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CaptainPrudeman
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Gonna be frank, she sounds insufferable. I can’t read anything but spite from her blatant refusal to even acknowledge Christmas, and this just seems like the cherry on top.
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Kaninchen
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No, it’s usually just part of the proselytiser approach, digging up some ex-Jew to try to win others over - it’s pretty dire, it brings the kind of response that one would expect if a Catholic convert to Islam were being used in a similar way.
If you didn’t realise that, now you do.
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adamhovey1988
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The demonstrate not acknowledging Christmas by doing something that acknowledges it’s Christmas.
Got it.
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meltzerboy2
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Apart from this, hasn’t the whole notion of “race” been revolutionized for many years now by anthropologists?
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Kaninchen
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In heavily secularised societies, that’s a problem for all religious groups.
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EmilyAlexandra
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Not really! I was more curious. Like I say, I am used to going on to Facebook on Christmas Day evening (before I left Facebook) and seeing photos of my Jewish friends wearing party hats, pulling crackers, and tucking into a turkey, or seeing that my Hindu friend has gone to church on Christmas Day with her Jewish husband. I was therefore a little surprised by this other friend’s strength of feeling about Christmas, especially as she is considerably less religious than the other examples given.
To be fair, her attitude towards Christmas is not an isolated feature of her personality. Over the summer, she told me that she didn’t know to which parties Donald Trump and Joe Biden belonged and that she didn’t know even very vaguely where they were situated on the political spectrum. She also claimed not to be aware of the electoral college voting system. She has also claimed not to know that Ronald Reagan had ever been president of the United States. One ends up suspecting that she knows an awful lot more than she lets on.
Yes, but I didn’t say anything because I knew the point that was being made. I assumed that “race” was being used as shorthand for “an ethnic community marked by similar characteristics due to genetic similarities brought about by a long period of endogamous reproduction”. I cannot claim to understand genetics (my husband has tried to explain the rudiments to me several times…), but I do know that while humans cannot be categorised into races, there are groups with genetic similarities which result in observable characteristics. I couldn’t claim to know what an Ashkenazi Jews looks like, but I do know that an Ashkenazi Jew is unlikely to look like somebody from China or Ethiopia.
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EmilyAlexandra
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True, but 25 December is the only date officially recognised as Christmas Day in this country and is the day marked as Christmas Day by the vast majority of the population.
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meltzerboy2
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And then, about a half-hour later, come back for dessert. Or is this only in Italian families?
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EmilyAlexandra
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My father always tells me (as in, virtually every year…) that when he was a child, they had typical British puddings, such as jelly and ice cream or trifle, in addition to the typical Christmas puddings such as Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, and mince pies. They were definitely in no way Italian!
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PickyPicky
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Then you evidently don’t have grandchildren, Jharek.
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Pattylt
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I agree, especially in England where Christmas is celebrated by just about everyone, including the majority of non religious Brits …which is a majority over there.
I’m not offended but I’m also used to this. Please understand whether right or wrong, many Jews consider Christian converts as having gone to the dark side…like Jedi. It will touch a nerve in probably all those still identifying as Jewish even if they are non practicing. It just is what it is.
I’m not interested in your link but I’m going to guess he probably still considered himself Jewish? Most seem to claim that. While he can consider himself whatever he’d like, note that Jews won’t consider him Jewish anymore. To Jews, it would be like saying I’m a Hindu Christian. It doesn’t work.
Hey, Merry Christmas everyone! Stay healthy and hope for a better 2021!
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Pattylt
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I knew about mince pies but James Bond movies? 
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Pattylt
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I’ve never bothered to read the books. I’ve watched most of the movies and felt some were good and some were not. I rarely view a movie for the intellectual questions it raises…I just want to be entertained for two hours so I have a pretty low bar. I can see your points, though!
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TomH1
Guest
I do not know about you but I am confused by your friend’s response. Four words do not constitute an explanation. To be ‘more Jewish’, I believe, may be achieved by observing the Jewish religion and culture and not by ignoring a Christian feast. You could say because I ignore Christmas I am more Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, etc. It is nonsensical.
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jeannetherese
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I’m not so sure about this.
One can be Jewish through descent, which follows the mother, and one can adopt the Jewish faith through conversion.
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jeannetherese
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I think that the more traditional (orthodox) Jews, like their Christian counterparts are more likely to survive than some might anticipate, due to their committment to their faith and to their larger family sizes.
Here is some supporting information from a 2015 PEW survey (linked below).
