by Arielle Angel

I got into ketubahs quite by accident. In 2009, fresh off a year-long artist residency in South Carolina, a family friend asked me to create the ketubah for their wedding. I knew vaguely what a ketubah was—a decorative Jewish marriage contract—but I had never considered that I had something to bring to the tradition.

I met with the couple several times before the wedding and worked with them to come up with a concept. On their wedding day, I was privileged enough to be in the small room where they signed the ketubah—my creation—uniting them as husband and wife, according to Jewish law.

It was a moving experience. After years of art school spent debating about whether or not art had moved too far away from the general population, here I was watching one of my artworks serving not just a useful, but a beautiful purpose. I knew at that moment that the couple would cherish this work of art as a symbol of their marriage for years to come.

Word got out in my network that I had made a ketubah, and friends and friends of friends began asking me to make theirs. At the time, I was working at an art non-profit in Manhattan alongside Maya Joseph-Goteiner. In addition to her work at the foundation, Maya was focused on curating, and helping artists market their talents using social media. She recognized an opportunity in my budding ketubah business to involve a network of fine artists to apply their talents to ketubah-making.

As soon as I heard the idea, I knew it was a good one. It seemed that the reason people were coming to me was precisely because I was NOT a ketubah-maker. It only took a few minutes on the internet to see that the ketubah tradition—once defined by intricate, handmade works of art—had grown stale. The same intertwined pastel trees and watercolor Jerusalems crowded every website. People were looking for something different, something that reflected their values and their tastes. People were looking for something thoroughly modern, for contemporary works of art.

Maya and I quit our day jobs and started working full time on Ketuv. We had a few central goals:

1. To recruits artists with dynamic careers outside the Judaica and commercial spheres and encourage them to apply their studio practice directly to a ketubah.
2. To provide inclusive text options that took into account the diversity of the Jewish people, whether they be observant, interfaith, secular or non-denominational, same-sex, or even simply influenced by the Jewish tradition.

One of our artists brought this quote by Joseph Campbell to our attention: “In an effort to keep tradition a living experience for the community it serves, every generation produces innovators who reinterpret the common principles upon which it rests; in doing so more innovative ways of accomplishing the same outcomes are established.”

We hope that by moving the aesthetics of the ketubah tradition forward, Ketuv can encourage people to hold on to this meaningful tradition.

Photo provided by the author.

By Yocheved Sidof

What comes first, the chicken or the egg? What about love or sex? In my life, Love came first; or so I thought…

I grew up in a tightly knit Chassidic community in the Midwest, the first-born child of Iranian immigrants. I was raised with a lot of rules. Some were religiously influenced and others were cultural, but one of the big rules – NO Boys – fell equally into both categories: big-time religious and cultural no-no’s. According to the laws of Tzniut (modesty), boys and girls are separated from a very young age. There is very little socializing, and absolutely no touching, between opposite genders in strict Orthodox communities. (These laws are meant to sensitize us to the power of attraction and the sanctity of sexuality). That aside, there was no way my parents would let their Persian Princess be swept off her feet too easily; it just wouldn’t fly.

I came to New York City at the vulnerable age of seventeen to attend Stern College for Women. It was my first independent foray into this crazy “concrete jungle where dreams are made of” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist). Suddenly, I was surrounded by tons of women who were hanging out with guys, dating, looking for The One. My friends covered the whole spectrum: some dated without touching their partners at all, while others slept with their boyfriends. I fell somewhere in the middle. (Don’t tell my parents.) As I searched for my soulmate, I had one big rule – I would only have sex with my husband.

The issues of touch and sexuality were never so clear-cut for me. My convictions were totally in-line with my upbringing, but it was hard to hold stead-fast when there were so many pressures to deal with. Then, after years of tumultuous relationships and broken hearts, I met my man. We shared common interests, common values, and common goals, but we never shared a bed; we wanted our intimate life to begin as a committed, married couple.

We both believed in the sanctity of sex, and wanted to express that union of body and soul only within the context of a committed marriage. Sure it’s a risk (we all know the ‘test-drive a car’ analogy), but it was a risk we felt was worth taking.

I’m directing a documentary called Can’t Touch This, about the laws surrounding premarital intimacy in Judaism, i.e. Shomer Negiah. We have on-camera interviews with Rabbis, sex therapists, psychologists, and educators, and most importantly, hours of honest conversation with people who grapple with this question almost everyday: What is the interplay between religion and sex? How, if at all, does a person’s belief in G-d inform his or her sexual choices?

