enough, strikes me as odd.
Maybe it's because he makes bacon in his house.
I explained to B that there are lots of different kinds of Jewish observance. I don't expect his Jewish observance to be like mine, and I don't expect my brother's to be like mine, either. I didn't address his initial question about how I would feel if he was not Jewish at all, by which he could have meant that he would reject Judaism for some other religion.
*
E has been very disturbed by R's teacher and Christmas this year. I was telling rose_garden about it a little. R has been doing more "holiday" stuff in class than she has in past years, and E came home from school very ruffled on Friday. We talked about it for a while because it was hard for me to unpack what the problem was.
The teacher keeps calling it "the holidays," but the details she assigns are very Christmas-y: family, wishes, good will towards all people, sentimentality, wrapped presents, snow. E and I aren't against any of those things specifically, and none of them are exclusive to Christmas. At the same time, they have absolutely nothing to do with Chanuka and they aren't particularly reflective of the principles of Kwanzaa, either. The teacher just stripped out the word "Christmas" and left everything else about Christmas in place, and then spends a lot of time in the classroom pretending that she is being inclusive when she's really not.
It's as if she's left back in the 1980s, when we still thought that being racially and culturally diverse meant that everyone was all the same. The upshot of that was that the majority culture spent a lot of time making incorrect assumptions about other people - and ignoring who they really were. Now we know that everyone is different, and we have to meet each other at our differences in order to fully meet each other. R's teacher didn't get the message, I guess, so she's still busy assuming that if it's a winter holiday it must be celebrated just like Christmas, except with a different name.
She's from the Philippines, I pointed out to E, so probably a Roman Catholic who comes from a country where the great majority of other people are Roman Catholic as well. It just might be difficult for her to picture a winter holiday that's not about the sentiments of Christmas. "She reminds me of a nun," E says. "Maybe that's it. All the stuff she says is like all that crap that was shoved down my throat as a kid. That's why I don't like it."
"What do you mean by 'not Jewish?'" I asked him.
We went around a few times and then he said, "Like Uncle."
This is fascinating, because my brother is Jewish. His family lights Shabbat candles every Friday. His kids say the Shema before they go to bed (which mine do not). My brother argued fiercely against having a Christmas tree when he and his non-Jewish wife moved in together. B, however, perceives him as not Jewish. E and I have talked about my brother, and she says that he should let his wife have a Christmas tree because he's not that observant. If he's not going to put more energy into Judaism, E thinks, his wife should have a Christmas tree. Judaism is important to my brother, I think, and for E and B to see him as not Jewish, or not Jewish enough, strikes me as odd.
Maybe it's because he makes bacon in his house.
I explained to B that there are lots of different kinds of Jewish observance. I don't expect his Jewish observance to be like mine, and I don't expect my brother's to be like mine, either. I didn't address his initial question about how I would feel if he was not Jewish at all, by which he could have meant that he would reject Judaism for some other religion.
*
E has been very disturbed by R's teacher and Christmas this year. I was telling rose_garden about it a little. R has been doing more "holiday" stuff in class than she has in past years, and E came home from school very ruffled on Friday. We talked about it for a while because it was hard for me to unpack what the problem was.
The teacher keeps calling it "the holidays," but the details she assigns are very Christmas-y: family, wishes, good will towards all people, sentimentality, wrapped presents, snow. E and I aren't against any of those things specifically, and none of them are exclusive to Christmas. At the same time, they have absolutely nothing to do with Chanuka and they aren't particularly reflective of the principles of Kwanzaa, either. The teacher just stripped out the word "Christmas" and left everything else about Christmas in place, and then spends a lot of time in the classroom pretending that she is being inclusive when she's really not.
It's as if she's left back in the 1980s, when we still thought that being racially and culturally diverse meant that everyone was all the same. The upshot of that was that the majority culture spent a lot of time making incorrect assumptions about other people - and ignoring who they really were. Now we know that everyone is different, and we have to meet each other at our differences in order to fully meet each other. R's teacher didn't get the message, I guess, so she's still busy assuming that if it's a winter holiday it must be celebrated just like Christmas, except with a different name.
She's from the Philippines, I pointed out to E, so probably a Roman Catholic who comes from a country where the great majority of other people are Roman Catholic as well. It just might be difficult for her to picture a winter holiday that's not about the sentiments of Christmas. "She reminds me of a nun," E says. "Maybe that's it. All the stuff she says is like all that crap that was shoved down my throat as a kid. That's why I don't like it."