Judaism, Immigration, and the Meaning of Happiness

My wife is Jewish.  She's so Jewish her last name is the Jewish equivalent of "Christ".  But she's Jewish only by heritage.  But it's a strong heritage.  Her grandma and grandpa fled both the Germans who were rapidly advancing into Russia and the Pogroms by hiding in the Ural Mountains, and they lost two kids in the process. 

It's a strange culture for people who are not familiar - that of keeping heritage and tradition but not religion.  If you ask anyone in her family what they believe happens when you die, they'd likely say you just get buried, and people move on.  For them, there's not much else beyond what is purely real and tangible. 


My wife is a bit more spiritual than that, having gone to and enjoyed a Jewish school when in Russia (though it was more out of de facto segregation and safety in numbers than because her parents wanted her to learn about their traditions).  In fact, when she began to really, REALLY enjoy Jewish culture and history and traditions, her parents took her out for fear that she was becoming inundated.  She still tells me stories about how she came home wanting to have a traditional Seder (the meal celebrating the beginning of Passover), her parents said no, and she was incredibly disappointed.

But with that suppression of the inundation of religion, it was interesting that her family inundated her with the belief that she needed to only marry another Jew.  The way it was explained to me was: non-Jews will marry you, and then many years later when things get tough in the marriage, they will turn on you, spit on you and call you a "kike". 

She also told me stories about how the Jewish school she was a part of would put on parades and marches through the city, and all the children would dread them.  Non-Jews (mostly Orthodox Christians) would line the sidewalks of the parades and pelt them with rocks as they walked down the street, and when the children complained, the school simply said that they were trying to "raise awareness" of the Jewish presence and by simply doing that, the other children would stop throwing stones at them.

So I can imagine how difficult it was for them to move to a different country with those fears of anti-Semitic sentiment, and how they likely wanted their daughter to seek out another Jew for the same reasons they put their daughter in Jewish school - de facto segregation and safety in numbers. 

So when she brought me home, tattoos, piercings and all, I can't imagine her parents were too happy.  But for so called "spiritual" Americans, it's different.  I was raised Lutheran, but probably because my family moved around constantly, we never really had a church we constantly went to, and religion was never high on our priority list.  We celebrated with family on the holidays, and religion was rarely brought into even the most religious of celebrations.  So, like I said, for "spiritual" Americans, obviously not the devout, saying you're Jewish or Christian, or any other religion, (except, unfortunately Islam - it's sad, but that's different now-a-days) is like saying you grew up in Michigan or Idaho. Different, yes - but it serves as more of an interesting conversation topic than a dividing wedge between two people.

My wife asked me if I wanted to convert.  And I considered it for a while - but seeing as how neither one of us really subscribed to religion as a major pillar of our lives, I thought it would be a little disrespectful and blasphemous to convert just to get married to someone, and then never follow through.  So we both said, screw it - and forever after we were ALMOST as happy as this:

Trading Sweat for Obesity

On any normal day, if you were to say to me, "Hey, Bill - I've got a splendid idea! Let's go to the beach!"

I'd instead hear this: "Hello, person I hate - I secretly want to kill you.  And the first step in my plan is to tear you from your comfortable air conditioning, stuff you into shorts that have a weird net in them that threatens your freshness, put sand in every place it shouldn't be, and leave you with a terrible skin ailment that will likely give you cancer, but in the meantime makes it uncomfortable to sleep.  Also, please make sure to swim out into the deep part of the ocean so all the billions of terrible fishes and sharks can nibble at your toes until you pass away from nibble-fatigue."

This is the test of true friendship - beaches and Bill mix like seagulls and alka-seltzer.

But not today.  We're headed to the Jersey shore this weekend for some good old fashioned fist pumping and GTL.  In "hey, actually you have a kid" terms, this really means learning how to change a diaper without getting sand in there and applying sun block every five minutes.

And even though I will likely be sweating the entire weekend +2 days, it's totally effing worth it.  We haven't taken time off from work to just sit and relax in over a year.  So I'll suffer through a little bit of melanoma if it means I get to stop working 11 hour days and worrying about silly stuff like what's for dinner.

Because guess who is coming with us?  My mother in law and her friend.

I just recently learned a joke about Jewish Russian Grandmas.  There was some kid who only ate chicken nuggets.  And...well, I don't remember the whole thing, but the punchline was, if you've got a Jewish Russian Grandma, don't waste her by being picky about what you eat.  That is to say, something in their genetic code requires them to make all kinds of delicious food all the frickin' time.

So not only do I have one Jewish Russian Grandma coming with me, I've got TWO.  Please, don't expect me to have any kind of sex-appeal after this weekend.  I fully anticipate being an obese blob.  Don't pretend you're not jealous.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Arguments in the Borscht Household

A couple days ago, Stephanie over at the always engaging Like the Vodka wrote about how difficult a multi-cultural marriage/relationship can be. I wanted to answer in the comments section, but figured it would make a great post that dives into my own relationship with my Russian Spy Wife.  So I'm bumping the possibly ten or twenty billion other great ideas I had for a post today, and discussing my relationship.