For one of my favorite shoots we traipsed to Times Square, camera in tow, to get some man-on-the-street interviews. Under the tantalizing billboards of scantily-clad men and women, we asked our fellow New Yorkers questions about sexuality, such as: How often do you think about sex? How did you learn about sex? What is meaningful touch? If in a relationship, how long would you wait to have sex? One honest man offered this take on building sexual compatibility: “If you have the mental chemistry, and you’re hitting it off, I believe the sex can be just as exciting. It just has to be… nurtured. And I just have not been lucky enough to find someone with that kind of patience. We live in a fast food society, fast sex, everything is fast. I don’t have time to practice with you. We’ve got to get it right the first or second time, or I’ve got to move on.”

I didn’t decide to marry my husband based on our sexual compatibility, how great he is in bed, or how quickly we each learned the other’s desires… I didn’t have any idea how we’d vibe together as a sexual couple. We formed our shared sexual identity as a married couple, and that created a beautiful, yet very vulnerable, sense of intimacy. Love and sex were woven together in a cycle, allowing each to nurture the other. It definitely wasn’t seamless, but I knew that even if our intimate life wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t at risk of losing him–he truly loves me for me, and not for how adept I may be in bed. We would work through the rough patches, and commit ourselves to gratifying each other–not for sex’s sake, but for love’s.

And you know what? That man-on-the-street is right. We do have unrealistic expectations about sexual gratification. Popular media totally misleads us about how sexual compatibility is formed. It’s not instantaneous. Nobody has ‘great sex’ right away. It takes time, practice, sensitivity, commitment … and a whole lot of love.

…

This post originally appeared on Alef October 22, 2010.
Yocheved Sidof is a photographer, filmmaker, and teacher who lives in Brooklyn, NY.  She and her husband Yossi are the proud parents of Reuven Uriyah, 4 years old, Ma’ayan Chaya, 2 and a half, and Tzofia Malka, 3 months.

Photo provided by the author.

Read more posts from Issue #22: Couples.

by Michelle Fish

Twenty-nine years ago, my grandmother took my mom to the mikvah to prepare her for her upcoming marriage. My mother tells the story of my grandmother shooing my father away from her following her visit to the mikvah and refusing to let my parents embrace until they were under the chuppah.

With this story always planted in the back of my head, I thought I’d go to the mikvah before I got married myself. I never learned the details of why you really go, what you do, or when you go, but figured, my mother went, so I should too.

The months leading up to our wedding, I learned the beauty and power of going to the mikvah from our rabbi’s wife. She answered all the unsolved questions I had, so a few weeks before I traveled home to get married, I called up the local Chabad mikvah and made my appointment.

Our wedding was on a Sunday and I arrived home on Tuesday knowing that my appointment was to be on Thursday night. Those few days were filled with wedding errands; I was so busy that I kept having to remind myself the wedding was THAT weekend. After almost a year of planning, it just didn’t seem real. Everyone kept telling me you better believe that it’s real! There were no pre-wedding jitters, it just hadn’t sunk in.

Thursday evening came and with all my preparations completed, my mom and I drove to the mikvah. We had never been to this one and when we arrived, we couldn’t find the entrance. There was a set of stairs on the side of the building, which lead to a basement door. The stairs looked too deserted to be the entrance, so we kept looking around. A woman who had dropped her husband off to daven was driving away and I flagged her down to ask if she knew. She pointed to the mysterious set of stairs. So down we went, and just as I was reaching for the doorbell, the windowless door swung open! Hello! Are you here for the mikvah? Said the 20-something year-old lady. She swooped us inside and I immediately thought: This is awesome. It’s like a secret society!

I waited my turn, went into the mikvah and when I came out, I was absolutely amazed. My mindset completely changed. I was ready to get married. There was no magic dust sprinkled over me, I said the blessing myself, but something clicked. I felt an amazing sense of separation from my engaged self, to my almost-married self and felt connected to millions of women who also take part in this custom.

Going to the mikvah is an extremely personal decision, but of all the advice I could give to a Jewish bride, it would be to go. Go to the mikvah because there is something that changes your life from past to present. The hour before I went, I was a someone’s fiance and now I was ready to be someone’s bride. Following the mikvah, my mom and I had to make yet another wedding errand- a stop at Kinko’s. Not exactly the place one goes to rejoice, and yet I had the biggest smile on my face. It was here, our wedding was here, I was getting married THIS weekend.

Photo by Jenifer Morris of Freed Photography, Inc.

This post originally appeared on Alef  on February 10,  2010.

Emily and Sarah are twenty-something Jewish women living in New York City. In spite of the odds, their love of Judaism has not translated into a love of Jewish men.
…

Growing up, did your families impose expectations that you should marry Jewish?

Sarah: I think my parents always wanted me to marry a good person. The focus was never on the person’s religion. My father was Catholic when he married my mom (he later converted to Judaism), so it would have been hypocritical for them to pressure me into a Jewish marriage.

