I was adopted into a Jewish family, as an infant, and to this day, no one ever assumes I am Jewish. I am not Asian, but to most everyone, I really do not look the part. I did all the religious and cultural things that were required in my family. ..Hebrew School, holidays, Bat Mitzvah. Why wouldn't I? Would you have the same question if she were being confirmed in a Catholic Church or sealed in some LDS ceremony? This question seems racist....or kind of dumb.

Now, quite apart from race, religion, etc., if you asked if a parent should force any of their kids to have a Bar mitzvah or confirmation, or even practice anything....you might get different answers. But being Asian or adopted has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Judaism is not a race or even an ethnicity. It is a religion. You've decided she isn't the kind of race to have a Bat Mitzvah. She is.

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Anonymous wrote:I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that if you believe your religion is the way to get to heaven, you'd want your child to follow it. Or if you've gotten peace and comfort from following your religion, you'd want your child to have that, too.

DP. Judaism doesn’t work like that, but for other religions that could certainly be true.

Judaism has a strong belief in education and learning about the world around you. For many parents, that means not only the secular education their children get in school, but also the education of our culture and religion. A bar or bat mitzvah is the culmination of that childhood learning, and an entry point into adult education.

It’s hard for a person to choose this education on their own as an adult if there isn’t a background or a foundation.

This plus it's not just religion, it's culture and values. What, the parents are going to go to synagogue and leave the kids home? Doesn't work like that.

If a child truly has no interest as they get older then they can make that choice. After receiving an education that will let them function in their community should they choose to. If they choose not to, fine, but at least they'll have the skills. Do you not make your kids learn to read, write, and do math, even when they whine about those things being boring?

It's not a fair comparison. Academic skills have value while religiosity doesn't. The worst hypocrites always tend to be the Bible or Koran thumpers. I wasn't raised in any religion but my family is historically from Indonesia and my mom identifies as Muslim. She wasn't really religious until I was in my late teens, but her own religious awakening wasn't just about her- it was about ME. I would get cornered at home with "Why don't you believe?" "Recite these prayers" "One day, God will show you"...it was awful and proved to me that organized religion was really about control. Granted, my mom has some mental issues and I'm wondering if there's some self-selection involved given that she's possibly borderline without any strong sense of self except being "a moderate Muslim". This whole religious nonsense with her continues to take form in emotional blackmail and guilting whenever I visit home and I am so tired of deflecting her requests to join her at some prayers hall or see her religious leader friends. Sorry for the rant but I agree with OP and think many people underestimate how awful it is to have something like religion foisted on you by family, and so I'm glad OP that you are thinking of your niece.

Religiosity absolutely has values. In my kids' (Jewish) Sunday School, they learn and discuss the ten commandments, for example. Discussing why we should not murder or spread gossip are valuable lessons. They learn to give to the less fortunate in the community - collecting coins each week and deciding on a charity to donate to. Doing charitable acts is an important part of the Jewish religion. In addition to the values of the religion, they learn the traditions and history of their ancestors. When I was in secular school and learned about World War 2, I had already learned at synagogue how my ancestors were affected by it. In Judaism, we are also taught to think - read a biblical passage, for example and then think critically about what the passage is saying. You are also encouraged to debate and back up why you think it says what it says. You are not forced to believe, but encouraged to question, formulate your own ideas and understanding, debate it with classmates and grow and learn from others.

I can only speak for Judaism, but it has academic values and emotional values as well as spiritual values. I'm sure other religions have similar values. Teaching your child your religion is no different than teaching them academic information, teaching them your views on various topics, living out your values, etc. No child in any family - religious or not - is going to be a replica of their parents. But all good parents teach their children what is important to them - what they think they should know for when they become an adult. For me, that involves bringing my children - both biological and adopted - to Sunday School and synagogue. I hope they use the valuable lessons they learn there - to think for themselves, to challenge, debate, to have confidence, and to have pride in who they are - later in life.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that if you believe your religion is the way to get to heaven, you'd want your child to follow it. Or if you've gotten peace and comfort from following your religion, you'd want your child to have that, too.

DP. Judaism doesn’t work like that, but for other religions that could certainly be true.

Judaism has a strong belief in education and learning about the world around you. For many parents, that means not only the secular education their children get in school, but also the education of our culture and religion. A bar or bat mitzvah is the culmination of that childhood learning, and an entry point into adult education.

It’s hard for a person to choose this education on their own as an adult if there isn’t a background or a foundation.

This plus it's not just religion, it's culture and values. What, the parents are going to go to synagogue and leave the kids home? Doesn't work like that.

If a child truly has no interest as they get older then they can make that choice. After receiving an education that will let them function in their community should they choose to. If they choose not to, fine, but at least they'll have the skills. Do you not make your kids learn to read, write, and do math, even when they whine about those things being boring?

