Jewish people: how do you view Christianity?

[Anonymous]

Jews are not allowed to distinguish a convert, mention it, or consider it any different. She can tell other people she converted if she wants but he (nor any other Jew) should raise it. Abraham and Sarah -- both converts! Rebecca, Rachel, Leah -- all converts! Ruth (line of David and Jesus) -- a convert!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are different levels of being "observant." He's probably not orthodox and definitely isn't Hasidim if he's dating your daughter.

I view Christians as ... nothing, really. I personally think it's nuts to pray to a dead, Jewish guy. I personally believe Mary was raped by someone who refused to admit to being Jesus' father. But none of that matters.

I've worked with and been friends with Christian people active in their church, and they've been a pleasure to be around. I've also worked with Christian people active in their church who have surprised me with how petty, passive-aggressive and all around awful they are.

I take everyone individually. Not all jews are cheap, you know?

Thank goodness all Jews aren’t as obnoxious, cynical, and as disrespectful as you are.

I'm Christian/Catholic and I didn't think the response was obnoxious or disrespectful. OP asked for her opinion and she answered. Stop being so sensitive.

NP, but it was super dismissive and disrespectful. Nothing? Really? How would she feel if we said Judaism was "nothing"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are different levels of being "observant." He's probably not orthodox and definitely isn't Hasidim if he's dating your daughter.

I view Christians as ... nothing, really. I personally think it's nuts to pray to a dead, Jewish guy. I personally believe Mary was raped by someone who refused to admit to being Jesus' father. But none of that matters.

I've worked with and been friends with Christian people active in their church, and they've been a pleasure to be around. I've also worked with Christian people active in their church who have surprised me with how petty, passive-aggressive and all around awful they are.

I take everyone individually. Not all jews are cheap, you know?

Thank goodness all Jews aren’t as obnoxious, cynical, and as disrespectful as you are.

I'm Christian/Catholic and I didn't think the response was obnoxious or disrespectful. OP asked for her opinion and she answered. Stop being so sensitive.

NP, but it was super dismissive and disrespectful. Nothing? Really? How would she feel if we said Judaism was "nothing"?

Judaism IS something in Christianity and Islam. Its nothing in Buddish or Hinduism, but no one thinks its something in them.

Jews on the other hand, are often asked for the "official position" on Jesus, and usually its assumed to be the position of unitarian or "spiritual not religioius" Christians, rather than anything to do with Jewish tradition.

"Y"all don't believe he was God, but he WAS the messiah, right" Or "You believe he was a great rabbi, don't you?"

No. The only evidence he was a "great rabbi" is some lines in the New Testament, lines which he have no reason to consider historical. And in general we are not obsessed with the historical Jesus. The range of Jewish opinions on Jesus run from Rosenzweig ("God wanted him to spread monotheism to the gentiles") to some early rabbis ("he was a magician and/or a false messiah") to the typical modernist (Whatever the secular historians say he was")

Similarly there is NOT generally speaking a "view of Christianity" apart from its worldly consequences - of which the biggest schools of thought are "The gentiles would have killed us less if they had stayed pagan" and "the gentiles would have killed us more if they had stayed pagan".

[Anonymous]

I am excited for you and your daughter!

Judaism is religion rich with history (over 3000 years!), culture (amazing foods like latkes and matzo ball soup!), discourse (2 Jews, 3 opinions!), education (focus on literacy), and holidays (shofar blowing and afikoman-hiding).

In some ways, Judaism is its own civilization with its own rules, traditions, and history.

Jews are very rare (less than 0.2% of the world's population -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations, unique (such as no shellfish while allowing scaled fish, likely based on antiquated medical ideas, which doesn't exist elsewhere), and diverse (literally all over the world despite being soooo tiny!). Jews brought a dead language back to life through Hebrew -- not done elsewhere (imagine if we suddenly got everyone in America to start speaking Latin!). I absolutely love being Jewish.

That said, Jewish MILs are the absolute worst. The worst. There are jokes about them and they are funny because they are all true. Every nightmare about a MIL was a Jewish MIL. And, Mothers of Sons are the worst. Have you heard of the Jewish Prince? It's every single son.

Just don't give her future MIL any ammunition to use in the future. Cute stories from her childhood -- keep them to yourself! Little fights that you two had -- keep them to yourself. Whenever you are there, your daughter is perfect, has always been perfect, and will always be perfect, as is your entire family. And whether or not it is true, everyone in your family gets along, you all go to college, and no one has financial problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Less than 1/2 of Jews marry Jews so clearly lots of Jews date non-Jews. I just think of Christianity as another religion. It has many similar pillars and some wonderful traditions. There are many Jews who have very different beliefs than I do so Christians are in the same category.

-Jew married to non-Jew with quite similar religious views.

J date is the best dating platform for any religion!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am excited for you and your daughter!

Judaism is religion rich with history (over 3000 years!), culture (amazing foods like latkes and matzo ball soup!), discourse (2 Jews, 3 opinions!), education (focus on literacy), and holidays (shofar blowing and afikoman-hiding).

In some ways, Judaism is its own civilization with its own rules, traditions, and history.

