This Thanksgiving my wife and I went to her cousin’s place in suburban
Philadelphia
, not all that far from my parents’ house, and since my wife’s sister and her family from Connecticut were also coming, we made a plan for the four of them to spend the night at my parents’ house. This was emotionally loaded for me. My family and my inlaws have basically not set eyes on one another since my wedding 16 years ago. We’re from two tribes. My wife is a Philadelphia WASP, and my family is very Jewish. My wife and I go in and out of each group, but unlike the marriages in which inlaws commingle, we never try to mix them.
My wife and I drove down to
Philadelphia
in the big traffic on Wednesday night, and on Thanksgiving morning we sat around the breakfast table talking with my parents. My activism on Israel/Palestine has brought me closer to my parents. It’s now the only problem in my relationship with my parents, the only disagreement. So though we avoid the subject, we also always seem to find a way to bring it up, kick the can down the street. For instance, my mother was talking about a friend’s memorial service back in
Baltimore
, where I grew up, and I said Well they were assimilating Jews. My mother agreed, then I said the history of Jewish assimilation was a long and great one. My mother said, “It’s a long one, but it’s not a great one.” My mother’s funny, I had to laugh. It would have been mean to add that 4/6 of her children married nonJews (one of whom converted, so I guess that means half married “out”), because my mother thinks about that a lot already, and it concerns her. But I did throw in that this was one reason I was so critical of Zionism. Zionism is based on the idea that Jews are insecure in western societies. That’s why you need a Jewish state, after all, to harbor the Jews. While assimilationism is based on the idea that Jews can do fine in western societies. And this was my experience, we’re doing fine.
Then my father gave me his wise little smile and nodded and mumbled a few ironical words about just how fine we were doing. My father remembers anti-Semitism in his own life. He doesn’t have a lot of faith in liberal promises to Jews, and has an understanding of Jewish achievement in central Europe before the Holocaust. I think he’s a closet Zionist. He’s never been there, and he’s very anti-religious, but his sense of Jewish identity is profound, as a scientist, an intellectual, and someone who has never felt very comfortable in American society. My experience is completely opposite, and it’s for this reason as much as anything that I resist the demands that Zionists make on American Jews, for endless support. When will they be their own goddamn state, and learn to live with their neighbors, rather than expect us to back up their contempt and resistance forever and shape our foreign policy to fit their view of the Middle East? I didn’t say any of this.
But as my mother and wife continued to talk about family and psychology, I sat there reading the Jewish Exponent, the Jewish newspaper in
Philadelphia
. It is filled with the sort of tribal self-obsession that drives me nuts. The editor wrote about Soviet Jewry, our greatest triumph, freeing the Jews of Russia. (always: Jews for Jews.) Then a big article by two congresswomen about how
Israel
shouldn’t have to make “painful sacrifices” to achieve peace. Painful sacrifices referring to the settlements. Is that sacrifices? Or is that justice? What is wrong with my country that we frame the issues in such a way? Then there was an article all about rage on the part of hardline
Israel
supporters against a letter being sent out by AIPAC to Congress that called for aid to the Palestinian Authority. The main guy who is upset about this is Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul who has given $55 million to birthright
Israel
, the program that sends young Jews to
Israel
for free. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Adelson is thought to be the main backer of Freedoms’ Watch, the pro-war group that has formed in the last few months, which The American Conservative and JTA have pointed out is mostly Jewish. Lately Mother Jones has reported that Freedoms Watch seems to be working closely with a group called the Israel Project, which is doing focus groups on Americans’ reactions to a war with
Iran
. This is the simple reason that I do this blog: that "the religious left," as I call it, American Jews who are devoted to the Jewish state, are distorting American foreign policy and American Jewish identity, and Americans have to start talking about it.
My parents were having Thanksgiving at my sister’s house in the
Main Line
, and when my wife and I took off in early afternoon to visit one of her cousins, my mother asked me about my wife’s sister’s family. She was getting her house ready to put them up. She wasn’t nervous; she’s just aflutter whenever there’s a lot of planning. I went through the personalities and then said, They’re kind of WASPy but very warm. I love my wife’s family but I can also be anthropological about it, coming from such a different tribe. I understand that a lot of my wife’s culture reads as pure gentile, no matter how sophisticated she is, or how many times she’s been to
Africa
.
