Wait, let me back up...
Hi. I'm Melanie. I'm a 36 year old mama to a lovely little monkey named Eleanor. I've said for years that I'm a "recovering Jew", but perhaps that's not really fair. I'm married to a wonderfully patient man, Trent. He's a "recovering Catholic". You can see where this is going, right?
For a long time, I didn't give much thought about what it meant to have been "raised Jewish". Well, except that for much of my life, I lived in places with a good percentage of other Jews (Miami,FL; New York,NY), so I guess I just kinda took it for granted ('til I lived in Raleigh, NC and Iowa City, IA). I only ever dated one Jewish boy. For 2 weeks in college. Basically just to be able to tell my family, "Hey, I tried". He had asthma and was allergic to the handmade sweaters my mother made me. Destined for failure.
I feel like I should back up a little more. Don't worry, I won't go back the whole 5771 years.
My father was raised in a kosher home. Though not Orthodox, his upbringing was much more conservative than my mother's. He didn't have lobster until he was 21. His father, my Zeida, passed away a few months before I was born. His mother, my Baba Vicki, survived into my 30s. She was perhaps the meanest, most spiteful person I've ever met. She epitomized every BAD stereotype you've ever heard about Jewish mothers. She was awful to my mom, and essentially stopped speaking to me when I got my first tattoo. My father still attends temple on the high holidays.
My mother is Jewish, but was raised much more reformed. No bat-mitzvah. But the culture is there, as is the ability to make any meat tasteless (sorry, Ma). Her grandparents, Abe and Sophie Lipshitz, were every GOOD stereotype you ever heard about Jewish grandparents. I was lucky to know them both into my 20s.
So when my parents wed, my Baba was horrified that her baby boy wasn't going to live in a kosher home, even though my mother was "a nice Jewish girl", and she made it pretty tough on both my parents. Long story short, my parents moved from NY to FL 3 months after I was born. I was raised Jewish, to the extent that I attended Hebrew Day School from preschool through Grade 3: half the day was Hebrew and religious studies, the rest was English and everything else.
Have you ever gone to Hebrew school? Have you ever been sent HOME from Hebrew school for taking Oreos to school (before they were kosher--they used to be made with lard)? Ever been teased/mocked by a bunch of rich, snotty Jewish kids? Let's just say these were NOT my favorite childhood moments. I was a skinny little kid with a big nose, a shy disposition, and I asked "why?"...a lot.
By the time I was 10, I was begging my parents to let me go to public school. And after apparently being a kid who was fluent enough to talk in her sleep in Hebrew (yep), I promptly put it all behind me and was enrolled in a "normal" school for grade 4. So all of a sudden, I had all these questions for my folks: who's this Santa guy? why do they get all their presents at once? can we have a Hannukah bush?
By the time I was approaching 13, we had to talk Bat Mitzvah. I told my father, quite honestly, I must say, that I didn't think I WANTED a bat-mitzvah, that I didn't know if I believed in all that. It's a pretty big deal, to say you're ready to take your place as an adult member of the Jewish community at 13. Not only that, a big party meant having to invite friends...and I didn't HAVE a lot of friends (just because I changed schools didn't make me suddenly less shy, less gawky, or more popular)!
The response from my father: Are you TRYING to kill your grandmother?...Look. Have the bat-mitzvah, and I'll never make you go back to temple again
Done.
So I've been back to temple a handful of times, either for weddings or by virtue of being guilted into it by my best friend in NYC, Julie. And I'm Jewish the way Seinfeld is Jewish. The culture is there, for sure. I can still read Hebrew, though I don't know what it means anymore (I had actually forgotten most of it in the 3 years of public school). Movies about the holocaust make me queasy. I worked as a consulting educational audiologist for 2 years in Monsey, NY, which has a very large Orthodox/Hassidic population. I knew not to shake the men's hands, nor to make eye contact, show my tattoos, or wear hot pink so as not to make anyone uncomfortable. There are still Yiddish words in my vocabulary.
When I met Trent, it wasn't like I was uber-Jew. When we decided to get married, there wasn't much discussion about any religion. He had gone to Catholic school because it was a good school, and to Tufts for the same reason. He had no qualms about keeping religion out of things. , We eloped and wrote our own ceremony, which included a couple things from a couple of different religions. We broke a glass because I think that's a cool way to symbolize the fragility of the marriage that we were beginning.
So all this is a long-winded background as to why I have started a new blog. It's a new year. Trent and I have been married since 2006 and in September 2008, we moved from NYC to Ottawa, ON. Now keep in mind, in NY, we lived in 700 square feet. And come on. It was NYC. There was no lack of things to do for a Jew on Christmas--Chinese food and a movie, baby! But Christmas time was always a bit frustrating for a Jewish kid, no matter if I was non-practicing. The music starts in the stores right after Halloween, and it's like there's this big party that you're not invited to. Well, with Trent around, and in our new "grown up" house in Ottawa, I figured I could cater the party, even if it wasn't for me. I surprised him with a tree (another story for another time, but suffice it to say that the dog basically ate a branch a day, earning her the nickname The Dog Who Ate Christmas.
In February 2010, we welcomed little Miss Eleanor into our lives. And all of a sudden, I went into full-out, hard core panic mode as to how on Earth we were going to raise an ethical and moral child without religion, without this kind of community or identity.
Well, that's not entirely true. It didn't happen right away. There were a few times when it would cross my mind But as the holiday season approached and we had to start fielding questions from relatives on both sides (What does Ellie want for Hannukah/Christmas? Will you be lighting the menorah with her? Will you get a photo of her on Santa's lap? ...), it sort of hit me that I really hadn't figured out how I wanted to handle all of this. I went into Super-Jew mode and made fresh latkes, downloaded the Hannukah prayers (I could only remember 2 of the 3!), and we lit the candles 4 of the 8 nights (a record for me in the last 25 years, I think).
Lighting the Menorah
And then we prepared for a trip to the States to see my husband's family. And the Christmas frenzy began in earnest. This kid wracked up more loot than I've ever seen.
Both Trent and I consider ourselves pretty down-to-Earth in terms of not buying into the consumerism (pun intended), for the most part. Especially for a 9 or 10 mo old little person who really does enjoy the boxes and paper more than the presents...but how do you handle everyone ELSE!?
We talked about it a lot on the way home--it's easy with a 12 hour car trip...And I really had to get my head on straight as to how I felt about all this stuff, before I could hope to convey a clear message of some sort to Eleanor as she grows up. I dove into (re-) reading Parenting Beyond Belief and thus, the birth of a new blog.
Join me, as I muddle through the big questions while dealing with a very sweet little person. She's still too young to talk, yet, so I figure I'm ahead of the game for the time being. May the Force be with us....
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