Uncomfortable questions

Last night at Hillel was Jummah Shabbat, put on by the Muslim-Jewish Dialogue group on campus. There was a lot of interfaith discussion happening at dinner. Let me also say that this was the week my roommate decided she would finally check out Hillel with me. When she said she was Catholic to our table, the Muslim guy with us might have had a small heart attack. His eyes popped out of his head, and he immediately turned to me and pointedly said - not asked - that I was Catholic, too. He couldn't believe his luck: Jews on each side of him and two Catholics across the table from him. You could see all the prejudice running through his head. I think that he over came a lot of that through this dinner, which is good because that's the whole point of interfaith dialogue. But that's not really my point. My point is he and the Muslim girl leading the discussion made me feel super uncomfortable. Now, let me be clear, it was not because they are Muslim. I definitely don't think that. It just so happened that this week, two Muslims made me feel uncomfortable instead of the usual Orthodox Jewish guy.

Last night and at so many other times, people have projected their predetermined prejudice against Catholics onto me. But what they are completely ignorant of is that I have those same issues with Catholics & the Church and then some. Instead of trying to get to know me, they put me in a box. A box in which I don't belong. People who know me, the Christians and the Catholics, know I don't belong with them in the same faith box. They never put me there. I'm not a boxy person, but I know that I am technically a Catholic. I've received 4 of the 7 sacraments, and I've got one hell of an Italian last name. Can't really get around it.

And what's more, is that the guy didn't stop when I said "Yes, I was raised Catholic." He inferred from this that I was now Jewish and asked "And you converted?" In his eyes you could see that he was in total disbelief - why on earth would someone convert from Catholicism to Judaism? Well, I could name at least 127 reasons, but I simply said "No. I am not anything." Luckily, one of my friends chimed in and explained to him, "She just likes to learn about a lot of different religions and be well rounded." Phew. We finished that round of discussion questions and then I was out. My roommate and I just talked quietly to each other until dessert, which we ate in the lobby.

As if that episode of name stereotyping wasn't enough for one night, I've got an even better one for ya. The rabbi walks up to us and asks us how our discussion went and I told her not that great and recounted the story. Did she say, "Oh don't worry about it"? Nope. Rather, she asked "When you convert," big emphasis on the when, "are you gonna change your name? It's totally gonna call you out if you don't. Jews just don't name their kids Mary."

Before I tell you the next thing she said to me, I should tell you that at the beginning of the year when I talked to her, her tune was a little different. After about three Shabbat dinners, I decided I needed to make sure she knew I wasn't Jewish. I mean, that's something the rabbi should know about a regular. I told her I figured she knew since my name is Mary and all, but I just had to make sure. Her response was along the lines of "Not really - but that's totally fine! Kids have lots of different names these days. I'm just glad that you come here if you're interested in Judaism because so many people are afraid." That made me feel great back in September. Now it's winter and things are a little gloomier...

So, I told her "No. I don't know. Probably not. I mean, it's my name." Blah blah blah. She replied, "Yeah, I didn't." Then that was pretty much the end of the conversation and she went to talk to some other people. Like, really?!?! You finally tell me that you converted to Judaism and just leave me hanging? Nothing else? Now, granted I totally figured this out in December when she was talking about Christmas and Santa and seemed to know a little more and have a little more to say than the average Jew. She definitely was speaking from experience. It was a total bonding moment. But then we didn't have very many more and I figured she didn't want to talk about being a convert so she pulled away or something. I have no idea any more...

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OK. On the one hand, these moments where people obsess about my name and make me feel like I don't belong definitely put me back about 5 steps. Good thing I ended up not telling my mother that I want to convert to Judaism because now things are up in the air again. I know it seems stupid but how am I supposed to take it when people tell me that my name - something that is literally a part of who I am - needs to go? And on the other hand, I've got a rabbi who converted to Judaism, which makes her the ultimate resource for me, and I have no idea what to do with her. Oy.

Obstacles, Obstacles

There's something I've been debating writing about, because it will give away more of my identity. But I think it's important to this blog and I'm really starting to not care. So if you can figure out who I am and you know me, congratulations. Sure it'll be awkward when friends start talking to me about what's on my blog but I'll get over it.