The house we had Thanksgiving at that night was a humble suburban one, very unpretentious, very determined to put on no airs at all. We said grace. We all held hands and when Betsy, who I’m just about closest to of all the cousins (she lived in Syria for a while and when I visited her in Damascus, used the code word “Disneyland” for Israel when we were walking the streets, lest it could cause anger, Americans chattering about Israel), Betsy told us to all hold hands and send a squeeze around the room, then her mother said, “Let’s give thanks that we’re all here and the table is so laden.” Short and pithy—the way my wife’s family are. We said Amen and then ate.
The alienation I used to feel in my wife’s family over its different mode of being is over. A lot of my feelings seem as dated as a Woody Allen movie. I don’t think many kids in the next generation go around like I did with a giant Jew/WASP radar gun. Jews and WASPs are involved in the power structure in an intimate way now, I feel that the next generation accepts this and goes forward. The evening had a Norman Rockwell quality. There was a real sense of ampleness. Halfway through the night our host told a story about a feud with her neighbor, involving a dog bite and a lawsuit many years ago, and then finally about five years ago, she got drunk and called the neighbor up and said, I don’t like you and you don’t like me, and that’s alright, but we should be civil to one another. Our kids don’t even talk to one another. That’s not right. At least be civil. It was a moving moment, a statement of real generosity and largeness of spirit.
Also, a neighbor who is undergoing chemo had been invited, and when he left the family pressed a bag of turkey on him. Then a couple minutes after he went out he came back in to say that another neighbor who had been on her deathbed all that week had just died. My wife’s cousins had actually visited the deathbed earlier that day to say goodbye to the woman. You could look out their front door and see the grieving family gathered, through their living room window, and one guy holding a baby and talking to it. Very Hallmark.
Anyway, it was nearly 10 when my brother-in-law sidled over to me and said that his family were going to drive back to
Connecticut
, not stay the night. I felt a burden lift from my shoulders. I dont think I’m quite ready to meld families. It would be loaded for me and my wife. I would be afraid of silent judgment on one side or the other, which I’d feel. My inlaws are all sophisticated and philosemitic, but I just don’t know. My sister in law always buttonholes me, When do I get invited to a seder? This time when she did, her daughter said, I got invited to one last week. It happens every Friday right, right? No, that’s Shabbat, I said. Anyway, I don’t know that everyone’s ready for a great mingling. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better for my wife’s sister to come to a seder first, or my smart sharp niece. There are always a couple other gentiles there for one reason or another, like my wife, or my sisters’ husbands, they could slide in that way, form relationships with my sisters. A step at a time.
Two other things happened on Thanksgiving that affected my mood about all this. One is that I had a phone conversation with a guy who knows the financial community and he said that Bruce Kovner, the secretive chairman of the American Enterprise Institute, had just bought a parcel of land in
California
near Carpentiria, adjoining land owned by Kevin Costner, for $70 million. A whole bluff on the Pacific. The
New York
hedge fund guy, turning west to Santa Barbara. I kept thinking about how much Bruce Kovner is making that he can spend $70 million on real estate in a state far from his own. And Sheldon Adelson spending $60 million on birthright and how many million to enable an
Iran
war. How much Jewish wealth is there in our politics, on the religious left? When I got up the next morning in my former bedroom, I picked up Philip Roth’s wonderful sociological novel Goodbye Columbus, which came out 50 years ago, about Jewish aspiration from
Newark
to Short Hills in the 50s. That’s over baby. We done aspired and transpired. How many Jews still live in
Newark
? Yet Jews still seem to be locked into this self-image that we’re middle class/upper middle class, to protect ourselves from the truth, that we’re a powerful elite.
Then I thought about the deep wound in our republic now, between people of wealth whose children have never thought of serving in Iraq and people who are hanging on through the economic transformation and whose kids might actually have to go to Iran if that disaster happens, and I thought about Jewishness being on one side of that class divide, and what that’s doing, unconsciously, to the Jewish experience and mind. Our society’s splitting down the middle. I want a Jewish intellectual presence in the populist American movement. That
Baltimore
family my mother had talked about–the assimilating one with the memorial service–I remember one of their Thanksgivings was ruined in 1972 by one of their radical sons starting an argument over
Vietnam
. I want Jews to call out the Adelsons and the Kovners of
Iraq, and ruin a Thanksgiving meal now….