It's not a fair comparison. Academic skills have value while religiosity doesn't. The worst hypocrites always tend to be the Bible or Koran thumpers. I wasn't raised in any religion but my family is historically from Indonesia and my mom identifies as Muslim. She wasn't really religious until I was in my late teens, but her own religious awakening wasn't just about her- it was about ME. I would get cornered at home with "Why don't you believe?" "Recite these prayers" "One day, God will show you"...it was awful and proved to me that organized religion was really about control. Granted, my mom has some mental issues and I'm wondering if there's some self-selection involved given that she's possibly borderline without any strong sense of self except being "a moderate Muslim". This whole religious nonsense with her continues to take form in emotional blackmail and guilting whenever I visit home and I am so tired of deflecting her requests to join her at some prayers hall or see her religious leader friends. Sorry for the rant but I agree with OP and think many people underestimate how awful it is to have something like religion foisted on you by family, and so I'm glad OP that you are thinking of your niece.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that if you believe your religion is the way to get to heaven, you'd want your child to follow it. Or if you've gotten peace and comfort from following your religion, you'd want your child to have that, too.

DP. Judaism doesn’t work like that, but for other religions that could certainly be true.

Judaism has a strong belief in education and learning about the world around you. For many parents, that means not only the secular education their children get in school, but also the education of our culture and religion. A bar or bat mitzvah is the culmination of that childhood learning, and an entry point into adult education.

It’s hard for a person to choose this education on their own as an adult if there isn’t a background or a foundation.

This plus it's not just religion, it's culture and values. What, the parents are going to go to synagogue and leave the kids home? Doesn't work like that.

If a child truly has no interest as they get older then they can make that choice. After receiving an education that will let them function in their community should they choose to. If they choose not to, fine, but at least they'll have the skills. Do you not make your kids learn to read, write, and do math, even when they whine about those things being boring?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that if you believe your religion is the way to get to heaven, you'd want your child to follow it. Or if you've gotten peace and comfort from following your religion, you'd want your child to have that, too.

DP. Judaism doesn’t work like that, but for other religions that could certainly be true.

Judaism has a strong belief in education and learning about the world around you. For many parents, that means not only the secular education their children get in school, but also the education of our culture and religion. A bar or bat mitzvah is the culmination of that childhood learning, and an entry point into adult education.

It’s hard for a person to choose this education on their own as an adult if there isn’t a background or a foundation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that if you believe your religion is the way to get to heaven, you'd want your child to follow it. Or if you've gotten peace and comfort from following your religion, you'd want your child to have that, too.

With some families, the child is excluded from a lot if she is not raised as part of the faith that is practiced in the house
Why would you do that?

Anonymous wrote:I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that if you believe your religion is the way to get to heaven, you'd want your child to follow it. Or if you've gotten peace and comfort from following your religion, you'd want your child to have that, too.

I can never understand why parents need their children to follow the same religion as them. Or even follow religion at all. It just breeds resentment to be harassed into learning prayers and going to places you have no interest in. If a child wants to enter a religion out of their own interest, then That is fine. If a child wants to be an atheist, that should also be fine. More often than not, I think this whole “my child needs to practise my religion” business is very much based on the parents’ need to keep appearances in the community. It’s fake and disingenuous while also psychologically damaging to the poor kid who didn’t choose that belief system to begin with

OP, it is great that your brother and SIL have started family counseling with someone versed in adoption and attachment issues. As a previous poster commented, there is an adoption component to this conflict over the bat mitzvah, in the very limited sense that your niece is at the age when some (not all) adopted kids struggle with academic pressure and expectations in combination with confusion over identity. There's a really good essay on this topic by the late Lawrence Smith called "Oil and Water: The Attachment Disordered Child at School" that outlines these issues and offers a lot of useful advice.

<<The child's culture is supposed to supersede the parent's.>>

No, the child's ethnicity is to be celebrated/honored. The family will of course include their new child in all of the traditions that it has celebrated through generations. THat is part of what it means to be in a family. Would you say this kid should not be FORCED to get gifts on Christmas day or easter baskets on Easter morning. They have moved, and will live the life of the family they are now part of. Some of these posters do not understand how adoption works.

*parents

What do Jewish patents with biological kids do in this situation? That is the right question, if she was adopted as a baby, this is her family. Have they raised her within the Jewish faith all along? If so, this should not be a surprise or issue. If this is coming out of left field as she approaches adolescence...then that is the problem.

The fact that she came into the family via adoption is not that relevant. I would ask religious families whose kids are resisting that tradition/culture, how they handle it.

