Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: February 23, 2018 10:52PM
In the last couple of centuries, as the Inquisition FINALLY came to a close---and, of course, in great part because of the Holocaust---a kind of visceral sensitivity toward the issue of the survival of the Jewish people as a whole developed (with peaks and valleys along the way).
The Inquisition (the official persecution, torture, and execution of Jews BECAUSE they were Jews) officially began in 1231 CE...and it lasted over six centuries...until [pick your date] either 1826 (when the last execution by the Inquisition took place), or 1834 (the date generally regarded as the "official" end of the Inquisition).
Six centuries of fear, torture, and death...all in the "service" of a single goal: ridding the planet (or, alternatively, all parts of the planet which were either European, or of European culture and government, such as in the Americas), of Jews.
Ninty-nine years later, after the official end of the Inquisition, the Holocaust began (official date: January 30, 1933), with the explicitly-stated goal of ridding the planet (or, alternatively, all parts of the planet which were either European, or of European culture and government, such as in the Americas) of Jews.
So, at least officially, there were 99 years between when the Inquisition was considered officially "over," and the date officially considered to be the beginning of the Holocaust.
That is 714 total years of lethal activities (performed by official functionaries of a number of different countries) focused on annihilating all Jews from the planet.
After World War II was over, and beginning by the early 1950s, there was tremendous Jewish sensitivity to the need for Jews to keep the Jewish people, and Judaism, alive. (Everyone was aware that Judaism could easily have faded out almost completely after the end of World War II.)
In a quickly-forming post-WWII culture (especially in the United States, and especially beginning in the early 1950s), in a time when "everyone" knew "someone" who had been personally touched by the Holocaust (I went to school with kids whose close family members had been killed in the Holocaust, or were concentration camp survivors...every Jewish congregation had members whose close family members had been killed, or were concentration camp survivors in the Holocaust)...
...and non-Jewish, ordinary Americans throughout American society commonly knew "someone" who had either personally been caught up in the Holocaust, or this had happened to someone close to that person in that person's family...
...and in a time such as this, intermarriage (meaning: someone Jewish was marrying someone non-Jewish) was seen as a sort of double "attack" on Judaism and the Jewish people, because someone Jewish was assumed to be marrying "out" of Judaism and the Jewish people...
...and also, any children of that relationship were often assumed to be either offspring who would not, as adults, take their place of personal responsibility within the Jewish people, or who might just leave completely (mostly to Christian denominations).
Post WWII, when American society was (in hindsight) getting itself ready for the Civil Rights movement (etc.), within Judaism, intermarriage of a Jew with a non-Jew was often seen as a deep betrayal not only of Judaism (which sometimes became a sort of side issue), but, mostly and above all else, of all those Jews who had died in the Holocaust. (Remember: even in the United States, we are talking about, commonly, first-degree relatives here: spouses, offspring, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings.)
When conversion to Judaism began to take place more frequently (VERY reluctantly by most of Judaism), making what had once been an "intermarriage" into a Jewish/Jewish marriage (with the offspring being raised as Jews within Jewish culture)---something I very hesitantly estimate to "begin" ABOUT the early 1960s, albeit with initial and often miniscule "baby steps"---that relative "relaxation" signaled, simultaneously, a sort of permitted variation on the accepted cultural "prohibition" against intermarriage.
There are two very important questions everyone "today," who wants to be a rabbi, has to ask him/herself: "Where do I stand on same sex marriage?" and "Where do I stand on intermarriage?" Meaning: marrying a Jew and a non-Jew.
The farther-right Orthodox aside (who are, right now, in the protracted BEGINNING process of "someday" accepting both same sex marriage and "marriage to a non-Jew"), something which depends on that individual Jew's definition of "Jew," if there has been a conversion-to-Judaism), right now it is a patchwork.
Most every rabbi who has made the [current] decision to NOT officiate at Jewish/non-Jewish weddings, has a handy list right at their elbow of rabbis from all Jewish movements who WILL...and the same goes for same sex weddings. If they (personally) have chosen to not do it, they will send you and your future spouse to a rabbi who WILL, and they will wish for you and your future spouse all good things Jews wish for newlyweds who are beginning a life together.
Basically all of this comes down to: Judaism (as a whole) is still, even now, continuing to react to the aftermath of the Holocaust...
...and also, in places like northern New Mexico, where there are still many people of "hidden Jewish" descent who are STILL scared of the consequences of the Inquisition, and who are still continuing to (in effect) hide, and continue to live their lives within the social structures of their local communities (which include relatively isolated, and often mountainous, villages).
Today: If one rabbi won't marry you (or will not, for Halachic/"Jewish law" reasons, accept the conversion of your future spouse), there are (almost always) a couple of dozen rabbis fairly local to you who WILL.
Overall, things regarding intermarriage are loosening up quite a bit within Judaism as a whole...but with some movements, and with some rabbis, there is still a bit of distance for Jews, and Judaism as a whole, to go.
Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2018 01:29PM by Tevai.