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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am the pp from Va.  I am not religious.  I was also pointing out mostly , by example, that not all Jews exclusively hang out with Jews.  I did not hijack the thread, but rather came forth into a thread that had new questions for the first time in years.  [/quote]

Why do you think you have to point out to someone over and over even calling names such as antisemetic and reporting posts offensive just to get across that "not all........do .......? Any educated person does not wholly assume that all people of a certain group act the same way. But if the pp is saying that even she was rejected for not acting jewish enough even at a temple, you should be able to believe that it's possible for MANY, not all, jews to practice exclusivity towards non jews. This happens especially when people feel they have a comfortable number of jews around them such as at the temple this woman attended or the school or college I attended. Not in VA where there are no majority jewish neighborhoods to speak of. I know there are some enclaves that jews tend to congregate in VA, but those neighborhoods still aren't anywhere close to being a majority jewish.

To the PP who was understanding. I am actually in awe that they do have such a strong adherence to the culture despite not believing in jeudaism. Most Christians who phone it in at their church, don't really associate much with religious people of that denomination, and those that give up a church entirely often seem very much against the community they once belonged to. I was hoping to get a feel for what drove these people to have such loyalty to other jews, but I guess I'll just have to believe that they're doing it in retaliation for Hitler thinking they are all one race since I've been given no other valid explanation.[/quote]
"Understanding" PP here. :)

It's not "just" Hitler. If you read the Torah (or Old Testament), you'll see that Jews have been persecuted as "the other" for centuries, if not millennia. That's why many of our holidays boil down to "they tried to kill us, it didn't work, let's get drunk/otherwise have fun." Hanukkah, Purim, Passover... It is drilled into us from a young age--whether or not we're religious--that the number of Jews has dwindled over the years (yes, most recently by the Holocaust) and so it's important for us to get those numbers up, so the Jewish people don't die out. That could be through teaching the actual religion and texts, or by keeping up with traditions Jews have followed since the beginning.

Speaking of the text, one of the most important tenets of Judaism is questioning. There's actually a whole religious text full of nothing but arguments between rabbis about what minuscule parts of the scripture means. And when you're told to question things and not take them at face value, inevitably that will lead some people to atheism. That's one reason why there's such a huge place in Judaism for atheists. (A good friend of mine has said his excellent Jewish education in the congregation where we both grew up prepared him for a very fruitful life as an atheist!)

Like I've said, I'm a liberal Reform Jew *just* on this side of being secular. My husband is an atheist (raised by atheists who were raised Methodist, so he comes from a non-Jewish background), and we're raising our son Jewish. DH goes all in on the traditions, though we do mostly do the "big ones." I do want to work Shabbat into our week. I led my first Seder this year, because we couldn't be with my parents, and it felt wonderful, especially to talk about Miriam's Cup and women being the keepers of traditions for the family, because that's what I was doing! (Sorry, that went totally off-topic. :) )[/quote]

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