One other thing happened at Thanksgiving I want to end this post with. I always talk to my wife’s aunt about politics, so I asked her about the new Philadelphia mayor, and she went on and on about how great he is, how smart and forceful and talented. Michael Nutter. He wears glasses, and is very smart, she said. The next morning I asked my father about Nutter and he also went on and on about him, saying virtually the same things my wife’s aunt had. How smart and forceful. My father and my wife’s aunt may be from different tribes, but classwise they’re identical, both privileged people in the upper crust of American life; and their opinions about Nutter were identical. Anyway, then I opened the New York Times at the breakfast table, and saw that they had a big article about Nutter, and his picture was there, and he was black. I was stunned. Neither my wife’s aunt nor my father had mentioned that, neither thought it very important. I love
America.
Tribal stuff doesn’t have to matter here.
"I understand that a lot of my wife’s culture reads as pure gentile, no matter how sophisticated she is, or how many times she’s been to Africa."
Pure gentile. How do you define this? Have you written on this elsewhere?
Dear Phil,
Do you really think your own family and your wife's family appreciate you writing about them this way?
I sure wouldn't.
Iin regards to your comment about Kovner I live in Montecito and can tell you that while there are some wealthy jews out here, they don't hold a candle to the wealthy non-jews in this area. We even have some wealthy Arabs out here. Not sure that means anything, but neither do I understand what some rich finance guy's religion has to do with him buying land in Carpenteria. This is exactly what wealthy people of all stripes do.
Last comment so I can return to preparing breakfast for my guests. We are an inter-married family and we bring both of our families together fairly often. They are different, but enjoy one another and take great pride in their shared grandchildren. Don't take this the wrong way, but you would really benefit from some therapy.
Weiss, you want Jews in the American populist movement…..
Come on, Weiss. You know that that is impossible. You have quoted to us many times the New Republic comment that "dual loyalty is an essential feature of Jewsih life in America…" If you agree with that then Jewish involvement in a populist movement is out of character. Populist movements want an end to foreign wars fought on behalf of the elite…..that means no to the Iraq war, no war with Iran and an end to aid to Israel…many Jewsih commentators slyly and disingenuously call the latest populist Ron Paul a fascist etc
Populism wants an end to the free trade agreements and hedge fund-run economy. Jews dominate the financial sector of the economy and can make money while the currency depreciates or collect commissions selling the nation's assets off to the Chinese etc OIf course non-Jews make plenty of money doing this too it must be emphasised. But these are Jewish dominated industries…
And you expect these people to embrace populism??
Right on Peter!
Now sing it with me.
Arise, the wretched of the earth,
Arise, prisoners of hunger,
Reason thunders in its crater,
It is the eruption of the end!
Let's make a blank slate of the past,
Crowds, slaves, arise, arise!
The world is going to change from its base,
We are nothing, let's be everything!
|: This is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|
There are no supreme saviours,
Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune.
Producers, let's save ourselves!
Let's decree a common defense
So that the thief returns his plunder,
To pull the mind from the prison cell
Let us blow upon our furnace ourselves,
Strike the iron while it is hot!
|: It is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|
The state represses and the law cheats,
The taxes bleed the unfortunate
No responsibility is imposed on the rich
The rights of the poor is a hollow phrase
Enough of languishing in custody,
Equality needs other laws!
No rights without duty, it says,
Equally, no duties without rights.
|: It is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|
Hideous, in their glory,
The kings of the mines and rail.
Never have they done anything else,
But steal from others' work.
In the safes of this group
What we created is melted together!
In decreeing that they give it back
The people want nothing but their due.
|: It is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|
The kings intoxicate us with their fumes,
Peace among ourselves, war to the tyrants!
Let us declare strikes in the armies,
Guns in the air, break their ranks!
If they insist, those cannibals,
On making heroes of us,
They will soon know that our bullets,
Are for our own generals.
|: It is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|
Labourers, peasants, we are
The great party of workers
The earth belongs only to humans
The idle are going to live elsewhere
How much they feast on our flesh
But if the ravens and vultures
Disappear one of these days
The sun will shine forever
|: It is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|
Hey Phil,
Just discovered you. I really don't know what to make of your writings. I thought this dialogue was considered Verboten, or is this like, I can say the N-word, but you can't.
Phil,
Thanks for the candor.
When in your life did you get married?
I think there is one failing (not a tiny one), in your assessment and subsequent political conclusions.
That is that I think you generalize your personal history as if it applies to all, and should.
