Welcome the Stranger

In case you haven't read it a zillion other times on other Jewish convert blogs, don't call someone a shiksa. Period. End of story. There's no arguing. It's offensive. It derives from the Yiddish word for dirty and is meant to slur non-Jewish women who are dating or could one day date  Jewish guys and thus produce a non Jewish children. These women pull men away from Judaism and the Jewish community. Therefore, they ruin the Jewish community. Well, it's 21st century America now so this concept isn't the same as it once was in Eastern Europe. But it's still an offense term. Don't use it.

A girl I spend a good deal of time with likes to use it a lot. She's not really my friend. She's friends of my friends and we also work on Holocaust Awareness stuff together. And she's a fairly offensive person in general so I'm not that surprised by it. What I am always surprised by is the number of other Jews who say nothing to her. I said something to a friend once, along the lines of "Why does she think that's OK?" "Because Jews say it all the time." Oh, really? And that makes it OK? If white people start saying the n-word a lot does that make it OK? Oh, wait, plenty still do, and guess what? Still not OK. It just blows my mind that my friends who would be equally offended at someone slurring a black person, a hispanic person, a Muslim, a Christian as if they themselves as Jews were slurred, are perfectly fine with someone slurring a non Jewish woman.

This same girl who likes the word shiksa a lot also made up a fun new way to describe me: a Jew groupie. "Mary's such a Jew groupie. Hahahahaha." Do you see me laughing? No. Do you see my friends laughing? Yes.

Let me explain. I love my Jewish friends. A whole freaking lot. I meet lots of Jews I like and Judaism is awesome. But. I. Am. Not. A. Jew. Groupie. Jews are fantastic in many, many ways. But I in no way intend to follow them around, bother them, ask for autographs, or throw my underwear at them. I will not faint if I touch a Jew and don't spend a great deal of time fantasizing about meeting Jews. Why? Because Jews are normal people, and if I want to be one, I can freaking be one. It's very demeaning to call someone who's working to become a Jew, a Jew groupie. I hang out with Jews because I like them. They're my friends. And I love Judaism a great deal. That does not give anyone the right to call me a groupie or be rude to me because they're a Jew and I'm not.

There is a reason it's a mitzvah to welcome the stranger. We have a hard enough time finding our way into the community. Don't make it harder, please. You might be fascinated by us, but don't be rude. You don't have a right to call us names (shiksa or otherwise) or ask inappropriate questions. These questions include but are not limited to:

• What are you doing here [at this synagogue, Jewish event, Jewish place]?
• Oh you're not Jewish? So you're Christian? You love Jesus and all that?
• Are you converting to Judaism?
• Why are you converting to Judaism?
• When are you converting to Judaism?
• You're converting? So you have Jewish boyfriend?
• Do you want to convert because you have a Jewish boyfriend?

I realize that these are based on my experience but I am pretty sure you could replace boyfriend with girlfriend and represent many other people's experiences. If you have a friend who is converting and he or she opens up to you, then you could ask the questions. Ask them in a much more sensitive way. And if you're Jewish and you know someone who is converting, you don't have any right to know why. It's deeply personal. Would you open up to someone about losing your virginity? Same kind of personal. If someone shares with you, be honored because it is very hard to put into words. It's hard to explain a connection to G-d that's driving you to do something because G-d is beyond comprehension. People converting to Judaism convert for many of the same reasons you embrace your own Jewish identity. We love Judaism for the same reasons you do. And remember:

Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, 
ends in a deed. -Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Pesach

I love Passover. Honestly, I was a little unsure about going all out on Passover with so much turmoil in my life between telling my parents and having them be super weird and spending too much time at Hillel for my job, but I am so glad I did it the way I did it. A few days before it started, my friend and I went to the Jewish part of town to shop for food at Kroger and got stocked up. I did the Ashkenazim custom because that is what most of my friends do. So we got our matza, matza ball soup mix, and our kosher for Passover wine and were good to go.

I didn't go to Hillel for seder either night, which I think turned out to be a good choice even if I did miss some of my friends. It's hard enough for people to be serious and stop talking on shabbat for kiddush and motzi that I can't imagine how distracted I'd be for a several hour long dinner. On Friday night, a friend invited me to this woman's apartment who took Hebrew with him at the university through the 60+ program. She likes to invite college kids for sedarim who can't go home. She and her husband belong to an Orthodox shul but aren't actually Orthodox. There were about 19 people there. After lighting shabbat and yom tov candles we sat down to our assigned seats (yes, there were name cards) and began the seder. A five year old girl stood up on her chair and sang the four questions all by herself. It was incredible. My friend brought her toys of the ten plagues and she kept us entertained the whole night. The friend I went with is the same friend who taught me to read Hebrew over winter break and I was so grateful to him for that. I had a hard enough time keeping up with them skipping around in the Hebrew. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it at all if I wouldn't have been able to follow along. Honestly the seder was so fun and the food was so delicious. When it ended I couldn't wait for the next seder.

