Assimilation. Intermarriage. We've heard the statistics, the unsettling and the shocking. We've seen the charts and figures. 'Will your grandchildren be Jewish?' Our minds wander on to other occupations; we watch a movie, and conscientiously, if absent-mindedly, we notice all the Jewish names: actors, producers, directors... everywhere we look, Jewish names... Jewish people? What does assimilation look like? The iconic picture that springs up in our mind is sweet; a cute couple, in blissful love: they hardly know of the sternly forbidding lines they're crossing. What does it matter to them? They're in love - Just like any other story-line in a good romantic movie. So... is it another soul lost? Another broken link in the chain? What happens after intermarriage? And whoever heard of Jews intermarrying with Arabs?
Her real name is a dim, quiet shadow, in the mists of her almost-forgotten past. She carries a new name. She has learnt new customs, and has learnt to bear so much from a world she never before dreamt of. The sparkle in her eye, the pride in her posture, have faded with the name of her youth. She sometimes feels she wears a mask; or maybe she has become her mask. The beatings, yes, they came as a shock at first, but now she can suffer them almost silently; she has learnt, she has progressed. Her children's names, good Arab names, strike, in some deep recesses of her masked soul, at a still-tender nerve; something's not right; something, even after all these years, is foreign and bitter. But she tries to ignore that voice... until one day, suddenly, it becomes too much to suffer...
This woman, this Jewish woman's story, is true, many times over. It's a story that's happening today, right now, with hundreds of Jewish women, mostly in Israel. How bitter the difference between the first blissful infatuation when she and Ahmed had first met, and her life today, years down the road; she remembers her attraction: what a handsome man, what grace, what charm. A man like any other, surely? Her embittered life taught her differently. She learned to wear clothes of servitude, took the beatings of the cheaply valued woman, learnt the language of harshness, raised her children on teachings and values so very far from those she knew, deep down, to be her own. It all started with an innocent flirt, with a date or two, with a man who wasn't really so different, it seemed, from all the Jewish guys around her.
Intermarriage is when a Jew marries someone who is not a Jew. If it's the man who is the Jew, his children, by Torah law, are not Jews: tragically, he is the last, broken, link in a millenia-long chain of generations. He may love his wife and children, but they are not Jews, and they are only family until a certain point. If it's the woman who is the Jew, her children are Jews, too. But this may be more tragic than the first scenario: her children, and she herself, will very likely be so distanced from anything Jewish, and certainly from the wellsprings of Jewish identity such as Shabbat, Jewish Festivals, Synagogue, and Israel, that they will quickly forget they were ever Jewish. True, there are many amazing stories of Jews raised as non-Jews, sometimes coming from generations of non-Jews, whose inexplicable deeply inspired quest for meaning led them on the strange path back to their forgotten roots. However, there are many more silent stories; stories that begin and end in loss; souls cut off from their roots, princes and princesses so very far from the palace...
Unfortunately, hundreds of Jewish girls fall into the trap of serious relationships, and then marriages, with Arab men. So many of them end up like the woman I described above: shadows of their real selves, broken, embittered, and truly captive to their Arab husbands and their families: emotionally, and often physically. They have no escape; if they try to run away, they will be caught and cruelly punished. But it's their hearts, minds, souls that are truly captive; these Jewish women, like most Arab women, are treated with cruelty, barbarism, and deep inferiority by the men, and the women's spirits and self-images are utterly shattered. They can barely muster up the courage to think about escaping, never mind to get out and run for their lives.
How do these trapped Jewish women find help? How can they escape? There is a wonderful organization called 'Yad leAchim' ('A Hand to Brethren') that is committed to saving Jews from assimilation, missionaries, and other tragedies whose root is in weak or non-existent Jewish identity. Yad leAchim has a hotline and other services which are available for anyone to use, and they have a section that deals specially with the trapped Jewish women which I've been discussing. Their work and dedication is legendary.
