Mixed

My mom's Jewish and my dad's Christian. Somehow, I managed to make it to high school without realizing that in-faith marriage was a "Jewish thing," which is surprising since interfaith marriage has been the topic of so many lectures I've been to and debates I've had since then. Since it's a topic I have a vested interest in, I was excited to get to this subject in class. That said, I found the Fishman article rather disappointing. For starters, the title bothers me. "Constructing Identity in Jewish and Mixed-Married Families." I understand why she did this, but by putting the two types of families in seperate categories, it implies that a mixed-married family is not Jewish by definition. Regardless of what goes on within the household, the mixed-married family is an Other.

While one of the most interesting parts of the article is the statistics, I find her definitions of celebrating Christian holidays or rituals or blending two religions blurry and overbroad. For example, she states that Christmas is celebrated in the homes with Jewish mothers 72% of the time and 75% of the time with Christian mothers. Obviously, this statistic reinforces her statement that mixed-married families are more likely to blend religions. Celebrating a holiday, however, can take on a mulititude of meanings. There's a broad spectrum; from receiving presents with no tree, to having a tree, to singing Christmas carols, to actual prayer. I think to get a better idea of what mixed-married families look like, you would have to dive deeper into specifics. The most interesting part of this set of statistics (that families with a Jewish mother are more likely to not celebrate Christmas in their homes and to not go to Church than families with a Jewish father) is that it mirrors the traditional idea of matrilineal descent in determining what religion the children are.

I think Fishman correctly asserts that endogamy does not mesh with the values of freedom and inclusivity held by most American Jews. With the constant question of Jewish continuity, I often wonder why synagogues and Jewish organizations do not focus on the other factors contributing to a static or declining population of American Jews. Why not encourage people to get married younger and have more children? I think rather than trying to convince people to not marry non-Jews, they should make Judaism something attractive and welcoming, something that people will want to pass on to their children. Since the idea of excluding groups of people from your potential marriage pool based on a characteristic they were born with sounds racist in today's popular culture (I don't really agree with Randy Cohen's arguement that being Jewish is 'volitional'), I think it is smarter to focus on reducing the number of people who raise their children with no faith or a blurry intermixed faith. Just getting Jews to marry other Jews solves the continuity problem in face-value only. Many children of two Jewish parents have no real attachment to the faith. Even if they marry another Jew, who's to say what they will pass on to their children?