For the second night I went with the same friend but to a different location. He invited me to his uncle's house which is only an hour away from my parents so it was an easy transition to go home for Easter. This seder was straight up Orthodox. There was a "shabbos goy" there as a waitress and everything was in Hebrew. We did havdallah around 8:30 and finally got started on the 5 hour seder (oy). Everyone had the choice of reading in Hebrew but if the guy leading knew you and knew you could read Hebrew, he pretty much made you read in Hebrew. I was among the three people who read their paragraph in English. Even though the Seder was super long, it was fun because of all the conversation and debating and singing. This family had such interesting customs. For example, the youngest and the oldest person in the room sing the four questions together. So the leader's daughter sat on her grandma's lap (also a Holocaust survivor) and they sang together. It was really cool. And in between every section of the seder, they sing the ten parts of the seder to different tunes. Once, we sang it to the tune of "take me out to the ball game" another time to "America the beautiful," to pay tribute to the freedom America offers Jews so they don't have to pray in secret.  I would have never gotten to see any of these kinds of customs at Hillel.

I had so many matza balls that weekend and they were 100x better than the ones at Hillel. I was in heaven. Anyways, after we ate there was a lot of singing and bouncing around and role playing (more at the second seder than at the first). Dayenu really is a fantastic prayer/song. Apparently, I've heard Eliyahu many times before at havdallah services but it never stuck with me until Passover. Now it's like my favorite song. It's so catchy.

What I really liked about these seders was that even though my friend told certain people in advance that I'm not Jewish, no one asked about it. No one asked me about converting, or my name being Mary, or if I had a Jewish boyfriend. Everyone just let me be and let me enjoy the holiday with them. I really appreciated that. Also, I made it through the whole second seder with some people thinking that I was Jewish. One older man after asked me about where I grew up and if there was a synagogue there. I told him that yes, there is a reform temple there. And he asked me if that's where I went growing up. I said well, no, I'm not Jewish. He said "What?? You not Jewish? But you can read Hebrew?" Apparently reading Hebrew is the key to one's Jewish identity. Good to know I'm off to a good start.

My other thoughts on the entire holiday of Passover: matza is only good for two days then it starts to taste absolutely disgusting. And only egg matza is tolerable. Nothing else. I liked making the sacrifice for G-d but I was so glad when I finally broke Passover. Seriously, it's a good thing this only comes once a year. I figure by next spring, I'll have forgotten how terrible a week without it was.

The Dad who was never OK with anything

My initial understanding of my dad's joke in the background of a phone call with my mom a few weeks ago with completely off base. I am not sure why I was so dumb as to believe he'd be accepting of a choice in my life, let alone one that involved becoming anything other than Catholic. My father and I have a complicated, painful relationship. He never really accepted my dedication to dance or to school or to community service or to anything, really. He's never accepted who I am. I'm not sure why I thought this would be different.

If you've read from the beginning, you know I have an older brother and no other siblings. A first born boy is all an Italian father could ever ask for. The son is always the most important. So when Italians have girls first, they always try for another kid. My uncle has four girls. Why? Because he was trying for a boy and never succeeded. My father succeeded on the first try, and that was enough for him. I was the kid who came later and wasn't really planned for. Girls don't carry on family names, don't play football, watch sports, or smoke cigars. They're no fun. Girls with fathers like my father, don't really get along with them. It's actually quite simple.

Except that it sucks. 

My parents are still married. I lived with my dad all 19 years before going off to college. Whenever I want to go home to see my mom, it means seeing my dad, too. And I hate that. Honestly, I prefer to shut him out entirely because the emotional roller coaster of hoping for good days or times then plummeting into fighting is far worse than the nothing I try to maintain.

My father went to Catholic school for 9 years: through the 8th grade. He's made it overwhelmingly clear to me in the last three weeks that even though he doesn't go to Church, he is still a Catholic and will always be a Catholic. And you just don't leave the Catholic Church. I get it. I get that he was raised a certain way and that he believed all of it and still believes most of it. But I don't. I didn't go to Catholic school. I didn't go to Church every day for the first part of my life. I eventually grew out of the fear of the devil and of going to hell. I don't carry those things with me; they just aren't a part of me. So I didn't have major forces holding me back from growing into my own faith. It just so happens that that faith fits right in with Judaism, a religion that very few people adhere to, a religion that most people just don't understand.

My dad surprisingly knows more about Jews and Judaism than my mom does. My grandpa went to an almost all Jewish high school so he knows a lot of the beliefs that most Christians don't (most important, why Jesus wasn't the messiah). But that doesn't change the fact that he doesn't want me to be Jewish. My dad thinks I should just accept that I have an "intellectual conflict in my head" about G-d and Jesus. What the hell does that even mean?

Oh, by the way, Easter was terrible.

Anyways, I told my parents I have tried and failed enough times to understand the cross that I am not going to do it anymore. It's not worth the pain and frustration. I tried for them, for my mom, for my brother, for my niece, but at some point, my mental and emotional health have to take priority. In the last year and a half, I've realized and decided that time has come. I will never go back to a Catholic Church for a long list of reasons, but I will not be a Christian because Christianity just doesn't make sense. If other people make it work in their heads, good for them, but I don't feel like I need to. I don't need to be saved. I'm good. Life is about learning, helping others, and enjoying it while you can. That's all I've ever needed, and, quite frankly, is what my mother raised me to believe. Even my dad told me that he can't stand ultra-religious, evangelical Christians. He keeps telling me he is going to un-friend the mother of my brother's best friend because she posts religious stuff a hundred times a day on Facebook. He thinks those kinds of people, who think only about religion and "depend entirely on G-d" are delusional. "I believe that G-d just said, 'be a good person'" my father tells me over the phone.

So why does is matter what religion I follow as long as I am a good person?