"To begin with, the median age of Orthodox adults (40 years old) is fully a decade younger than the median age of other Jewish adults (52). Despite being younger, more than two-thirds of Orthodox adults are married (69%), compared with about half of other Jewish adults (49%), and the Orthodox are much more likely to have minor children living in their household. On average, the Orthodox get married younger and bear at least twice as many children as other Jews (4.1 vs. 1.7 children ever born to adults ages 40-59).2 And they are especially likely to have large families: Among those who have had children, nearly half (48%) of Orthodox Jews have four or more offspring, while just 9% of other Jewish parents have families of that size.
Moreover, nearly all Orthodox Jewish parents (98%) say they are raising their children in the Jewish faith, compared with 78% of other Jewish parents. Orthodox Jews are much more likely than other Jews to have attended a Jewish day school, yeshiva or Jewish summer camp while growing up, and they are also more likely to send their children to these kinds of programs.".
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Pattylt
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I think Orthodox Jews vary by location as well. While I was raised Orthodox, my experience of our community doesn’t quite match your statistics. It certainly matches the Hasidic communities, though.
For example, my father was one of seven children. Two of his four sisters married and had three children each the other sister two. Of his two brothers, one died young and the other never married and my father wasn’t able to have children due to mumps in high school and adopted me…an only child. Even looking at our community, two to three children were the norm. Only a few had more than that and six was about the top end. Everyone did seem to raise their children strongly in the faith and most remained there however sliding over to the Conservative or Reformed faith also happened frequently. Most married within the faith but I’d guess about 1 in 8 married outside…me included.
New York and LA are probably different in that the community is so much larger than Dayton Ohio. I definitely think the larger the community, the more likely those statistics may hold. Having large families is probably their only hope as conversions are rare. Growing up, I only recall one convert due to marriage though it may happen more often. Smaller communities like mine are just the most susceptible to secularization…often in baby steps! The Orthodox in my home town are much smaller than they used to be.
For example, my father was one of seven children. Two of his four sisters married and had three children each the other sister two. Of his two brothers, one died young and the other never married and my father wasn’t able to have children due to mumps in high school and adopted me…an only child. Even looking at our community, two to three children were the norm. Only a few had more than that and six was about the top end. Everyone did seem to raise their children strongly in the faith and most remained there however sliding over to the Conservative or Reformed faith also happened frequently. Most married within the faith but I’d guess about 1 in 8 married outside…me included.
New York and LA are probably different in that the community is so much larger than Dayton Ohio. I definitely think the larger the community, the more likely those statistics may hold. Having large families is probably their only hope as conversions are rare. Growing up, I only recall one convert due to marriage though it may happen more often. Smaller communities like mine are just the most susceptible to secularization…often in baby steps! The Orthodox in my home town are much smaller than they used to be.
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jeannetherese
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There will be more communal support for Judaism in larger communities, I would imagine, but this too may be changing, with the changes in communications technologies.
A friend of mine converted to Judaism after marriage and is raising two children in the faith. He and his family are part of the reformed church.
His parents in law lived in a bedroom community when I met them which was within commuting distance of two temples (commuting might be a bit more allowable within the reformed community).
Their daughter found a husband through a Jews seeking Jews online dating platform.
Perhaps we will see the rise of such internet platforms supporting the Jewish faith and a re-imagining of the Jewish community.
Access to temple in small communities might continue to be a challenge, however.
A friend of mine converted to Judaism after marriage and is raising two children in the faith. He and his family are part of the reformed church.
His parents in law lived in a bedroom community when I met them which was within commuting distance of two temples (commuting might be a bit more allowable within the reformed community).
Their daughter found a husband through a Jews seeking Jews online dating platform.
Perhaps we will see the rise of such internet platforms supporting the Jewish faith and a re-imagining of the Jewish community.
Access to temple in small communities might continue to be a challenge, however.
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EmilyAlexandra
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It is true that being Jewish is normally determined by matrilineal descent, but there are exceptions. Karaite Jews require patrilineal descent, while many Reform Jews will recognise somebody as Jewish through patrilineal descent.
It also depends what you mean by “Jewish”. Somebody can be ethnically Jewish or culturally Jewish without being halachically Jewish. I can also think of at least four people I’ve known who are halachically Jewish by birth but who are Christians by religion (including two Methodists, one Anglican, and one Catholic). These people may not always be recognised as Jews by other Jews, but in every case that I know of, their Jewish ancestry has been very important to them.
The elephant in the room, of course, is scientific racism (specifically Nazi racial theories) and the Holocaust. Many people who are not religious Jews or who are not halachically Jewish will still identify as being Jewish because that is how they were, or would have been, identified by the Nazis. I think that for people who are Holocaust survivors, or who are descended from Holocaust survivors, it is virtually impossible for this not to form part of how they assess they Jewish identity.
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Kaninchen
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Meanwhile, now the whole business is behind us again, might one reflect that there is enormous confusion between the great Christian festival of Christmas and the vast secular festival of Mammon?
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