Friday, February 26, 2010

suddenly goyish.

i have a friend who always had thought she was jewish because her father was jewish until one day she found out that orthodox jews only go by matralineal descent. so she converted to judaism and became orthodox. i always wondered what someone in this situation feels. my friends mom wasn't alive when she came across this information. all of her family at the time was jewish. they weren't orthodox, but they were jewish.
what would you do if you found out you weren't really jewish? as a kid my first thought was that i would leave judaism. as an adult i realize that my answer is quite different. if i wasn't jewish i certainly would not be christian. christianity seems like b.s. to me. especially after a lifetime of judaism i could not even contemplate being a christian. islam is anti-woman and pro-suicide bombing so that religion would be out as well. i suppose i would consider becoming a member of the "i just believe in being a good person " religion that many secular jews believe in .
the thing is if i found out that i wasn't jewish but the rest of my family was jewish (as they are now) i would find it hard not to be jewish anymore. being jewish is so much a part of my life. the thing is , if i found out i wasn't really jewish as in i was adopted as a baby i would like to think that i would choose judaism. maybe this is because if i would adopt a child i would hope that they would want to be jewish. but on the other hand adoptive children usually want to become a part of their adoptive families lives which includes their religion. i think that unless i had a bad relationship with my adoptive family i would remain jewish. being jewish would be all i would know. and if i would be the same person i am now, i know that i enjoy being jewish and observing the holidays and the mitzvos .
still, its hard to really consider an answer because its hard to choose an answer to a question that isnt. im jewish . im not adopted. three of my grandparents and all of my great -grandparents were born in the shtetls of russia-poland. so whatever answer i might have to the "what would you do if you found out you weren't really jewish?" question are purely hypothetical.

1 comment:

%Shocked% said...

I'm going to have to write a post about this because I've thought about this question for years and years (hasn't everyone? lol), but, in short, I agree with your assessment of the other religions. They all seem so foolish relative to Judaism. The questions that people ask on Judaism which can't easily be answered but necessitate a modicum of belief to withstand the temptation to throw it all out the window. But when you begin to compare the questions asked about Judaism vs. the questions Judaism has on other religions, to me, it's either Judaism, or there can't be a G-d. I just don't see a religion out there that fits even one-hundredth of the qualities that Judaism does. But what would I do if I found out I wasn't Jewish......? :P As you said, hard to know unless it happened, but you also said that you would find it hard not be Jewish anymore. I think I'd find it impossible. Hmm...