Emily: My mom wasn’t Jewish when she met my dad, so my parents were in sort of an opposite situation. She converted before they were married and my brothers and I were raised secularly so there was no discussion at all of religion playing a part in who I decided to be with.

Have your respective family situations affected your dating histories?

Sarah: I haven’t been in a serious relationship with any Jewish guys.  In college, I dated a tall, skinny redhead from the suburbs of Milwaukee – definitely not Jewish. Later on, I dated another tall, skinny redhead (I guess I have a “type”) from rural Minnesota – also not Jewish. I thought we might end up staying together for a long time, and he was fine with the fact that I wanted to have a Jewish family. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always wondered if I could raise a Jewish family if my partner wasn’t Jewish. But since my mom did, I thought I could too.

I did date two Jewish guys casually in between relationships, but it never got serious.

Now, I’m single…

What’s your number?

Sarah: …

Just kidding…[smiles;  scratches chin; looks away] Right…So Emily, what about you?

Emily: I’ve only been in two serious relationships in my life. I suppose I know what I don’t want when I see it and tend to shut it down as soon as I know it wont work.

My two brief experiences with Jewish men, incidentally, both ended badly. One of them dumped me after a couple weeks of casual dating to immediately begin pursuing my roommate, the other led me to believe he wanted an emotional relationship when all he wanted was a physical one.

My first serious boyfriend was Albanian, Eastern Orthodox, and knew very little about Judaism. Even though the relationship lasted almost two years, we always knew that the difference in religion was going to have a detrimental effect on us. He was happy to celebrate Chanukah and Passover with me, but his ideological issues with some aspects of Judaism gave him cause to debate me on several occasions.

My second real relationship is only just beginning, and although he has one Jewish grandparent, he too was raised with little knowledge of the religion.

Does his Jewish ancestry make you feel any different about him?

Emily: I think what’s more important to me is that he isn’t tied to a religious philosophy that I fundamentally disagree with.

How, if at all, do you want Judaism to play a role in your current relationship?

Emily: I hope that he understands and appreciates it as a part of who I am. We already share the same set of values, regardless of our religious upbringings, so that’s not an issue. I want him to be willing to celebrate with me when I am moved to celebrate.

Sarah: If I fall in love and marry someone who isn’t Jewish, this is how I would want it to be too.

Sarah, so why do you think you’ve mostly dated non-Jewish guys?

Sarah: I really don’t know why I’ve dated mostly non-Jews–they just happen to have been people I’ve been drawn to. As I get older, I’m starting to think it’s more important for me to intentionally date Jewish guys, since I want to marry a Jewish man eventually.

This is a challenging situation. It feels wrong not to date someone I like just because he isn’t Jewish. But I’m also at the age when, any day, I could meet the person I eventually end up marrying.

Have you ever put yourself in a situation where you could be intentionally meeting or dating a Jewish guy?

Sarah: I’m cringing at this question, because the answer is “no.” Outside of work, few of my friends are Jewish, so I’m rarely in a situation where I meet Jewish guys.

I don’t really want to join a synagogue. I’m not interested in meat-market mixers. Should I join J-Date? That doesn’t sound all that appealing either…I think I’ve been hoping that I’ll randomly meet a Jewish guy someday. I live in New York City, so there’s a good chance it could happen.

So who do you want to end up with?

Sarah: I want to marry someone Jewish, have a Jewish household and Jewish children. I’m not at all religious, but I love being Jewish. It would seem tragic to me for my children to not be a part of such a rich tradition.

Emily, what about you? Who do you want to end up with and why?

Emily: One thing you said [Sarah] really resonated with me: I’m not at all religious, but I love being Jewish. I once found myself excitedly describing Shabbat to my current boyfriend as if I were a five-year-old on Christmas morning. At the same time, and after lots of consideration, I’ve decided that I don’t need to be married to a Jewish person to live the kind of Jewish life that I want for myself.

Being the product of a mixed marriage myself, I know that it can be difficult to impart some of the traditions on your children when both parents are not Jewish, but I also found that, being in that situation, I was able to find and choose Judaism for myself.

Sarah: I liked what you said about how having parents from different backgrounds led you to “find and choose Judaism for yourself.” I wonder if the same thing happened to me as a result of growing up in a mixed household. They say that children of intermarriage generally aren’t raised with a strong sense of Jewish identity, but you and I seem to be exceptions to that rule.

Emily: If only there were a formula!

Photo by CarbonNYC, licensed under Creative Commons. Heart photo by easyrab, also licensed under Creative Commons.

by Ruvym Gilman

When Tom suggested we grab a drink so that he could “ask me something,” the first thing that came to mind was that he had a legal question. Before I even got my law degree in 2006, people had been asking me for legal advice and prepping me for an anticipated onslaught of litigation.