One telling comment in your story was about the use of the term "Disneyland" to refer to Israel. The term was also occassionally, and derogatorily, used by Palestinian activists to refer to Israel. Its not a new figure of speech.
I think that for you, and formerly for me, Hitler and nazi and other anti-semitic suppressions was a fantasy, a movie, Disneyland. I recently saw the movie "Liberty Heights", set in the upper middle class Jewish ghetto of Baltimore. (Same neighborhood as yours, or was the movie's fictional?).
The second oldest brother once prepared to go to a Halloween party dressed as Hitler. For him, it was a story, a movie, Disneyland. Whereas for his parents it was still second-hand, but KNOWN to be of hatred, acted on, originating in superstitions, ideas, repeated.
For me, WW2, the holocaust, and the NEED (as distinct from the greed) of Zionist aspiration, was Disneyland.
Its not now. It took getting to know survivors of the holocaust, my own family now, marrying a Jewish woman, deciding that my Jewishness was important enough as an association (not only as values) to continue, to parent.
I'm sorry that you didn't get to know that through personal identification.
Your politics would presumably be very different.
Phil, This was a powerful post, and evidence that one can do a lot in writing by honesty. I wonder however about your underlying time trajectory thesis, that all these Jewish-gentile or Jewish wasp things are becoming less fraught. In any case, the Philadelphia setting brings back some memories. First girlfriend was from there (Ardmore). (Hi Deb, if you're there).Father a Jewish guy in real estate; mother his Persian-Jewish war bride. It was 1969, we were 17.They couldn't have been nicer to me, regularly put me up in their non specious house, fed me amply, allowed me and their daughter plenty of time alone together. Interesting conversation about Vietnam (he was a liberal, his daughter "radical"), race (he was a disillusioned liberal), Mayor Rizzo ("a fascist"). The contrast with my parents (father and stepmother) could not have been more striking. They met my girlfriend when they unexpectedly came home early from Europe and I was having a party with my 17 year old friends in their east side apartment. Fury and rudeness and they kicked everyone out, including my girlfriend. She and I crossed Central Park in the rain to her aunt's on Broadway in the 80's, where we were welcomed with coffee and little pastry cakes. An early introduction to philosemitism! Not sure all of this wasn't less complicated a generation and a half ago than it would be now.
Phil, thanks for sharing your perspective.
I date a jewish girl from the burbs of philly myself and have had a good schooling into the inner workings of that community in the past several years of my dating her.
with me being christian messianic-non zionist and she and her family being jewish recontructionist type and tribal in nature, i have discovered how ultra sensitive that community is to any talk of jewish involvement in almost any sphere of social life, it seems to perk up the hairs on the back of their heads when one speaks of jewish involvement and a defensive posture is taken even with issues where they know absolutely zero about.
its all about putting up the anti semite sensitivy detector and watching for indications of it in society.
israeli state zionism truly has done to the judaics communities around the world what the old anti zionist rabbis suspected it would do, it made the state the golden calf of worship.
thanks again for sharing your experience.
Jewish intellectual presence in American populist movements? You probably don't mean Ron Paul when you say 'populist,' but I do, and a lot of people do ('cause his ideas are popular), and I would name Murray Rothbard as the preeminent presence in that movement. Murray, last time I checked, God rest his soul, was Jewish.
A Rothian post. How awkward everything seems. Had to wince when you wrote "Very Hallmark." To cavil, I'd say you've got it backwards: occasionally Hallmark inadvertantly captures a slice of real life in its otherwise cartoonish commercial output, but not the other way around. Life can sometimes imitate art, but Hallmark ain't art, just twee crap.
Oh, and Arie, if you've stopped celebrating and are reading this: congrats.
Quick Phil – better look up who Murray Rothbard is…
Lew? Is that you?
If so, an honor, sir. One request: please reign in KdC, for the good of the movement: her blog posts are prolix and humorless (and I should know). As George Rutler says, humorlessness is always a sure sign of fanaticism. Just look at Rudy Guliani.
Dude! I now pronounce you officially unchosen. You are such a weenie bro. First off, I'm as big of a fuckup as they come. Trust me dude. Maybe its because I'm Canadian, but I just can't do the whole suckup thing. And I'm a Hebrew Dude!
Secondly, I'm with this awesome chick who I knocked up on our first date (long story, she said get to it, I thought that meant pork her without the rubber, she in fact meant for me to get the rubber on quicker). Anyways. She is really waspy. Not as waspy as my sister-in-law, but pretty damned waspy. And hot dude. Did I mention that she was smokin hot? It's not everyday that a fat fuckup heeb like me gets to procreate with such an awesome looking babe. And cool too. Aside from getting on my case about smoking weed and being out of shape, she is way cool.
