at least i think they are extreme. no sex before marriage. no living together. sometimes every conversation feels like it’s lead back to God. a little background on me, i come from a mixed religion family (my mother and her whole family are jewish, my dad is methodist, my two half siblings are catholic). growing up, we celebrated all holidays. my catholic siblings celebrated Hanukah and we celebrated Christmas, more so as a hallmark holiday rather than a religious one. since dating my boyfriend, we have gone through some tough times. at one point he wasn’t even sure he could be with me because i am not christian. this lead me to defend my jewishness more fiercely than i ever have to almost questioning if i really am jewish. i don’t live a traditionally jewish lifestyle so it almost started to feel like i wasn’t being a good jew. after some time apart to reflect he realized that people of two different faiths can be just as successful as a couple of the same faith. however, i did offer to learn more about his faith. since then, we attend his church every sunday. it’s not very traditional and i really only take what i can from it. they pray to Jesus and i pray to God. Despite putting this effort in, i’ve found myself on the other end of some questionable remarks. for instance, his mom grilled me about being jewish asking “how” am i jewish. and i explained that although I’m not practicing, my mother is jewish and we believe in our faith. she then proceeded to ask if i was from israel. at the time i had no idea. i’ve only ever been told we’re irish, sicilian, and hungarian. i initially told her “no i’m american” she asked me how i could possibly be jewish if i wasn’t israeli. after that more comments came such as “well you’re not REALLY jewish” and so on. i finally spoke up and my boyfriend noticed too and corrected her. we haven’t had an issue since. a couple weeks ago his dad made the comment of “all i want for my kids is that they end up happy and with a partner who knows christ because my kids know where they are ending up so i want that for their partners”. he said it as if he wasn’t talking to his son’s jewish girlfriend, but more so like a friend his own age. fast forward to this week, i was talking to his younger brother (m19). i have a great relationship with him to the point where he feels like he’s my younger brother as well. his brother grew up in a christian school where they teach apologetics so he’s very capable of defending his christian faith. with that being said, he believes there is only “one true religion” and that there are “eye witness accounts” that Jesus is the messiah. he said people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ will go to hell. so i asked him directly “do you think i will go to hell” to which he responded “i believe that the jews will go to hell” . i was honestly surprised he was so matter of fact. this is a kid that i have a great friendship with. i also found it interesting that he wouldn’t say that he thought I specifically would go to hell, but he referenced all jews. it seemed like he knew it wouldn’t be right for him to say that so he tried to say it in another way. i’m not looking for relationship advice, my boyfriend and i are very happy and now very respectful when talking about faith. he’s shown interest in learning more about what it means to be jewish and has opened up about even struggling with all what he believes as well. if you read this far, thank you for taking the time to hear my story. my real question is if these comments seem extreme to you? and how can i defend being jewish to his family better? how can i explain that i will not go to hell?
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Source: Reditt