“Ah, a lawyer,” one of my parents’ friends said when he heard that I was in law school. “So that means you can bail me out if I ever get in trouble, eh?” he asked as he jabbed me mischievously with his elbow.

“Yeah,” I wanted to say, “that’s why I’m bothering with this whole law gig – so I can help keep you out of prison when you get caught for your involvement in the black market beluga trade.”

Tom was already at the bar when I got there, playing with his new iPad and sipping a beer. I got myself a drink and we sat there for a few minutes bantering about the day.

“This thing really isn’t all that great,” he told me, gesturing to the iPad.

“So what is it you wanted to ask me?” I cut to the chase, prepping myself for a landlord-tenant dispute.

“Well,” he began, “I talked it over with Kaira and we were wondering if you’d be willing to marry us?”

“Marry you?”

“Yeah, like run the wedding ceremony, that whole deal.”

“Me?” I fumbled, trying to make sense of the request. “Sure,” I said eventually. “I’d be honored.”

Because, really, what else can you say if someone asks you to officiate their wedding?

I met Tom a few years earlier during a Passover seder. I was there by way of invitation from a girl I met at a Starbucks while studying for the Bar exam. Tom was there, along with his sister, by way of invitation from another lady friend.

For sure I thought that this guy, with his wavy hair, trimmed beard, square glasses, and prominent nose, was Jewish.

“Italian,” he said, “but I grew up on Long Island, so its kind of the same thing.”

We stayed in touch for a while after the seder, but as tends to happen in NYC when you’re young and have a million things pulling you in different directions, we lost touch. We were friends on Facebook, if that means anything, but we didn’t actually cross paths until a couple of years later when I spotted Tom on the subway with Kaira. The two of them had just gotten engaged.

By some weird twist of fate that had thrown us together for Passover, then reconnected us on a late-night F-train journey, and even decided to place us in nearby apartments, I was now officiating this guy’s wedding.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but be concerned – for Tom’s sake, for Kaira’s sake – that they were making a mistake. Sure, as neighbors we’d gotten much closer, but of all the people they had to choose from, I couldn’t imagine being the best person for the job.

“You speak good,” Tom reassured me. “And you’re a lawyer. Makes it feel more official.”

“It should be official. You’re getting married.”

“I know, that’s why I said it.”

“What about the religion thing?”

“What about it? We want the wedding to be nondenominational, so it doesn’t matter.”

“But I’m Jewish.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”

“So I can throw in some Jewish philosophizing then? Spice things up a little?”

“Whatever makes you happy.”

I prepped for the wedding for several weeks, exchanging drafts of what I planned to say with Kaira, who took the lead in communicating with me about what sort of ceremony they wanted.

When the wedding was still months away, it didn’t feel real, it was just some nondescript day in the distant future. But as it got closer I started to panic, it was like “this is really happening!” You would have thought I was the one getting married.

All I could think about during the night preceding the wedding and on the afternoon of the wedding day was the ways in which I might mess up. I’ve been to weddings where the person officiating is so awful that he starts getting death stares from the parents’ of the bride and groom during the ceremony. Then, after the botched affair is finally over, you turn to the person sitting next to you and, wide-eyed, whisper, “what the hell was that?” Sure, the couple is married even if the ceremony sucks, and hopefully they’ll go on to have many blissful years together, but no one ever forgets how terribly it all went down.

“Don’t screw this up!” someone jovially tells me and slaps me on the back while I’m at the bar with a glass of wine, going over my notes. They have, of course, been dampened thanks to an unexpected rain shower. I force a smile and proceed to down the wine.

The wedding takes place in a small restaurant in Brooklyn that’s closed to the public for the night. The room where the ceremony is supposed to go down is at the far end of the restaurant in what looks like a greenhouse. It’s narrow and warm and as the procession begins I feel the sweat forming between my shoulder blades and gliding down to my lower back. The wedding party begins to line up on either side of the room, just as I realize that I don’t know where to stand. I find myself awkwardly positioned in front of the bride and groom just as the music dies and everyone is straining to see them holding hands somewhere behind me.

Kaira forcefully repositions me so I don’t look like a moron, and without thinking about it for too long, I just start speaking. I know there are words coming out of my mouth but I don’t know what they are, I’m just hoping they make sense. When I see people nodding and following along, I realize that I’m doing OK. I get through my introduction and proceed to the story of how Kaira and Tom met. I become more aware of what I’m actually saying and make sure to pace myself, to not mumble through the words as I sometimes do when I get excited about expressing an idea. I have a moment of complete mental clarity where I make a note to maintain eye contact with the entire room.