When I proposed to my wife - her family was slightly put off.  How could a gentile possibly love one of God's chosen people?  They were convinced I would turn around one day, slap her and call her a kike before going off to get drunk and steal everything from their family.

This is the stigma that Jews from the old country have.  I don't blame them - especially when they've been branded from birth as "different" - their nationality marked in their passports as Jewish, not Russian.  My wife was ridiculed constantly in school for being Jewish, and her dad received death threats for starting his own business and succeeding.

But when you enter a new environment, you assimilate to the culture.  It is a trait of all species - something that enhances survival.  And finally, while assimilating, you realize that for the majority of people in America, at least, differences drive relationships.  Homogeneous populations quickly become tedious.   Of course, there are those that hold on to homogeneity for fear of the unknown, but they're rare.

We had an acquaintance who came to the States from Ukraine when he was five or six.  So by no means did he have any right to continue to call himself an outsider to this country.  But for some reason, he plagued our lives with constant commentary about how our relationship was putrid, and how I was never going to be good enough for my wife because when I was a baby, I had some water ceremoniously splashed on my head.  He sent my wife an e-mail with a link to a story where a Jewish woman married a Christian man, and he never respected her and cheated on her constantly.  I never saw him after that, but if I do - his face will be putrid.

The dude is an ass.  But I know there are people like this out there - so I'm not naive.

So why did we work?  What was it about her that made an immature 19 year old kid decide within three months that he wanted to marry a girl from a place he'd never heard of? 

Values.  It's the mortar that holds up our wall.  I might sometimes miss having a girl who knows about the Ghost Busters, or who gets references to anything after Malachi (I think that's the last book...it's been a while).  Just the same as she might miss having a guy that can dance the Trepak, or sing Malinka, or go into a deep depression regularly remembering the atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish people (that's something they do, right?)

But these are just niceties. They're learned traits.  I've picked up a good amount of Russian culture, just the same as she's picked up a lot of American.

What holds us together and binds us are values.  Absolute devotion to each other, to family, and education.  The desire to have a large family.  Agreements in household fiscal policy.  Alignments in worldview.  And probably the thing that makes us work the most is a desire for the other person to have as much as they want of their own culture and traditions brought into our family as possible.

Things are difficult when it comes to the kid.  What holidays to celebrate, whether he will be raised Jewish or Christian.  Bris or Baptism?  Confirmation or Bar Mitzvah?  What if he grows up and wants to wear a cross necklace?  or a star of david necklace?  How are we going to deal with that as a couple, and as parents?

We finally decided that these disagreements we're having are secondary to his happiness.  Will he care either way?  Likely not, just as long as he's happy and loved, and as long as his parents love each other. 

This has mostly brought our arguments born out of cultural differences to a standstill. 

But it also helps that she is super-model hot.

Back in Business

Have you ever felt like a crazy, rabid monkey just would not quit humping your arm?  Besides the obvious pleasure from the experience, you'd probably feel a little annoyed that one of your appendages was unusable.  Also, there'd be a lot of loud screeching.

This is how I feel about purchasing my own domain.  I'm excited because it's a new step, and my URL won't have as many characters as War and Peace.  But at the same time, it's annoying.  It's annoying because my knowledge of internet speak is limited to URL, WoW, and porn. (note - I actually do not play World of Warcraft, nor have I ever watched pornography.  This is for humorous demonstrative purposes only...obviously)

And since I don't know anything about anything, it is a brutal march.  Just last night, I realized I could point this site back to blogspot, and not have it hovering in the purgatory between domains.  So I'm back here, hoping to figure it out so I can make the switch over this weekend.

Ok, but enough about that. I had this post imagined a while ago, and I understand it's a couple days late. (thanks, stupid interwebs).  For your viewing pleasure, six of the greatest Passover/Judaism related links ever assembled.  Notice, they are not sausage links, which would be delicious.  just the regular internet kind.

1. Dude makes Washington Square Arch out of matzo, wins $1,000 - goes on to dye hair normal color

2. Who doesn't like Orthodox Jewish Cats? My wife informs me that in Russian, Shpilkes are high-heels. That makes this comic take on a delightfully surreal meaning.

3. Journey out of Egypt through a tunnel of Matzo.  Oh, Canada, is there anything you can do that the entire world WON'T find adorable?

4.  For those last minute Seder gifts, don't forget to purchase The 10 plagues finger puppet set.  Educational, cute, and convenient that there is a plague for every finger!

5.  No list would be a list worth making if we couldn't insert some geeky math puzzle or theorem.  Just another beautiful thing about Pascal's Triangle.  As as side note, Pascal was a pretty badass dude.  First piece of evidence: the guy's name was Blaise.  Or spelled like anyone normal would spell it, Blaze.  If I were naming a big huge dragon, Blaze would be my first pick.



6.  Speaking of math, Rabbi + flamethrower - chametz = Hells yeah