Jews are very rare (less than 0.2% of the world's population -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations, unique (such as no shellfish while allowing scaled fish, likely based on antiquated medical ideas, which doesn't exist elsewhere), and diverse (literally all over the world despite being soooo tiny!). Jews brought a dead language back to life through Hebrew -- not done elsewhere (imagine if we suddenly got everyone in America to start speaking Latin!). I absolutely love being Jewish.

That said, Jewish MILs are the absolute worst. The worst. There are jokes about them and they are funny because they are all true. Every nightmare about a MIL was a Jewish MIL. And, Mothers of Sons are the worst. Have you heard of the Jewish Prince? It's every single son.

Just don't give her future MIL any ammunition to use in the future. Cute stories from her childhood -- keep them to yourself! Little fights that you two had -- keep them to yourself. Whenever you are there, your daughter is perfect, has always been perfect, and will always be perfect, as is your entire family. And whether or not it is true, everyone in your family gets along, you all go to college, and no one has financial problems.

Ugh stereotype much? My Jewish mother in law is wonderful. So is my Jewish mother for that matter.

[Anonymous]

I think you should run far away from a man who wants to change you.
If you do convert to make him and his family happy, it just opens the door for more abuse. You will have endless trouble setting boundaries with the in laws and their interfere with how you raise your kids, how often you want them in your house
Some converts end up with very limited contact with their own family.
And in orthodoxy you are supposed to marry a Jew that was born Jewish

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t say Jewish mother in laws are the worst, not by a long shot. Have you ever met the Italian-American mother of a son? I say this as an Italian American.

No but in all seriousness, although every religion/nationality has its stereotype, of course every individual is different. You can’t judge a Jewish mother or an Italian American mother based on their background.

(Although if Italian American mothers could marry their sons, they would... just kidding... sort of...)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s possibly your DD has expressed a willingness to explore conversion. Over 1/2 of the Jewish moms I know were raised another religion but converted before marriage or before the birth of a first child.

Yes, she has asked how I would feel about that and worried we would be unhappy. Not at all. I wonder if his parents would be unhappy if he did marry a convert? We are just glad he’s intelligent and successful and is caring to DD. We are going to to meet him next week. Excited. Any advice?

Converting is a huge step, especially if fiancee and his family don't appreciate your DD's culture and religion.

Ask your DD, would your fiance become a Christian for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you should run far away from a man who wants to change you.
If you do convert to make him and his family happy, it just opens the door for more abuse. You will have endless trouble setting boundaries with the in laws and their interfere with how you raise your kids, how often you want them in your house
Some converts end up with very limited contact with their own family.
And in orthodoxy you are supposed to marry a Jew that was born Jewish

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess this makes me the downer on the thread, but not only did my Jewish boyfriend in grad school drop me abruptly for a Jewish girl right after he proposed, two of my non-Jewish friends had similar experiences. We had many talks about this. It was very hard, and the consensus seemed to be that the Jewish guys we had had the misfortune of dating believed they were serious about us and that they didn't care that we were not Jewish, but once the relationship crossed a certain line and became very serious, each one realized quite suddenly that he really wanted a Jewish woman.

"Shiksas for practice."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess this makes me the downer on the thread, but not only did my Jewish boyfriend in grad school drop me abruptly for a Jewish girl right after he proposed, two of my non-Jewish friends had similar experiences. We had many talks about this. It was very hard, and the consensus seemed to be that the Jewish guys we had had the misfortune of dating believed they were serious about us and that they didn't care that we were not Jewish, but once the relationship crossed a certain line and became very serious, each one realized quite suddenly that he really wanted a Jewish woman.

"Shiksas for practice."

There is something strange about a man like that.
My guess is that marriage with him would not have been so rosy.
You got out
Consider yourself lucky

[Anonymous]

Orthodox Jews in general can marry converts (with a few exceptions) who went an orthodox conversion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess this makes me the downer on the thread, but not only did my Jewish boyfriend in grad school drop me abruptly for a Jewish girl right after he proposed, two of my non-Jewish friends had similar experiences. We had many talks about this. It was very hard, and the consensus seemed to be that the Jewish guys we had had the misfortune of dating believed they were serious about us and that they didn't care that we were not Jewish, but once the relationship crossed a certain line and became very serious, each one realized quite suddenly that he really wanted a Jewish woman.

"Shiksas for practice."

That's like, ancient, man. And I don't think it was so much about GF's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s possibly your DD has expressed a willingness to explore conversion. Over 1/2 of the Jewish moms I know were raised another religion but converted before marriage or before the birth of a first child.

Yes, she has asked how I would feel about that and worried we would be unhappy. Not at all. I wonder if his parents would be unhappy if he did marry a convert? We are just glad he’s intelligent and successful and is caring to DD. We are going to to meet him next week. Excited. Any advice?

Be chill. Not too nervous. Not too over the top supportive.

Going to have dinner with them at the end of a brief visit with her, at the tail end of a business trip. Definitely will be chill. Thank you.

You sound like a good mom with a good heart and a dinner at the end of a business trip is a perfect setting to meet someone. It sounds like his identity is about much more than just his religion, so I would just relax and talk to them about their interests, careers, etc.