Hold on dude. I need a bong hit, your blog is killing my mood.
Ok – why the fuck was I writing this you again? Oh yeah, you're such a weenie weiss. We have no such problems like you're describing. I'm like best friends with my brother-in-law and he's a wasp. Heck, I'm even good friends with my sister-in-law and you couldn't fit a dime between her butt cheeks she is such a tight ass.
So what's my point here. I don't even remember. All I know is I have a baby screaming in the room next door, I'm not out of weed, and I have four Meg Ryan films to watch and code by tonight.
Wait, I remember – just because you are scared of getting your family together with your wife's family doesn't mean the rest of us heebs are hung up like you. Hell, look at the Fockers!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a daughter to raise and a website to run.
Phil's greater sin
___________________
I think heavily criticising Israel and its lobby is Phil's greater sin – compared to having married a gentile. Isn't that so?
Klaus,
Millions of Jews disagree with Israel's bad policies (i.e., the settlements) so Phil is not at all orginal in criticizing Israel.
Almost 1 out of every 2 jews getting married these days is getting married to someone who wasn't born Jewish, so Phil is not at all original in marrying a gentile.
Phil's greatest sin is being a lazy thinker who publishes half baked ideas that insult the patriotism of people who don't warrant it. Phil is a self-absorbed, immature journalist who is seeking to sensationalize a story for his own gain and in the process empower genuine bigots.
Very funny "Ben Stone"
One of my favorite movies!
"Millions of Jews disagree with Israel's bad policies (i.e., the settlements)"
but sadly none of them can be found in the lobby, and so we all must suffer.
You know, I read these posts and I really can't believe the things you think about, your attitude toward non-Jews, and your ridiculous, admitted belief that Jews are superior to non-Jews. Then again, at least you're honest and reflective about it.
But really, how disgusting. Exchange the words "Jew" and "gentile" in your posts with "white" and "minority," and you'd be a perfect candidate for the White Nationalist Community. Same line of thinking, different ethnicities. The only real difference is you're able to get away with it because Jewish racism isn't condemned the way other types of racism are.
On the one hand it's great that you and a few others are horrified about the prospect of starting another war at Israel's bidding, one that you admit will be fought by non-Jews on behalf of Jews. On the other hand, if yet another war on behalf of Israel comes to fruition, I hope some sane people come to power, cut off all aid to Israel, and let it fare for itself against all the people and nations it has inflicted suffering upon. That would be justice.
Ash – Phil doesn't usually read his comment section. He is too busy studying the fuckups that are working on his house. I suggest you email him personally if you really want him to know what you're thinking. He will write you back.
In the 1930's the average German didn't like the NAZIs, or at least was uncomfortable with them, but kept
criticism to the private gossip arena (while the reds and browns increasingly beat each other up in the streets).
Kevin MacDonald is updating his blog fairly often.
"Personally, I would welcome studies of the biological roots of European individualism because, in my opinion, individualism is the key to Western uniqueness while at the same time making Western peoples uniquely vulnerable to invasion by cohesive groups and ideologies of altruistic punishment (i.e., ideologies which highlight the moral shortcomings of Europeans to the point that they are willing to engage in moral crusades against their own interests)."
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/Blog.htm
Benito Juarez, the orphan peasant who became leader of Mexico, said it best:
Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz,
meaning
"Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace."
It's as simple as that!
Thanks for another thoughtful personal piece Phil. That in-law thing can happen even if they're all WASPs, even if they're all from the same socio-economic background.
Two of my brothers have married Filipino girls, another has an English bride, while the last like me is married to another whitebread Australian. The families get on fine, with the usual shyness and awkwardness to begin with, and language is of course a problem with some of the Filipinos.
But powerful Filipinos are not driving us into unwinnable wars that may kill our children. Nor are groups of powerful Turks, or Colombians, or Namibians, or anyone else. The awkwardness you refer to that still exists, that never goes away, couldn't that in some way be sustained by the dangers of Israel's (and her champions') behaviour, and by Jewish knowledge that the non-Jews they live among are becomingly increasingly aware of, and angry about it?