The ceremony goes mostly as planned. When I get to the end I ask everyone to, as a group, help me pronounce the couple as husband and wife.

“So on the count of three,” I say, “let’s do this together – ‘We pronounce you husband and wife.’ Ready?” I pause. “1…2…3.”

The crowd shouts a collective “yeah!” and start clapping. Kaira and Tom kiss, my date, standing at the back of the room, laughs, because she knows how stressed I was about how to end the ceremony. I shrug.

The wedding turns out to be one of the best I’d ever been to. There’s great food, an open bar, and a dance play list that Kaira put together. After all is said and done, I feel incredibly honored to have played such a central role. And then there is the most important piece of all – Tom and Kaira are married! That concept is still totally wild to me. Sometimes it feels like my friends and I are all still just kids, but meanwhile we’re starting to get married and have kids of our own. I imagine some point in the future when Tom and Kaira have a family, and then I wonder if we’d still be in touch then, if we’d have an opportunity to share more of life’s big moments.

As I sit at my table and ponder, a girl points at me and yells “you’re the officianator!”

“Come with me if you want to get married,” I say in my best Arnold voice, except no one laughs. I like to think it’s because the music was too loud.

Photo by sonictk, licensed under Creative Commons.

By Emily Kapit

First comes love (one hopes), then comes marriage (one’s parents hope), then comes “your-name-here” in the baby carriage (it’s shocking how soon the pressure for this starts after the wedding; you know, like at the post-wedding brunch). However, the second you announce the impending arrival of a baby, you might as well simultaneously open an umbrella to fend off the deluge of advice, expectations, and opinions.

“You’re gonna get a nanny, right? You can’t expect to raise a baby on your own can you?”

“In my day, you put a sleeping baby on its back, then it was to be on stomach, now it’s back to the back. I don’t get why they ever changed!”

“Here’s the name of my mohel; he’s the BEST. Why, he did my little David and…”

Now, I know that people usually mean well when dispensing tidbits of “helpful” information and I’m all for taking in some suggestions on pregnancy and child-rearing when the time comes, but there is one Jewish tradition (or is it a rite of passage?) that I’ve found myself questioning over the last few years.

It all started with Elisa Albert’s collection of short stories How This Night is Different. The first story, “The Mother is Always Upset,” depicts a new father trying to handle the early morning brit milah going on in his home eight days after the birth of his baby boy. The sleep-deprived character is simultaneously trying to deal with the hoards of people gathered in his house (all of whom have been waiting around for the short service to begin) while also attempting to track down his wife and newborn son. As the story goes on, you come to find out that the mother and other characters question the necessity of a bris and deem it a “barbaric ritual” that has no true “medical reason” and is “painful and invasive.”

Truth be told, I’d never thought about a bris that way; isn’t this just something we, as Jews, do? Apparently, yes. G-d said to Abraham, patriarch of the Jews, “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you (Genesis 17: 9-11).” And if you don’t do this? Well, there’s a punishment ready and waiting just a few verses down: “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant (Genesis 17:14).”

Yikes.

I should go ahead and make two points clear before continuing: I am a) not pregnant nor expecting to be anytime soon; and b) not necessarily saying that I would never do a bris should I be blessed to have a baby boy years down the road. What I am saying, though, is that I am simply questioning the tradition and its place in our modern world.

The first order of business is to state that though I consider myself Jewish from both a religious and (decidedly moreso) cultural perspective, my biggest beef with the religious side is this persistent feeling of “Well, G-d said we should do this so that’s why it’s done.” While I absolutely, undoubtedly, and unfailingly support other people’s decisions to be religious and follow more of the traditions passed down through countless generations, I personally feel strongly about needing some hard evidence supporting the need for a tradition before agreeing to do the same on my end (especially when knives and blood are involved).

Bar and bat mitzvahs to symbolize the age at which young Jews enter adulthood and are responsible for their actions? Sure, it’s a great rite of passage for kids and I love the idea so long as it does not turn into a competition of whose parents can throw the best shindig. The groom veiling his bride before the wedding to ensure that the woman he intends to marry is really under there? Absolutely—badekens are a sweet throwback to the Biblical story of Jacob planning to marry Rebecca but “accidentally” marrying Leah when their father substituted her at the last moment. Taking a knife to a defenseless baby days after its birth? Just because G-d said so? I think I need some additional convincing on that one. Also, will my child be cast out of the Jewish people if he’s not circumcised? I ate shrimp for lunch two days ago—should I be cast out as well?

