UPDATE: Upon receiving a message from a concerned reader, I realized that for the sake of maris ayin, a few things should be clarified:
Thank you!
- I write this blog anonymously. Even the 2 or 3 people who know me have no clue who are the family members mentioned in this post.
- My family neither reads this blog nor know it exists, so they cannot be hurt by this post in any way. (I wouldn't have written it this way if they read it.)
- My non-Jewish family members (who think they're Jewish) and their non-Jewish spouses (if they're married) for the most part are anti-Israel anti-religion anti-morality Liberals/Leftists who don't treat me with anywhere near the same warmth and courtesy I treat them. (In fact, they do the opposite.) They are mocking or sneering DESPITE the fact that I DON'T DISCUSS Judaism with them at all or impose on them in anyway, and I always treat them nicely.
- A couple of my not-Jewish-but-think-they-are relatives are very nice to me personally and relatively positive toward my frumkeit, but one holds firm anti-Israel pro-Philistinian views (and we all know what that really means).
- I'm very fond of my Jewish family members (except one), even as I'm sad that they don't know the spiritual treasure they have and I did not say anything about them in this post, except that they're intermarried secular Liberals (without names). Oh wait. I did call one "a lump," and I've deleted that.
Thank you!
I’d like to make a quick point about intermarriage.
In my family, intermarriage only started with the generation above mine.
Yet in my generation already, non-Jews outnumbered the Jews if you put all the first-cousins together.
And of the Jews, not one married a Jew (except me). Even the cousins who live in New York, where there’s no dearth of Jews. Even the one who married twice married a non-Jewish woman each time. He has 5 kids in all—none of them Jewish (although one of his sons looks like him, with a very handsome Jewish face, and shares his typically Jewish last name).
If you spread out the net wider, I have one Jewish second-cousin who married a Jew (both not frum). I’ve met his mother 3 times in my life, but never him. I don’t even remember his name.
I also have a third-cousin (whom I only discovered a couple of years ago) who became a Chabadnik and is married to a fellow Chabadnik, and they are producing a lovely family.
That’s it as far as I know!
On my side of the family, my children do not have even 1 Jewish first-cousin. They have 3 Jewish second-cousins, 2 of whom are boys. Barring a miracle, it’s unlikely that these children will marry Jews. Meaning that the 1 girl is the only one to have any chance of continuing the Jewish line—IF she decides to have children. (I have several family members in both my generation and the generation above mine who either decided not to have children, or are taking their time about it, maybe until they run out of time.)
Many of the intermarriages don’t consider themselves intermarriage because they did a fake Conservative or Reform “conversion,” in which there was never any intention to keep even the 10 Commandments.
One does keep kosher, however, but doesn’t fast on Yom Kippur and has never kept Shabbat. (In all fairness, she’s not supposed to keep Shabbat because she is not Jewish. However, she does not know that she’s not Jewish and thinks her observance is perfectly fine.)
Another Reform “convert” does nothing except watch her Jewish husband light Chanukah candles (I'm not even sure if they do it every night of Chanukah) and she attends or even hosts a Pesach Seder once a year. Kashrut doesn’t exist in their home, nor does any other Jewish observance as far as I’ve ever seen.
And so on.
In my family, intermarriage only started with the generation above mine.
Yet in my generation already, non-Jews outnumbered the Jews if you put all the first-cousins together.
And of the Jews, not one married a Jew (except me). Even the cousins who live in New York, where there’s no dearth of Jews. Even the one who married twice married a non-Jewish woman each time. He has 5 kids in all—none of them Jewish (although one of his sons looks like him, with a very handsome Jewish face, and shares his typically Jewish last name).
If you spread out the net wider, I have one Jewish second-cousin who married a Jew (both not frum). I’ve met his mother 3 times in my life, but never him. I don’t even remember his name.
I also have a third-cousin (whom I only discovered a couple of years ago) who became a Chabadnik and is married to a fellow Chabadnik, and they are producing a lovely family.
That’s it as far as I know!
On my side of the family, my children do not have even 1 Jewish first-cousin. They have 3 Jewish second-cousins, 2 of whom are boys. Barring a miracle, it’s unlikely that these children will marry Jews. Meaning that the 1 girl is the only one to have any chance of continuing the Jewish line—IF she decides to have children. (I have several family members in both my generation and the generation above mine who either decided not to have children, or are taking their time about it, maybe until they run out of time.)
Many of the intermarriages don’t consider themselves intermarriage because they did a fake Conservative or Reform “conversion,” in which there was never any intention to keep even the 10 Commandments.
One does keep kosher, however, but doesn’t fast on Yom Kippur and has never kept Shabbat. (In all fairness, she’s not supposed to keep Shabbat because she is not Jewish. However, she does not know that she’s not Jewish and thinks her observance is perfectly fine.)
