Previously this community had overwhelmingly confirmed the Jewishnss of my wife and baby. When I told my wife about the post, she laughed. Then she posited the idea of joining the local Reform temple after reading everyone’s replies. Her thinking was that we’d both talked about our daughter missing out on the community built into church memberships. I’d even brought up going to a UU meeting before just for the kind of fellowship involved–this was a few years ago.
We know the rabbi at the local Reform temple fairly well, so I think we’d be fairly well received. For that matter a member of the temple’s membership board had been after me to come to services for several years after he learned the circumstances of my wife. The thing is I’m firmly an agnostic so it’s not like I could convert. And my wife still insists she’s agnostic, so we’d not be going with intent to instill religious fervor into our child. It feels like it would be some performative cosplay type of taking advantage thing. I understand the idea of my wife and daughter being Jewish by law, but it still feels a bit like cultural appropriation.
On top of that, what would be my place? Are there usually non-Jews in services? Am I just there to turn the lights on and off? I feel like if we were to do something like this, raising our daughter in the community, it would forever be plainly obvious to her that she has a place in her community and her father who’s not part of her community. That bothers me a little. Does anyone have any thoughts?
submitted by /u/bjeebus
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Source: Reditt