Medically speaking, the jury is still out on the necessity for a circumcision. As this early 2010 Washington Post article shows, the practice of circumcision is a hotly debated topic in both medical and religious circles (which I imagine overlaps with some regularity). Some supporters of the minor surgery say that it does, indeed, cut back on the risk of STDs and penile cancer. In 2005, however, the American Academy of Pediatrics reconfirmed its 1999 policy on the matter, which is that they do not believe the evidence supporting circumcision was strong enough to endorse it as a regular surgical routine. Given that I am looking for facts to help me decide my stance on the matter, turning to the medical world does not seem to be overly helpful at this time.

Honestly, and unless the medical community comes up with overwhelming proof of a circumcision’s necessity, the one point that would push me toward honoring the ritual (other than obviously discussing the matter with my husband and coming to a decision with him), is not wanting my child to be “different.” Well, that and not wanting to upset the masses of family members who may attack me with a mohel’s scalpel should I decide against a bris. Either way, perhaps hoping for girls is my best bet for avoiding the topic altogether?

Photo by Arria Belli, licensed under Creative Commons.

UPDATE: Since we first posted this piece in January, the circumcision debate has once again come into the spotlight (or maybe it never left?).  Tablet Magazine reports on a San Francisco ballot measure prohibiting circumcision and it has started quite a conversation.

Read more from Issue #25: Changing Traditions.

…

No question about it, dating and marriage are hot button issues for the Jewish people. Between conversations about where the community stands on homosexual couples, to debates about where it stands on interfaith couples, there is an awful lot of chatter. Not to mention that hemming and hawing coming from your mother, insisting that you marry a nice Jewish boy or girl and settle down to give her some grandchildren. Not to also mention the ominous and ever-present JDate angel and devil sitting on your shoulders. To join or not to join? That is the question.

The questions are endless, and where are the role models sent to tell us what to do? Of all the high-profile Jews in Hollywood – Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler, Natalie Portman, to name a few – none of them have high profile relationships that we can scrutinize and compare to our own. In fact, this year’s highest-profile Jewish relationship belongs to not-so-Jewish Chelsea Clinton (now Mezvinsky).

When the Love and Sex Issues of Alef came out last February, we had no idea what a ruckus they would cause. Now, after eight more months of reflection, we bring you the Couples Issue, jam-packed with tales of Jewish relationships and how they got to be the way they are. Our writers might not be celebrities of Hollywood, but you should feel free to scrutinize the relationships they share with you anyway and as always, we’d love to hear what you have to say.

- Alef

Photo by Lachlan Hardy, licensed under Creative Commons.

Couples Posts:
Type A Dating
What Comes First?
He Said/She Said
Soy Vey
Big Q’s, small r’s
Deconstructing Amy
This Little Light of Mine

By Meredith Druss

Sitting on the beach with my parents and sister this weekend, I asked my mother about her experiences being a Taiwanese woman who had converted to Judaism and raised two daughters Jewishly. My mother’s answers mirrored many of the feelings I have: “People are curious and pay me more attention when they see me in a Jewish space,” and “often I’m asked to explain myself but when I say I married a Jewish man and converted, they’re fine with that.” In my personal favorite of her responses she said, “everyone is welcoming, they see my energy and enthusiasm, and are happy to see me so involved.”

Together, riding the high of how open and welcoming Judaism is for us converts and half-Asians, we weren’t prepared for my dad’s question:

“If you were dating an Orthodox boy and he asked that you convert under Orthodoxy before marrying him, would you do it?”

Immediately, my mind reverted to my impertinent ten-year-old self who used to sass mistaken pure-breds who dared to call me a “half-Asian, half-Jewish girl.”

“I’m half-Asian, full-Jewish,” I’d retort, proud to educate on the difference between ethnicity and religion.

But am I really?

Having an Asian mother means it’s doubtful that my maternal line is Jewish through-and-through. While there are some Jewish communities in China (the Kaifeng Jews), Wandy Wang wasn’t from one, and to some, I realize, her Conservative conversion with intent to marry my father doesn’t cut it. So if mom’s not Jewish, then neither are the kids.

Bam.

What do you say when your own father asks if you will admit that you’re not really Jewish in order to marry your hypothetical Orthodox future-husband?

A fighter by nature, I laid it into him.

“It’s an affront to my identity! How dare anyone question my Judaism, do people question if you’re actually from Caucasia?! If this hypothetical fiancé won’t marry me unless I convert, what’s he doing dating non-Jews in the first place?”

My mother also took it personally.

“Judaism is a way of living.”

She argued that if I knew my mother to be Jewish, and lived Jewishly – the following of tradition, the observance of ritual, the commitment to certain beliefs – then I was already Jewish. Judaism isn’t something that someone can take a DNA test to determine. It doesn’t show in bone structure or the face.

“If Meredith continues to do all that, why would she have to convert?”

I affirmed my mother, “Should I be asking proof from my potential Jewish suitors that their maternal ancestors are Jewish or Orthodox-converted all the way up to the matriarch Sarah?”

