One impetus for this site was (is?) my personal effort to find honor for my marriage to a non-Jew; attitudes in the Jewish community are so weird about intermarriage, especially since the 1990 population survey found that most American Jews were doing what I was about to do, and this set off panic. Given that history, I have to celebrate what the New York Jewish Week describes as a potential social/political embarrassment: the marriage of Brooklyn congressman Anthony Weiner to a Muslim, Huma Abedin, who is a top adviser to Hillary Clinton– and presumably knows the Palestinian narrative, having grown up partly in Saudi Arabia.
This piece is filled with funny ha-ha’s about the marriage, though it also mentions that it is "religious treason" to intermarry and suggests that Weiner may suffer in his base for his choice. There’s also a hint of If-you-cant-beat-em-join-em in this piece. And given Jews social status, who can blame the non-Jews for wanting in.
Weiner, 44, a six-term Democrat with staunch pro-Israel leanings, is entering uncharted waters with his announcement that he’ll soon be married. To a Muslim.
“OY,” commented one reader on the blog Yeshiva World News in reaction to the news.
“Hashem Yeracham [May God have mercy],” wrote another.
“Never liked that bum,” wrote a third…
Shlomo Perl, an Orthodox Borough Park businessman who held a fundraiser in his home for Weiner’s re-election in 2000 and contributed to his mayoral campaign in 2005, said Weiner “has always been a friend of Israel and admirer. I’m sure now he’ll do the same things. I’ll support him if he runs for mayor again and also for his re-election to Congress. I’m not one who judges a person’s character on his personal choices.”…
Secular Jews may soon see marrying Christians as so 2008. And it may not be long before Anthony Weiner is visiting Muslim senior centers, with a ring on his finger, showing pictures of his dual-heritage children, as grandmothers invite him to sit down and eat something.
The qualities of your wife as a person, and the quality of your relationship is enough to assert honor.
The question comes up in “what do you pass on?”, but that is only a relevant question if you have children.
I chose to pass on the Jewish values of obligation to society, and more intimate association with the Jewish means to do that (not all), in having Jewish children and bringing them up to be Jewish.
I could have easily married a non-Jewish woman, if the relationship felt strong.
There are wonderful alternative life-ways, but an individual and a community needs clarity as to what to expect of its members (a social code).
The “critical analysis” approach doesn’t provide that guidance. It doesn’t provide the meaning of “loving home” (both as active verb, :loving home”, and as adjective, “a comfortable and loving home”)
I married a Jew. I am a Gentile. What we passed on is adequately summed up by
ML King’s priority: Content of character. Good character does not depend on tribe, ethnicity, race, religion, or ideology. Nor, of course, does it depend on “life style.”
Or what food one likes to eat, etc. High school is not meant to be forever. How that for a “social code?”
There is something more specific than just good human character that is obligated of Jews that attempt to practice to some real extent.
Bringing your kids up to be good human beings, with good personal character and good values, is absolutely wonderful.
Bringing a child up to be a good Jew, as well as a good human being, are not mutually exclusive.
Weiner’s mother is not Jewish: [Arutz Sheva] Clinton’s Top Muslim Aide to Wed Jewish Congressman .
The marriage violates Islamic law, as well. A Muslim man may marry a Jewish woman, but not the converse.
Richard, what a talent you have for saying nothing, but always with the maximum of “the penultimate of schmalz“, as Andre Kostelanetz once said.
what is schmalz? english my friend.
Schmalz in German means grease. But it has the figurative meaning of excessively sentimental, mawkish, kitchy.
But don’t ask me to find out if the German usage inspired the Jiddisch or the other way round, that would need further inquiries.
I said nothing to you.
But that is more a function of your hearing and thinking.
I agree with Mooser. You could drown in Witty’s schmalz. Everytime Witty speaks
we have to suck up Witty’s foamy head of schmalz–only to reach his watery beer.
The Silent Holocaust is how I’ve heard this phenomenon described.