'I want Jews to call out the Adelsons and the Kovners' and we do too, but you can't stop with them. Dan Fleshler is one example of the 'good' cops who need to be called along with the bad. Our friend Richard Witty is another. It's not a right-wing or even an elite thing really; it is, as your personal pieces demonstrate, a cultural issue that needs addressing culture-wide.
I keep reading that there are lots, perhaps even a majority of Jews, who oppose the settlements and favour a two-state solution. We need to hear from them; more importantly, the Kovners and Adelsons need to hear from them. It's great to see M/W having an effect in non-Jewish circles (as well as within!) and the work you and Tony Karon, Tony Judt, Richard Silverstein etc do is essential, but I don't know if it's enough.
The Nutter story is wonderful, but like the Filipinos, blacks are not at the wheel, driving our civilisation over the cliff. Tribal stuff doesn't have to matter, but tribes sometimes have to make sure it doesn't.
Thanks again; it takes guts to write about the issues you take on, but being honest about your family? That really takes balls.
Too Long in the Wasteland
hear the trucks on the highway
and the ticking of the clock
there's a ghost of a moon in the afternoon
bullet holes in the mailbox
bullet holes in the mailbox
key holes in my mind
too long in the wasteland
too long in the wasteland
I've fallen behind
she said why don't you come see me
when the sun goes down
it'll be just like the old days
when I used to let you hang around
well I don't know
I might not speak the language anymore
too long in the wasteland
too long in the wasteland
will close some doors
the people in the village
watch their children play
at the sight of a stranger
they call the kids away
just leave that man alone
I hear the mother say
he's been
too long in the wasteland
too long in the wasteland
's what made him that way
well, I hadn't intended
to bend the rules
but whiskey don't make liars
it just makes fools
so I didn't mean to say it
but I meant what I said
too long in the wasteland
too long in the wasteland
must've gone to my head
jet trail in the sunset
a long way away
cutting 'cross the horizon
at the edge of the day
and it calls Philip
come fly away
but I've been
too long in the wasteland
too long in the wasteland
I believe I'll have to stay
yeah, I've been
too long in the wasteland
too long in the wasteland
I believe I'll have to stay
"Tribal stuff doesn't have to matter, but tribes sometimes have to make sure it doesn't."
Glenn, jews are in this world to make sure that tribal stuff is all that matters.
"and it calls Philip
come fly away"
In that case Witty would qualify as an "El AL jet trail".
Phil – If Jews are so powerful why can they still not join some of the most elite golf clubs in the USA?
Sam,
Ethnic particularism is only an issue when it comes to Jews. We have one set of rules for Jews and another set of rules for everyone else.
If there's anyone beside me who liked those lyrics that cooper posted, I looked them up: they're from a James McMurty album from 1989, "Too Long in the Wasteland."
(Which I should have guessed, because although I follow virtually no music anymore, I somehow came across "We Can't Make It Here" a while back and was similarly impressed.)
I totally identify with Philip Weiss's intermarriage story. This is the American upper middle class today. But it has existed in nascent form for some time in that of the business-oriented of New York. My great-grandmother, from a family whose roots stretched back to the founding of New England, connected to all the leading families of New Hampshire (which means not a Boston Brahmin, but a more mercantile type), was married several times during the course of her long life. During the Depression, she moved into a flat in Brooklyn, living above my father's nuclear family, which had already intermarried with Prussians in the rag trade. At that time, Germans had assimilated marriages, and with a grandmother from Berlin, it is possible there were Jewish ties already. The great-grandmother had taken in grandchildren and a son-in-law. The 1930 census declares that the son-in-law (my father's uncle David) had two parents who spoke Yiddish. So far as I know, this Depression-era household was a very cozy one. I have never heard otherwise in all my life. My aunt, when she moved to California (into another such household, mine) would be able to tell who was and wasn't Jewish in the community, with the feeling that people who hid their origins weren't really playing nice. On the other hand, to describe our own would take hours. But as New Yorker, she always felt more sophisticated than the people of Orange County in those days. Suffice it to say that her brother, my father, always sent the message that Jews were welcome in his family, and indeed he got them (and never complained, in fact he felt this represented progress). But as for in-laws from two sides of a Jewish family mixing with each other: maybe they do today, maybe they consciously strive for this contact, to distinguish themselves from assimilationists. But amongst some Europeans I know, the Jews who are intellectuals (and usually atheists) don't mix with the religious. Mr. Weiss may think his marriage is different, but I say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The what if's are just that.