I didn’t really answer the question. Defensively, I said “no” to my father only to stop the conversation. Sure, if it made things easier, why wouldn’t I convert to Orthodoxy? But then, would converting mean that I’d be acknowledging that I am not a Jew now. Who’s the one that needs to compromise here?

The greater question in all of this is that of religion vs. ethnicity. Is Judaism my ethnicity, a way of life and a group of people I happen to have traditions and beliefs in common with; or is it my religion, the way I service and worship G-d? In modern day terminology, we throw around the phrase “cultural Jew” to identify those of us that are members of the Tribe but don’t follow strict religious observance. Then, of course, there are religious Jews. Somewhere along the line, you can’t be a cultural Jew if your mother/grandmother/great-grandmother, etc. was not recognized as a religious Jew in her conversion….If I’m somewhere in the middle (a cultural Jew who believes and worships G-d and follows moderate observance levels), what’s my new categorization now? Half-Asian-Half-Ethnic-Jew-Three-Quarters-Religious Jew (…but only if you approve of Conservative conversions)?

Let me tell you, I can’t wait for the day when I can say, “I’m Jewish and I’m Asian” and no one will blink an eye.

Photo by Beige Alert, licensed under Creative Commons.

Read more posts from issue #16: Diverse Jews

By Amir Levi

During 7th grade, everyone was having their bar and bat-mitzvahs. I remember before each party, as I would be putting on the same suit I wore to every one, I would ask myself, ‘Will this be the party where he notices me and asks me to dance?’. A complete wallflower and social outcast in middle school, I would sit on the side watching the slow dances of the 1994-1995 season (guys putting their hands on the girls hips, with the girls putting their hands on the guys shoulders, and both parties stepping side to side in the same rhythm, no matter what the song was). I thought those dances were the first step to meeting Mr. Right and that if I wasn’t asked to dance, I would remain single for the rest of my life. Fifteen years later, I’m still waiting to be asked to dance.

I used to imagine myself as the awkward girl in romantic movies, you know, the girl with the glasses that the popular guy doesn’t notice at first, but once her glasses come off and her hair gets let down, he realizes that she’s more beautiful than anyone else he could’ve ever hoped for…and more interesting as well. I had braces, big hair, and my older brother’s hand-me-downs. I couldn’t wait for guys to dig below the surface to find that I was just what they were looking for.

I needed these fantasies. I went to a Jewish school in Atlanta where if you weren’t an athlete or a bully, you immediately became the target, not only by the students, but by some of the faculty as well. As my aspirations involved singing, dancing and a desire to hang out with Madonna and Paula Abdul (as opposed to Nirvana and Green Day), it became evident that there would be no support system in my everyday life, so I had to seek solace elsewhere. My friendships came from my acting classes, my boyfriends came from… well, the pictures ripped out of Dynamite magazines and taped to my doors. I had wonderful boyfriends: Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, and Mark Paul Gosselaar. I would kiss each of them goodnight almost every day, and I would fantasize that any one of them would come to the bar and bat mitzvahs to rescue me as I was getting beaten up while being called “faggot.”

I also fantasized about my future. While watching Fiddler on the Roof, I’d think about which groom I’d end up with, and I’d measure the pros and cons of each. Motel was cute, but a wimp; Perchik was passionate, but poor; and Fyedka… well, he wasn’t Jewish, so I wasn’t interested. In the end I’d always choose Perchik. Perchik would stand up for me and for rights of everyone around me. I needed someone who would fight the good fight and who I could believe in. I also wanted someone who would marry me under a chupa and stomp on the glass while everyone yelled “mazel tov.” I was going to be a Jewish bride and no amount of bullying from my peers was going to stop me.

After I graduated eighth grade, I went to an International School, as opposed to Yeshiva, and I was freed. I made instant friends (some of whom I’m still close to today) and I stopped looking over my shoulder for threats of violence. I participated in debates between the girls and boys of my class about whether gays were equal (boys usually voted no, girls voted yes), and I broke up with the men of my bedroom in favor of fantasies about the boys in my class.

I never doubted my Judaism. In fact, I connected with the fact that in spite of the adversity the Jewish people faced (and continue to face), we still survive and continue to thrive as a people. I needed to survive the torments of my youth because I knew that eventually life had to get better. I needed to be strong for myself, and for Perchik. After all, someday he would ask me to dance, right?

amirlevimm@gmail.com

Photo by zilupe, licensed under Creative Commons.

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By Alexander Marcus

Rabbi Meir used to say: Do not look at the flask but at what is in it; there may be a new flask that is full of old wine and an old flask that does not even have new wine in it.

