something that has been bugging me....

[thebigkasuma]

Maybe this is insensitive to the good Jewish people, but I cannot understand why so many people are so adament about only dating other Jews. Yes, I understand that it's important to keep the Jewish people alive because it is a small population, I really do. I can respect that in theory. But in practice, to break up with a girlfriend because she's

Comments

[meandthemajor]

I actually agree with you re: Ari's argument. I think that continuity for the sake of continuity and being afraid of numbers and all that is a dead end, if the reason behind it is discriminatory and vaguely bankrupt.

But still, I'm looking for my nice Jewish boy because what it comes down to is like what your friends said below. So much of who I am, how I think, and what I do is because I'm a Jew. It's one of the most important ways that I identify myself. And while I can explain it case by case if I try really hard, there's still a sense in which it's impossible to explain. And for someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, I think I'd need that kind of understanding. Not that we would always agree, by a long shot. But in the words of my ANTH professor, we'd have a common understanding of what to disagree about.

If there was nothing to being Jewish that seemed particularly special or unique in my life, then I think there's no reason at all to worry about intermarriage. And if that's true for enough other people, then great.

Not that it's all or nothing. It's not a question of birth, or even upbringing, so much as approach to life, which leaves open the possibility of conversion. Or the really actively involved in the synagogue/community non-Jew, which just seems awkward to me, but could work.

Does that make any sense.