I got an internship... at Hillel. It's a somewhat long, uninteresting story of how I got it. But basically I am in charge of Holocaust Awareness on campus. Yes, I am the only non-Jewish student employee, but the chef isn't Jewish either so it doesn't seem that big of a deal to me. However, if I stop and think about the state of my life right now -- an employee of Hillel, a regular attendee of Shabbat services and dinner, hanging out with Jews every weekend, living with two Jews next year, taking a class on the Hebrew Bible (even though it counts as my world literature class for my English major) -- my life is pretty freakin' Jewish. How'd that happen?

Life's funny. So OK. I am this intern for Holocaust Awareness, right. So I have been continually reading about the Holocaust, Holocaust Denial, and antisemitism. Depressing, right? Kind of, but that's not my point here. [First I want to remind everyone about my post about two months ago in which I had a mild freak out. Then an awesome commenter, you know who you are, pointed out several good reasons to convert to non-Orthodox Judaism.] I guess what I am getting at is, I am torn between a strong desire to fight antisemitism as a non-Jew (because I believe that the non-minority are equally, if not more, important to the fight against baseless hatred and bigotry) and a desire to have a real religion and community in which to raise my future children. Someone with a Christian name, such as mine, denouncing antisemitism resonates quite differently than someone with a Jewish name denouncing it.

In all honesty, I think I know where I'm headed but this is a tension I am dealing with right now. I have to actually overcome this to be able to move forward with any life changing decisions. And there's just one more thing: for me, choosing to convert isn't just about choosing to change religions, it's about choosing to be religious at all. I mean, whenever I imagined my life growing up, it was always sans religion. I planned to raise my kids with morals and ethics, without the pesky religious stuff getting in the way. Sure the idea of religion being pesky was based on my limited and not very good experiences with the Catholic Church, but it's still a strange thing to envision. I am asking myself now, can I really make a commitment to be religious for the rest of my life? Can I be a good Jew?

Moving Forward

This weekend I went home for a night and a day. It was my niece's 7th birthday party. All week I was kind of planning to talk to my mom about all of this (as in the content of this blog). Ask her what she thinks of me converting to Judaism. Both of my parents know that I have been reading about Judaism and that I have a rather large amount of Jewish friends. In fact, I think that my mom has tried talking to me about this before, it's just that we both suck at starting those kinds of conversations and I just wasn't taking her bait. Examples: fall quarter, Hillel had a havdala event for which they created a facebook event and I attended (both on facebook and in real life). When I went home the next day for whatever reason, my mom tried to ask me what it was but she pronounced the word way wrong so I didn't know what she said at first then I was annoyed that she had asked that way. Winter break, the newspaper did a feature story on Hanukka, and she brought it up. Christmas eve, my parents and I were having dinner and my mom randomly said, maybe this year we should have gone to temple... my dad and I both looked at her and said what?? she was all, yeahh! isn't it Hanukka right now? we could've done something different. So, I guess I'm really stupid for not taking advantage of those opportunities. But in my defense, I was still super uncertain about what was happening way back in October and over winter break I was processing my week of Orthodox Jewish life.

So what about now? Well, now it's been almost two months since that last opportunity, but more importantly it's been a year since I first started seriously learning about Judaism. And this week is Ash Wednesday, which begins Lent. Last year at Ash Wednesday I made a conscious decision not to go, ever again. Ash Wednesday is one of those seemingly less important holidays in Catholicism but in actuality carries great weight. For one who is quite uncertain about their religious identity, going to Ash Wednesday is like saying, for the next two and a half months, I am committed to Christianity. For Lent, people usually give stuff up to try to appreciate this supposed sacrifice that Jesus made for all people. Lent is the season that prepares people for the most holy time of the Christian year. And honestly, I never really appreciated the enormity of Ash Wednesday until I decided I would never again participate. It was always this thing I did because my parents had sent me to CCD and basically made me. I don't even know if I went in high school because I always had dance on Wednesday nights. But I digress.