- Pirkei Avot 4.27

I carefully made my way down the slippery stone steps, heading toward the wooden house that had been temporarily converted into a classroom in the hillside Gurung village of Tangting, Nepal. It was early November 2007. The sky was engulfed by the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas. I was about to participate in the academic culmination of four months of intense study and total linguistic and cultural immersion. I had already completed the written portion of my Nepali language exams, conducted research with Hindu holy men, Tibetan refugees, and farmers here in Tangting. Now was my final test. I was to sit one-on-one with Shova, the head Nepali language instructor, and have a 30 minute free-form conversation entirely in Nepali. Any vocabulary and any topic was fair game.

Shova is an intelligent, extremely well-educated Nepali woman. She was raised in the heart of the tourist section of Kathmandu and later served in countries all over the world in the Peace Corps. She is one of those people who seems to radiate wisdom: if you are lucky enough to ever hear her advice, you instinctively sense you should absorb her every word. She is strict but fair. I walked into the room where she was waiting, knowing that the next half hour would be difficult. After we dispensed with the customary Nepali pleasantries – “Have you eaten rice yet today?” “Yes, and you?” – I was caught completely off-guard by her opening question.

“What is your opinion about homosexuals?” she asked me nonchalantly, using the English word “homosexual.”

Taken aback I replied, “What do you mean? What is my opinion of homosexuals?” Stalling for time, I repeated her question in the first person, the smallest bit of panic in my tone.

“You know,” she said, “Gay people. What do you think about them? Do you think that that’s alright?”

“Of course I think it’s alright,” I finally croaked. “It’s not a choice and everybody deserves to be happy. Don’t you think so?” I have always seen myself as an ally for the LGBTQ community, and I consider it my duty, as both a Jew and a human being, to treat everyone with dignity. And some of my best friends are gay. I wondered what they would think if they could hear our conversation.

Shova was quiet for a moment. I think it dawned on her that this might not have been the greatest subject to discuss while testing my language ability. She must have seen the shock on my face, and realized that she should explain herself.

“Yes, alright,” she said, “Maybe in America it’s alright to be gay, but not here in Nepal. In America, a woman does not need a man to survive, but in Nepal a woman needs a man. If a man is gay, and decides to be with another man, then there is a woman with nobody to take care of her.”

I do not remember precisely what happened after that exchange. We quickly changed the subject, and most likely delved into a more detailed discussion of the contents of my breakfast. But I could not get that conversation out of my mind. How could someone for whom I have so much respect think such a thing?

It took me a very long time to allow myself to consider that in certain ways Shova was right.

During my first experience in Nepal, and two years later when I returned, I witnessed the troubles that Nepali women endure. In Nepal it is very difficult for a woman to own property, and an unmarried woman often has very few rights. Too many married women suffer silently at the hands of drunken, abusive husbands. In this context, it is of the utmost importance to stress the duty of a husband toward his wife, and of men toward women. Marriage is not a choice, and it is rarely a matter of love. For women it is an essential ingredient for happiness; for men it might be nothing more than the fulfillment of an obligation.

I am now living in Colorado, working with a non-profit that advocates for the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Jewish community. It should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the evolution of Jewish thought on these issues that the rights of LGBTQ people have often been intertwined with the rights of women. It should also be no surprise to anybody in the United States that we have only really tackled LGBTQ issues after proving the viability of “alternative” family units and created space for women to enter worlds that were once the exclusive realm of men. We have certain luxuries of thought that Nepal does not yet have.

But as American Jews we have unique difficulties of our own. We must walk the line between being true to our traditions and allowing those traditions to speak to our present age. I would guess that many traditional Jews see variations of their own concerns in Shova’s words. The breakup of traditional families can have very negative consequences for everyone involved. To expand the idea of marriage and family to include LGBTQ people can be a scary idea. But we can also learn from Shova’s position. She is concerned, just like we are, for the well-being of the most vulnerable members of her community.

While Shova recognized the limits of her time and place, she did not consider homosexuals sinners or evil people, nor did she dismiss how difficult her prescription must be for many. Likewise, we must extend our own obligations to our brethren to the fullest degree possible in our time and place. LGBT individuals have been proving for decades that they are capable of maintaining viable, healthy families, and raising children in nurturing households. As Jews in the United States, with the framework and resources that we have, I believe it is our obligation to prove to them that we are capable in turn of welcoming them into our communities as completely as possible.

Epilogue: On November 18th, 2008 the Supreme Court of Nepal directed the government to enact laws enabling equal rights to LGBT citizens. Sunil Babu Pant is the first openly gay member of the constituent assembly, Nepal’s interim governing body. The new constitution, which is currently being drafted, will contain a clause establishing same-sex marriage and protection for “sexual minorities.”

Photo by -Marlith-, licensed under Creative Commons.

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