0 reactions
Please stop saying "There's no such thing as part-Jewish" to Jews from mixed backgrounds
If you have 4 Jewish grandparents, here's a thought experiment for you:
Imagine a male relative that you love very much, like a father or grandfather.
Now imagine that someone told you that you're not related to him at all. In fact, you have no meaningful connection to him, and how he lived his life, his roots and his family story are not yours, you have no claim to him. The only thing that matters is who your mom was, and who her mom was.
That's what you're saying to people when you tell them that they can't be half-Jewish or quarter-Jewish. You're telling them that who their parents and grandparents were doesn't matter, when of course it does! It can be equally invalidating regardless of whether you are telling someone they are 100% Jewish or 0% Jewish.
Some people have both Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry. Some of us are halakhically Jewish, and some of us are not, but Judaism is both an ethnicity and a tribe, so it actually is possible to be half/quarter Jewish by ancestry. Being halakhically Jewish (or not) does not magically disappear our family history, and talking about it as if it does lacks empathy towards the experience of being mixed.
Only the maternal line (or conversion) may be relevant according to halakha, but halakhic discourse is insufficient to fully capture the experience of many people with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers or people with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Many of us who *are* halakhically Jewish don't *feel* 100% Jewish. Many of us recognize ourselves as very different than people from completely Jewish families. These questions of identity and belonging cannot be resolved with simple halakhic answers. The Jewish community should grant space to the complexity of this experience.
#religion
If you have 4 Jewish grandparents, here's a thought experiment for you:
Imagine a male relative that you love very much, like a father or grandfather.
Now imagine that someone told you that you're not related to him at all. In fact, you have no meaningful connection to him, and how he lived his life, his roots and his family story are not yours, you have no claim to him. The only thing that matters is who your mom was, and who her mom was.
That's what you're saying to people when you tell them that they can't be half-Jewish or quarter-Jewish. You're telling them that who their parents and grandparents were doesn't matter, when of course it does! It can be equally invalidating regardless of whether you are telling someone they are 100% Jewish or 0% Jewish.
Some people have both Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry. Some of us are halakhically Jewish, and some of us are not, but Judaism is both an ethnicity and a tribe, so it actually is possible to be half/quarter Jewish by ancestry. Being halakhically Jewish (or not) does not magically disappear our family history, and talking about it as if it does lacks empathy towards the experience of being mixed.
Only the maternal line (or conversion) may be relevant according to halakha, but halakhic discourse is insufficient to fully capture the experience of many people with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers or people with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Many of us who *are* halakhically Jewish don't *feel* 100% Jewish. Many of us recognize ourselves as very different than people from completely Jewish families. These questions of identity and belonging cannot be resolved with simple halakhic answers. The Jewish community should grant space to the complexity of this experience.
#religion
| 4,000 mlx | |
| 5 | |
| 0 |