Another Reform “convert” does nothing except watch her Jewish husband light Chanukah candles (I'm not even sure if they do it every night of Chanukah) and she attends or even hosts a Pesach Seder once a year. Kashrut doesn’t exist in their home, nor does any other Jewish observance as far as I’ve ever seen.
And so on.
Intermarriage decimates Jewish families that fast.
I'm seeing Jewish family lines completely dead within 1-3 generations of that initial intermarriage.
And the above doesn’t even cover the absurdity of a Pesach Seder in which non-Jews outnumber the Jews 12-1. (Even a 50% non-Jewish Seder is silly. I mean, should Jewish men recite Chana's prayer in which she goes through her female reproductive system which men don't have? It's the same type of thing.)
Or the unwitting confusion that reigns when you have 3 generations of non-Jews who practice no Judaism, save for maybe a Chanukah candle-lighting and a Pesach Seder, yet consider themselves Jewish because a Conservative or Reform rabbi told them they’re Jewish.
(This gets even messier when you throw adoption into the mix, with a non-Jewish-mother-who-thinks-she’s-Jewish adopting a non-Jewish child, then raising the child as an assimilated Jew. I’ve known several families like that.)
One non-Jewish cousin (the daughter of the Reform “convert” above) married a guy who planned on undergoing a Reform conversion, but they got divorced before he got his certificate.
I never liked him, particularly after a conversation in which he unexpectedly demanded to know why ORTHODOX Jews don’t forgive the Germans and why ORTHODOX Jews boycott German products.
(That one question exhibited so much irrationality, it took me a moment to even know where to start in response.)
Then he kept insisting that Holocaust survivors need to forgive the Nazis. He seemed personally offended that Holocaust survivors don’t forgive Nazis.
I was flabbergasted by his attitude (and his sheer chutzpah in pounding me with his attitude—did he honestly expect to me to ever agree with him?) until I learned that after he and my cousin got divorced, he was convicted of particularly heinous crimes against children, one as young as six. (He claimed she asked for it -- literally.) Hopefully, he’ll never leave prison and the daughter he and my cousin have together decided several years ago to just tell everyone her father is dead. And that’s exactly what she does.
I guess it takes someone with abominable inclinations and no empathy to find Nazi atrocities forgivable and to get all huffy about those who cannot forgive atrocities.
Anyway, despite their enthusiasm to dupe non-Jews into thinking they're Jews, Reform "rabbis" might want to take at least a minute to probe the views and proclivities of their potential "converts," even if they care nothing for the potential "convert's" actual observance and commitment to Torah Judaism.
I'm seeing Jewish family lines completely dead within 1-3 generations of that initial intermarriage.
And the above doesn’t even cover the absurdity of a Pesach Seder in which non-Jews outnumber the Jews 12-1. (Even a 50% non-Jewish Seder is silly. I mean, should Jewish men recite Chana's prayer in which she goes through her female reproductive system which men don't have? It's the same type of thing.)
Or the unwitting confusion that reigns when you have 3 generations of non-Jews who practice no Judaism, save for maybe a Chanukah candle-lighting and a Pesach Seder, yet consider themselves Jewish because a Conservative or Reform rabbi told them they’re Jewish.
(This gets even messier when you throw adoption into the mix, with a non-Jewish-mother-who-thinks-she’s-Jewish adopting a non-Jewish child, then raising the child as an assimilated Jew. I’ve known several families like that.)
One non-Jewish cousin (the daughter of the Reform “convert” above) married a guy who planned on undergoing a Reform conversion, but they got divorced before he got his certificate.
I never liked him, particularly after a conversation in which he unexpectedly demanded to know why ORTHODOX Jews don’t forgive the Germans and why ORTHODOX Jews boycott German products.
(That one question exhibited so much irrationality, it took me a moment to even know where to start in response.)
Then he kept insisting that Holocaust survivors need to forgive the Nazis. He seemed personally offended that Holocaust survivors don’t forgive Nazis.
I was flabbergasted by his attitude (and his sheer chutzpah in pounding me with his attitude—did he honestly expect to me to ever agree with him?) until I learned that after he and my cousin got divorced, he was convicted of particularly heinous crimes against children, one as young as six. (He claimed she asked for it -- literally.) Hopefully, he’ll never leave prison and the daughter he and my cousin have together decided several years ago to just tell everyone her father is dead. And that’s exactly what she does.
I guess it takes someone with abominable inclinations and no empathy to find Nazi atrocities forgivable and to get all huffy about those who cannot forgive atrocities.
Anyway, despite their enthusiasm to dupe non-Jews into thinking they're Jews, Reform "rabbis" might want to take at least a minute to probe the views and proclivities of their potential "converts," even if they care nothing for the potential "convert's" actual observance and commitment to Torah Judaism.
So this is just a small sample of what’s going on.
And the Reform and Conservative (which is actually extremely Liberal) movements want to bring all this to Eretz Yisrael.
Better start davening.
And the Reform and Conservative (which is actually extremely Liberal) movements want to bring all this to Eretz Yisrael.
Better start davening.
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