You probably want to know what happened with my mother. Well, in short, nothing. I got home late on Friday night, because I refused to miss Shabbat services and dinner, and my parents were watching one of their shows. When it was over, my dad immediately started talking to me and we got into a huge historical and political discussion. But, oh, the irony. My dad starts talking about the Catholic Church. He started watching some new miniseries about these infamous Spanish Popes. He was quite emphatic when he started in, "Mary. Now listen. Get this: 1492 Alexander Borja becomes Pope.... .... .... His grandfather was also the Pope... ... !!!!!!!!!" He looks at me with these big eyes, asking "Can you believe that?" Uh, yeah, kinda. Not at all surprised. He explains more of the history and blah blah blah. He was just totally beyond belief that these Popes weren't celibate or well behaved in any way. I just responded by saying, "Has celibacy ever been a real practice? Not really." He asked when celibacy became a practice and I said the end of the 12th century, and it was because priests were having these huge families and the parishes couldn't support them. My dad then says "I feel like now I need to look back through all the Popes and see who the first one was who actually followed the rules. I just can't believe this! I went to Catholic school for all those years as a boy and I just never knew any of this." My mom said, "Come ON, hun!" And I said, "Well, come on, Mom. The Church isn't going to teach people all of the naughty things these guys did over the years. That's stupid for them to tell young kids what hypocrites Catholics have been throughout history." I mean, it makes sense that the Church doesn't want to admit some of those shameful things. But they also shouldn't try to make it seem like the Church has been this perfect entity either. But that's besides the point. The last important thing my dad said was, "I can't believe how these Popes were. I had always placed the Popes on the same level as the Apostles." Woah...

I have never heard my dad talk like this. He never has talked about Jesus or the Apostles or Catholic teachings. Just sooo weird -- definitely wasn't the time to bring up converting to Judaism, just saying. My mom pressed him by asking, "Didn't you ever question Catholic teachings growing up? Because I did, all the time." Timeout. All the time you questioned Catholic teachings -- and now no longer consider yourself Catholic -- but decided to raise your kids Catholic anyways? What the heck, Mom. Kind of nonsensical but nevertheless... Two things: 1. Now I know I inherited the fierce questioning and confusion from my mother and I don't feel like such an outsider from my family and 2. Now I know that my Mom will be supportive. It might seem like she didn't say anything about supporting a Jewish daughter, but I guess you had to be there and have to know my mother.

So, I didn't talk to my mom about becoming a Jew, but something extremely important came out of this visit home.

Random Thoughts

It's been a long time since I've written anything. I didn't want you all to think that I'd abandoned you or my blog. It's just I haven't had very much to say. I guess I am just figuring things out. Hebrew reading skills are improving... slowly, but still. This quarter I am in this adolescent literature class, and right now I am reading this book about a deaf teenager whose mother won't let her learn sign language so she learns secretly. The mother, inevitably, started to piss me off, and I started thinking about what I'd do if my child was deaf. This sort of scene played out in my head. I am at the hospital, the doctor hands me my baby and tells me that he is deaf. I turn to my husband freaked out "If he's deaf, how will he learn Hebrew? Is there Hebrew sign language?"  OK. What the heck? Like why would I think that? What about, will we send him to a regular school? Do you think you can learn ASL, honey? This is probably a sign of things to come...

In other news.... I wasn't going to write about this, but I don't think I have anything else to report so I might as well. A few weeks ago, for various reasons, I was in DC and went to the Holocaust Museum. I've been there a couple times before, and every time you go, you notice something different or something else strikes you or moves you. There were several things I noticed this visit, but there was one thing that really took me by surprise.

On the first or second floor (from the top, in the permanent exhibition), there is a glass walkway which leads to the stairs and it has listed all the names of Jews who died in the Holocaust. Not individual Jews, but all the different first names there were (so no repeats). I was looking at them, just like I always look at the detailed pieces, trying to really grasp all the individuals who lost their lives. These names belonged to someone, to many someones really. Their parents had carefully chosen the name and hoped their child would embody whatever that name means or stands for. There were tons of Biblical names, Hebrew words, Yiddish names, secular German or Hungarian names, etc. And there on the first panel from the right, near the frame, was my name. Yes, Mary was the name of at least one Jew killed by the Nazis. So her name wasn't exactly Jewish, but she was. She was Jewish enough that the Nazis found her and murdered her. This Jewish Mary's Christian name didn't save her. She lived and died as a Jew, perhaps she even died with the Shema on her lips...

Maybe I shouldn't have been thinking those things in the Holocaust Museum. But it is what came to mind as I placed my hand on my name and tears rolled from my eyes. Your name is just one part of your identity, but it doesn't have to define all of you. Yes, I cried during other parts of my visit, as is expected. But I never would have thought of this being a possibility.