Selfishly Intermarried

I've been reading various blog entries about Jewish intermarriage. What I'm reading is, in general, discouraging. No, I'm not talking about the appalling intermarriage rate. I'm talking about how discouraging it is to read about marriages like mine as if they were created for the purpose of destroying Judaism, or that they are the union of two incredibly selfish beings who have no regard for their parents' feelings, values, or history. Beyond discouraging is the Holocaust analogy, comparing intermarried couples to Hitler; such a comparison is both offensive and juvenile and does not merit even this brief mention.

On the topic of intermarriage and selfishness, I've been doing some thinking about whether my own marriage was a selfish one. True, my husband's parents would have preferred he find a Jewish wife. He looked for a long time, but we live in a place where the Jewish population is miniscule. His choices were to A) move elsewhere to find a larger Jewish population, B) remain a bachelor, or C) widen his search a bit for the likes of me. Obviously, he chose C and, in my opinion at least, didn't do half bad.

Let's just consider choice A, though, for the sake of argument. He could have quit a good job that it took him a while to find and moved to a big city, leaving his mother all alone. Instead, my husband chose to stay close by and lend her support in the years following his father's death. That wasn't a selfish choice. And let's look at B. He could have chosen not to marry. But marriage is an important aspect of Judaism. Continuing his father's legacy was important to him, too; he always said he didn't care if our children were boys or girls, but at the same time, he was so pleased to have a son so that he could give him his father's name. Is that selfishness?

How about me? Am I selfish because I don't have enough respect for the Jewish tradition to declare a Jewish man off-limits when I'm dating? Or am I selfish because of the disrespect I have for my own family's tradition? I'm assuming it's the latter. Now, I understand to some extent that there's just a cultural difference here. Marrying "out" is much more of a taboo in the Jewish community than it is in the culture in which I was raised. And I realize that Judaism/Jewishness is unique in that there are issues of peoplehood and religion and history all mixed together. Still, the culture and religion in which I was raised are important to its followers, too, and naturally my parents almost surely would have chosen someone of their own faith for me if they had been in a position to choose. I don't have any excuses about a small dating pool. In my case, the man I fell in love with was Jewish, and I chose to marry him.

Okay, so if anyone was selfish, it was I, not my husband. Even more selfish of me, then, is the fact that I am considering conversion to Judaism. It is selfish, I suppose, that I would want to distance myself even further from my heritage. And so, it follows logically that every convert to Judaism is/was also selfish. All of them chose to leave behind a tradition their parents surely valued, right? Each and every one must have been thinking only about him- or herself, not about carrying on a tradition.

Hm. I bet those who call the intermarried selfish would stop short of calling Jews-by-choice selfish. Yeah, good thing. But that's where their logic leads.

When my husband and I take our children to synagogue, we are, almost without exception, warmly welcomed. However, when I read arguments like the ones I've been reading, I now can't help but wonder if the people I am getting to know at synagogue might really wish we weren't there. Are they judging us? Do they take one look at my kids' eye color and secretly wish them gone? Do they trying to guess whether my children have been converted or not, and by a rabbi of what affiliation? Do the people with whom we worship assume we are selfish? Do they compare us with Hitler?

Are we selfish for assuming we have anything to offer?