Gas ‘em, it’s a Holocaust. Marry ‘em, it’s a Holocaust. Shoot ‘em, it’s a Holocaust. Kiss ‘em, it’s a Holocaust.
There’s a punk song in there.
I heard the term ethnocide in this context.
Wiener’s wife is a committed Zionist. G-d bless their union.
This is not Jim Haygood. Winer’s wife may be a Zionist, that is, a goy-self hater.
Mooser,
Were you banned under your prior posting name, and have come back for more?
????????
Mooser was banned somewhere else. But who has been banned by Phil and Adam? Enlighten me.
wow, i didn’t know that bit of personal history/motivation, richard:
‘personal effort to find HONOR for my marriage.’
very Noah Feldmanesque of you. also very bushido code.
so, if i may indulge my inner armchair therapist, you seek to find honor in your marriage, implying that the marriage itself lacks honor…i will charitably assume that the perceived lack of honor does not arise from some deficiency in the marriage coupling itself, but rather from the diminishment of honor by the jewish community’s frowning upon the marriage…
and that this website therefore is an attempt to restore honor to your marriage by diminishing the diminishers–if the jewish people are not worthy, then, by jove, their putative disapproval isn’t worth the parchment it’s written on…
so how to diminish them? by pointing out the jewish people’s foibles and flaws pertaining to their support and sustenance of the state of israel. notwithstanding that some, even most of those Zionists actually would not diminish your marital honor/they don’t disapprove of intermarriage at all, or if they do, they don’t disapprove enough to actually wish your marriage ill.
so it would seem to me, that to accurately diminish the diminishers, you have to diminish the entire jewish people itself…and you probably should be specifically diminishing the ultra right wing who do, somewhat actively, actually diminish the honor of your marriage.
in a funny paradox, those same ultra right wing jews are for the most part ANTI-ZIONISTS themselves. Probably would be big readers of your blog if their rebbes would allow them to use the internet.
Whoops! Back to the drawing board, Richard!!
btw, i’ve noticed in some posts that some readers here struggle with the definition of that term ‘self-hating jew’…well, look no farther than richard’s helpful posting above…you see people struggle with understanding the phenomenon because the self-haters themselves are a bit muddled in their thinking…
but more about that another day, i guess
let’s all go back to watching another video example of breached journalistic ethics…
More insights by our resident intuiter.
On journalistic ethics.
When how someone communicates is no longer of any material effect, and is no longer the subject of any discussion here, by Phil, Adam, or commentators, then it will be unnecessary to comment on how Phil or others express themselves, what assumptions they interject, etc.
But, that IS the theme of the blog, so is relevant to comment on.
Live with it.
I have mentioned before that among all the jewish couples I know in my town only one is a marriage of jew to a jew..the others are catholic and jew, methodist and jew, etc., etc..
Guess what?…NO ONE CARES.. ..yep, no one cares what a friends spouse is…every spouse get the same respect and honor.
If the people around you are responsible for your angst over your non jewish wife you are living around the wrong kind of people.
Something tells me this has nothing to do essentially with an acceptable marriage, but with acceptance in a constituency to wield political power. It is insecurity about ones position in power, and how some may use a marriage to undermine a political legacy. So it is not as pure as the driven snow, just political posturing as usual. The ancient fear of the many wives of Solomon…lol
Some people never grow up. They need to feel part of a team.
As somebody said recently on this blog, some people never really leave high school.
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Wasn’t Paul Wolfowitz having a long-term affair with a Muslim? So, whatever their other merits, it’s not like Muslim women can cure the dual loyalties of American Zionist men.
The irony is that Wolfowitz is accused of being racist.
Something about actually LOVING someone from a different culture or skin color, changes one’s thinking to value the soul of the person, not their skin color or ethnicity.
Wolfowitz is fourty steps ahead of those that imagine racism on his part.
The current buzz in the Yeshiva world certainly describes Fran Weiner as non-Jewish: link to theyeshivaworld.com
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Check out: link to theyeshivaworld.com
Check out: Jewish Congressman Anthony Weiner Engaged To Muslim Woman.