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?
First of all, thanks for the shout-out! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've never considered the issue before, but I totally see your point about antisemitism and being/not being Jewish. I'll just do my part as a non-Jew for now, and then when I become Jewish, I'll remind myself that I'm doing my part to ensure the continuity of the Jewish people by practicing Judaism (and passing it along to any kids I may have.)
I don't think I had quite as long of an irreligious period of my life as you had...I kind of just slipped away from Catholicism and right into Judaism. I can't remember what I've written in comments before, but although I had problems with the Catholic Church, I considered myself Catholic by default until I started going in the Jewish direction. Until then, I always thought that I'd raise my kids Catholic since that was my religious background, even though I wasn't a particularly devoted Catholic myself. So I can't say that I've had the "how will I raise my kids" issue come up.