My grandfather is almost 85 years old. He grew up going back and forth between New York and Pittsburgh. One of his parents was a secular Jew, and the other was a protestant Christian. The two never formally married and essentially took turns raising my grandpa and his sisters every few months. Sometimes, the children were sent to a Catholic boarding school/orphanage for weeks or even months at a time.
Because of his upbringing, my grandfather was never in touch with his Jewishness. As a young adult, he almost became a Catholic priest. When he decided against it and married my grandma, he forced the family into a fundamentalist Christian sect that carried some Jewish rules. Nowadays, he considers himself a staunch atheist. There’s no problem in being an atheist, but he believes that if you are religious, you’re a “moron.”
This man who was not raised Jewish, did not raise his children Jewish, and believes that Judaism as a religion is “moronic” now uses his loosely held identity as an excuse to hate Black people and shut down their suffering.
Most of my family ignores him.
I’m the first religious Jew in several generations of both sides of my ethnic Jewish family. I’m incredibly hurt and disgusted by his use of our people to hurt another group who is suffering. I cannot ignore him.
How do I convince him to stop exploiting his loose grasp of Jewishness at the expense of others?
submitted by /u/anxiousthespian
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Source: Reditt
