My fiancé is threatening to cut off our engagement if I don’t lie about or not use my non-Jewish last name on our wedding invitation. Even though I am Jewish.

I could write a lot about this situation but I will try to keep it as short as possible.

My mother is Jewish but my father is not. I was raised fully Jewish. I went to a reform synagogue, went to Hebrew school multiple times a week until I was 14 and was bat mitzvahed. My family celebrates the high holidays. I grew in a neighborhood with diversity. There were a handful of Jewish people but I am also friends with people of other religions and races. I have never been one to discriminate.

My significant other was raised in a very insular community of modern-Orthodox Persian Jews. To them, leaving the community is one of the worst offenses possible. The parents expect their children to marry someone within the community (another Persian Jew). If their partner is not Persian, the parents will still give them a hard time but it is more or else accepted. Marrying non-Jewish is completely unacceptable, frowned upon and results in being disowned or cutoff by your family and community.

I didn’t know about any of this when I met my significant other about 4 years ago. I slowly learned about it over the years. Although these concepts were shocking and disturbing to me, I looked past it because we both loved each other and I did not feel the severity of the rules in the community applied much to our relationship since we are both Jewish. I developed a relationship with his family and over time, they became accepting of our relationship.

We got engaged a couple of months ago and began the wedding planning process. The topic of invitations came up. Since my father is not Jewish, I do not have a Jewish last name.

My significant other has not mentioned this request before, but is now saying that he is unwilling to go through with the marriage unless I either put a fake last name on the wedding invitations or leave it off all together (including leaving off my parents names) to avoid giving people in the community the impression that I am not Jewish (even though I am.) He explained that he will be shunned (more or less) from everyone in his community if my last name or my parents full names appear on the invitation as-is.

I find this deeply disturbing, insulting and disrespectful, not only to me, but to my family who has been helpful and supportive during the wedding planning process. I’ve explained to him how all of this makes me feel but he is insistent on the last name not showing up anywhere.

I have many thoughts about this but am looking to gauge how people around the world view this situation. I appreciate any comments or advice.