After reading your article in Freethought Today and particularly the part where your daughter said she’s not interested in being Jewish, I decided to check out your blog and write to you. Normally I don’t do this type of thing as I am a busy professional and do not have the time to respond to everything that captures my attention. But as a non-religious Italian married to a non-religious Jew rasing three non-believing Jewish children, I am sensitive to many issues affecting the Jewish community. By “Jewish community,” I am not specifically referring to practicising Jews. Rather I am referring to ethnic Jews. In fact, most of my friends are Jewish and atheist. I also live in a neighborhood where there are 4 other “mixed” couples. Which brings me circuitously and obliquely to my point:the importance of raisng jewish children. You may already do this, so perhaps I am preaching to the shtetl here, but raising your children with the knowledge of who they are and to take great pride in a heritage that has produced some of the greatest thinkers, scientists, business leaders, and political innovators (think labors leaders like Gompers or the rise of feminism like Steinham and Friedan) is important in helping innoculate them from a society that seeks to seduces them away from this heritage with the delusive contentment of Christmas and chocolate bunnies. We live in a Jewish world, from our entertainment (movie studios, television networks, music producers, etc), to our modern technology (Google, Facebook, fractal theory, computer chips), to our (their) religion Christianity and Islam (both offshouts of Judaism). Without even scratching the surface here, it is mind boggling how .02 of the world’s population has contributed 1/3 of noble prizes and close to half of all science nobel prizes. I remind my atheist bar and bat mitzvahed children of these “noble” accomplishments often (and often to their chagrin). Without the enormous contribution of these mostly secular Jews these accomplishments would have never taken place. Imagine a world without Jews. Unless you’re a medieval loving Jihadist, it would be immessurably poorer. So what does this have to do with your daughter? Remember those 4 couples on my street, 3 of them are raising their children as christians. Worse still, they are being raised without knowledge of their jewish heritage. My daughter once asked one of the boys about his being jewish and he flatly denied it saying “I’m not Jewish, my grandparents are.” These neighborhood boys all go to Catholic school (like 1.2 billion Catholics is not enough!) and don’t even recognize any connection to the Jewish people. These boys will likely marry christian wives, as will their children and grandchildren. As I tell my wife, if you don’t instill some pride in their identity and give them some jewish education, they will have no innoculation against a society or spouse that will pressure them to conform to the “norm.” I cannot predict if the seeming inquisitiveness of your daughter will act as a bulwork of resistance against her peers but I hope that in rasing your children atheist, you are not forgetting to raise them as jews. As an atheist parent, I have never found a conflict in highlighting their dual cultural heritage and teaching them jewish traditions. In fact, because they went to hebrew school they know enough about the bible to defend arguments lobbed by their christian school mates.
My apologies for the ramblings. Good luck in your child rearings!
AUTHOR: Steve Mastrantonio
AUTHOR EMAIL: steve.mastrantonio@gmail.com
AUTHOR URL:
SUBJECT: [Kate Cohen] Contact
IP: 174.100.30.186
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[1_Name] => Steve Mastrantonio
[2_Email] => steve.mastrantonio@gmail.com
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[4_Comment] => After reading your article in Freethought Today and particularly the part where your daughter said she’s not interested in being Jewish, I decided to check out your blog and write to you. Normally I don’t do this type of thing as I am a busy professional and do not have the time to respond to everything that captures my attention. But as a non-religious Italian married to a non-religious Jew rasing three non-believing Jewish children, I am sensitive to many issues affecting the Jewish community. By “Jewish community,” I am not specifically referring to practicising Jews. Rather I am referring to ethnic Jews. In fact, most of my friends are Jewish and atheist. I also live in a neighborhood where there are 4 other “mixed” couples. Which brings me circuitously and obliquely to my point:the importance of raisng jewish children. You may already do this, so perhaps I am preaching to the shtetl here, but raising your children with the knowledge of who they are and to take great pride in a heritage that has produced some of the greatest thinkers, scientists, business leaders, and political innovators (think labors leaders like Gompers or the rise of feminism like Steinham and Friedan) is important in helping innoculate them from a society that seeks to seduces them away from this heritage with the delusive contentment of Christmas and chocolate bunnies. We live in a Jewish world, from our entertainment (movie studios, television networks, music producers, etc), to our modern technology (Google, Facebook, fractal theory, computer chips), to our (their) religion Christianity and Islam (both offshouts of Judaism). Without even scratching the surface here, it is mind boggling how .02 of the world’s population has contributed 1/3 of noble prizes and close to half of all science nobel prizes. I remind my atheist bar and bat mitzvahed children of these “noble” accomplishments often (and often to their chagrin). Without the enormous contribution of these mostly secular Jews these accomplishments would have never taken place. Imagine a world without Jews. Unless you’re a medieval loving Jihadist, it would be immessurably poorer. So what does this have to do with your daughter? Remember those 4 couples on my street, 3 of them are raising their children as christians. Worse still, they are being raised without knowledge of their jewish heritage. My daughter once asked one of the boys about his being jewish and he flatly denied it saying “I’m not Jewish, my grandparents are.” These neighborhood boys all go to Catholic school (like 1.2 billion Catholics is not enough!) and don’t even recognize any connection to the Jewish people. These boys will likely marry christian wives, as will their children and grandchildren. As I tell my wife, if you don’t instill some pride in their identity and give them some jewish education, they will have no innoculation against a society or spouse that will pressure them to conform to the “norm.” I cannot predict if the seeming inquisitiveness of your daughter will act as a bulwork of resistance against her peers but I hope that in rasing your children atheist, you are not forgetting to raise them as jews. As an atheist parent, I have never found a conflict in highlighting their dual cultural heritage and teaching them jewish traditions. In fact, because they went to hebrew school they know enough about the bible to defend arguments lobbed by their christian school mates.
My apologies for the ramblings. Good luck in your child rearings!
)