I’m a Brazilian Catholic, but I have been fascinated by Jewish culture and History for the past 3 years. I’m majoring in History, so I read some books on Jewish history and those books were some of the most interesting I have ever read.
I also watched a lot of Jewish movies and shows and loved them.
In college, a friend of mine sometimes jokes by saying “Mazel Tov” when we meet; he also jokes by saying that he expects to see me wearing a yarmulke and waving an Israeli flag around the campus someday. He refers to me as a “Walking Jewish Encyclopedia”.
I had some experiences enlightening some people who had really bizarre views about the Jewish people; some of those views were antisemitic.
My mom once asked me if I would become a Jew if “it was possible”. I explained to her that this was possible, but it is challenging, and I’m happy being a Catholic, so I had no reason to want to become a Jew.
Anyway, I’m just really fascinated by the history and culture of the Jewish people.
Now to my question:
There is no visible Jewish community in the city where I live, and as far as I know, there are no synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher restaurants, or shops that sell kosher food. There is also no social Jewish institution that I know of. So I assume that the few Jews who live here are not really observant.
So it came as a shocking surprise to me when one of my mom’s friends said that she knew a woman from her Evangelical church who was married to an observant Jewish man.
They want me to meet his guy someday, and I think that will happen soon, but I don’t know if this guy is really Jewish or just some evangelical Christian larping as a Jew, and if he’s really Jewish, I just don’t know how I should act around him, what to ask and what not to ask, what to say and what not to say.
I have talked to some Brazilian Jews in the past, but just online, never in person.
This is all my mom’s friend told me about this guy:
He lives in one of the richest neighborhoods in the city.
He is married to an evangelical Christian woman and has some kids with her.
He is against his wife taking their kids to her church’s activities, but she does that anyway without him finding out.
He is an observant Jew in the sense that he keeps kosher, his family keeps Shabbat, his son had a bar mitzvah in So Paulo (where the largest Jewish community lives), he celebrates Jewish holidays with his family, and, according to my mom’s friend, he dresses “as a Jew.”
The idea of someone living as an observant Jew here really blows my mind because I didn’t think it was possible.
I have the feeling that maybe he’s one of these “Messianic Jews”, and I know that these guys are not usually considered Jewish, but there is the possibility that he is just a Jew in a really challenging and special situation.
So I wanted tips on how to behave if I met him someday. I just tend to be socially awkward and say the wrong things, and I don’t want to behave in a respectful and insensitive way around him.
Any tips for that?
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Source: Reditt