I am an adoptive parent. You blend the child’s complex heritages. One does not supplant the other. This is not about adoption.

Anonymous wrote:Stop gaslighting the PP who talking about the experiences of Jews of color in Hillel (non orthodox) settings. Are you a white Jew or a Jew of Color? If you are white, then you don’t have any first hand experience of what it’s like to go to. Reform / Conservative temple as a non white Jew.

I’m the immediate PP. I wasn’t at all responding to the experiences of Jews of color, just attempting to correct the broad extremist definition of Hillel another PP provided. I have no doubt that Jews of color can feel marginalized in all-white spaces.

Stop gaslighting the PP who talking about the experiences of Jews of color in Hillel (non orthodox) settings. Are you a white Jew or a Jew of Color? If you are white, then you don’t have any first hand experience of what it’s like to go to. Reform / Conservative temple as a non white Jew.

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But one can be both Chinese—the ethnicity—and Jewish—the religion.

DP. Here’s what I told my former SIL about the difference between her transracially adopted son and her friend’s adopted white son who is the same race. “Your child’s face tells part of his story. He can’t easily step into any shul in the US and be accepted the way Friend’s white son can. Give him options for finding community.”

This, so this.

My father is Chinese. My mom is Polish and Jewish. They met in Ny. I was raised Jewish. My facial features are clearly Chinese. I have always been welcome in any shul I’ve entered. I have never found it difficult to become a part of the multiple Jewish communities that I have lived in due to my facial features.

That’s entirely different and you know it. Your mother is Jewish.

+1. What a dumba$$ post.

No it’s not. If the PP looks Chinese, presumably people can’t tell from looking at her that her mother is Jewish. She is responding to a poster who said people aren’t accepted at all synagogues because of the way they look.

Young Jews of color have written a lot on the internet about their experiences the first time they showed up at Hillel in college or their neighborhood synagogue as a twenty-something. Sometimes it goes beyond stares. Some people have been approached with the assumption they are mistakenly there. Others have been challenging in a hostile way. Obviously, not every Jew of color has that experience and not every community is initially unwelcoming, but it happens enough that adoptive parents should practice with their child how to cope with it. The community they entered as an infant or toddler is used to their non-European appearance. Elsewhere might be unprepared. Especially in this day and age with security concerns, some congregants are are on edge and think they need to look out for someone who “doesn’t belong”.

You're misconstruing what you've read.
You're talking about 2 VERY specific communities in the Jewish religion, not Jews as a whole.

The othodox & hasidic communities are not very welcoming to anyone unlike them, as they've been the target of harassment forever.

I was raised as a reform Jew & the hasidic community would be unwelcoming of ME... a Jew!

What you're talking about has NOTHING to do with the color of their skin & everything to do with the WAY they practice Judaism.

You might think I'd be more welcoming because I look very Jewish, right? You'd be very wrong.

It's not the color of their skin that's a dead giveaway -- it's the way they're dressed, it's who they're with, it's how you carry yourself & it's how you approach them.

If a Chinese or black person approached the orthodox community dressed like them, with a beard, payes, dark suit & tallit, they would never, EVER approach them in a hostile manner, because they'd look like they belonged there.
They might be curious about their back story, but they certainly would never shun them, as they're showing great respect to their traditions (which mean everything to them).

Reformed & Conservative Jews are welcoming of all colors, shapes, sizes & flavors to their congregation... the more, the merrier!
Jews have been targeted & persecuted for thousands of years; I promise you that they don't treat others the way they've been treated.

Great post, pp.
I agree with all of this, the pp befor this isn't talking about being accepted into the congregations of local synagogues, they're talking about Hillel (big difference!).

I was raised orthodox -- conservative jew now.

The orthodox and hasidic communities would have their guard up because as the pp states, they've been targeted for persecution, harassment and violence since the beginning of time. Can you blame them?

Conservatives and reform -- without a doubt are more inclusive and welcoming. I've seen it first hand at our congregation. We have black, Asian, Indian and African Jews in our congregation.
All were welcome with open arms, all were treated with love and respect.

Students of Hillel (many of my cousins have gone to Hillel) are always either extreme conservatives, orthodox or hasidic, although the pp who mentioned Hillel didn't bother to differentiate them from local synagogues for some reason?

DP. I haven’t found that to be true at all. Hillel is the on-campus “congregation,” and can differ widely from school to school.

At my university, Hillel was mostly comprised of Conservative Jews (not politically conservative) from New Jersey. I live in a Midwestern college town now; Hillel here is run by one of the most liberal Reform Jews I know and offers lots of different kinds of programs, from protest marches to alternative seders.

You’d have to go to Chabad for the “extreme conservatives, orthodox, or chasidic.” Maybe this poster is confusing the two?