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Re: The Jewish Woman Shortage

Posted by Howard Fein on Tue Jun 20 14:10:57 2006, in response to Re: The Jewish Woman Shortage, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Tue Jun 20 13:28:58 2006.

I have a number of friends, both male and female, Jewish and not, who have intermarried. In some cases the marriages have lasted, others not. Sometimes they got a judge to marry them. Other times they were able to get a priest and a Reform rabbi. Only a Reform rabbi would perform at such a ceremony. (It led to an inadvertent joke at one wedding. "Where's the rabbi?" "In the bathroom with the Father." You can make your own punchline.)

Religious law states that a child of a mixed marriage would assume the religion of the mother. That was the case with all the 'half Jewish' kids I grew up with. But all our mixed-couple friends and relatives are going the Jewish route, even when the mother is not. Again, in this case a bris or naming would only be presided over by a Reform mohel or rabbi.

One friend of mine, a devout Reform Jew (Yes, there is such a thing!) had an unsuccessful- and fortunately childless- nine-year marriage to an unaffiliated Jew. His relative shortness- 5'6"- and blue-collar job made him unattractive to Jewish women he met at singles' functions (that he was financially flush and of great personality meant NOTHING), so he married someone he wasn't fully comfortable with. His second wife, who he met and moved in with about two years after his divorce, is Irish Catholic. She and her sibs all went to public school, but all went through Communion- so they're religious, but not excessively so. His parents love her; her parents love him (circumstances not at all evident in his first marriage) and their daughter just had her first birthday.

My eldest brother was only 23 when he married the first time, to a devout Catholic. They had four kids within ten years, all of whom went to Catholic school. As one could imagine, this was a tremendous financial strain that helped doom their marriage. She wanted nothing to do with his side of the family with the result that we went multiple years without seeing them- and they lived a mere sixty miles out on the Island. She fought the divorce tooth and nail, cleaned him out good and reneged on visitation whenever she could. Fortunately, he married again- this time to a nonreligious Jew with two daughters from her previous marriage. One of the first things he did was to get himself 'fixed'.

If you can stand one more anecdote, a longtime female friend of mine who's Jewish married an Italian Catholic. (It was at their wedding that the rabbi-priest-in-the-bathroom gag was concocted.) His parents and sister wanted nothing to do with her or the wedding, while her parents were fully involved. It probably helped that her older sister had a long-running, very successful marriage to an Italian Catholic. Sadly, after about eight years and two daughters, she found he was cheating and threw him out.

What's interesting is how many instances I've observed of non-Jewish parents being ECSTATIC when their daughter marries, or even dates, a Jewish man. After all, Jewish men are all fabulously successful and doting. We don't drink, curse or fail. But at the same token, non-Jewish parents seem to HATE when their SON marries, or even dates, a Jewish WOMAN.

Maybe they've been to the same singles' functions as Adam?



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