It's noble work, and unfortunately very necessary, but it would be so much better if we didn't need Yad leAchim's services. How do you prevent intermarriage? How do you stop assimilation? I believe that these issues, as well as the current leadership crisis in Israel, are all rooted in the same source: Jewish identity. If I don't know who I am, then how can I value myself and my kind? And if I cannot see any value in myself and my kind, what stops me from attaching myself to people who are so basically and fundamentally different from me? If she doesn't have a pride and interest in being a Jew, what stops a trusting, beautiful Jewish girl from being led from misguided love to captivity and brokenness in the space of a short time?
Of course, assimilation has all forms and shapes, and it's mostly not accompanied by such violence and brutality as the cases of Jewish girls marrying Arab men. Sure, we don't want anyone innocent to suffer; we want to save them from cruelty and pain. But it's crucial for us to understand that the root of assimilation, in whatever form it takes, is the weakness of our Jewish identity; our failure to feel deeply connected to the Torah way of life. We need to re-define what Jewish identity really means. What is Judaism? What is Torah?
It must surely mean more than bagels and lax, more than just living in Israel, and more than just a set of laws, do's and don't's. Our generation is desparately thirsty for meaning. Torah holds that meaning, although so many dimensions of its depth has been almost lost, hidden over the years... Today, we are returning to our Land; G-d has opened His arms to take us back to Him. And as we return to the Land, we also need to bring out the full depth and spirituality of Torah that has lain dormant for so many years, to re-ignite ourselves and those around us with the awesome light of Torah. Rav Kook speaks about the power to fight against Nature, and then the awesome power within Nature itself, with which, when the time is ready, when we are connected to our source, we can engage once again, like we did so many years ago. Torah is so much deeper, so much broader, than we can imagine. In its true, full form, it speaks to every single soul; it tells every person what he or she needs to hear, what his or her soul is so hungry to hear. Let's bring it out, and shine its light on ourselves and all of our brothers and sisters of the House of Israel. May it be very soon.
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Her real name is a dim, quiet shadow, in the mists of her almost-forgotten past. She carries a new name. She has learnt new customs, and has learnt to bear so much from a world she never before dreamt of. The sparkle in her eye, the pride in her posture, have faded with the name of her youth. She sometimes feels she wears a mask; or maybe she has become her mask. The beatings, yes, they came as a shock at first, but now she can suffer them almost silently; she has learnt, she has progressed. Her children's names, good Arab names, strike, in some deep recesses of her masked soul, at a still-tender nerve; something's not right; something, even after all these years, is foreign and bitter. But she tries to ignore that voice... until one day, suddenly, it becomes too much to suffer...
This woman, this Jewish woman's story, is true, many times over. It's a story that's happening today, right now, with hundreds of Jewish women, mostly in Israel. How bitter the difference between the first blissful infatuation when she and Ahmed had first met, and her life today, years down the road; she remembers her attraction: what a handsome man, what grace, what charm. A man like any other, surely? Her embittered life taught her differently. She learned to wear clothes of servitude, took the beatings of the cheaply valued woman, learnt the language of harshness, raised her children on teachings and values so very far from those she knew, deep down, to be her own. It all started with an innocent flirt, with a date or two, with a man who wasn't really so different, it seemed, from all the Jewish guys around her.
Intermarriage is when a Jew marries someone who is not a Jew. If it's the man who is the Jew, his children, by Torah law, are not Jews: tragically, he is the last, broken, link in a millenia-long chain of generations. He may love his wife and children, but they are not Jews, and they are only family until a certain point. If it's the woman who is the Jew, her children are Jews, too. But this may be more tragic than the first scenario: her children, and she herself, will very likely be so distanced from anything Jewish, and certainly from the wellsprings of Jewish identity such as Shabbat, Jewish Festivals, Synagogue, and Israel, that they will quickly forget they were ever Jewish. True, there are many amazing stories of Jews raised as non-Jews, sometimes coming from generations of non-Jews, whose inexplicable deeply inspired quest for meaning led them on the strange path back to their forgotten roots. However, there are many more silent stories; stories that begin and end in loss; souls cut off from their roots, princes and princesses so very far from the palace...
Unfortunately, hundreds of Jewish girls fall into the trap of serious relationships, and then marriages, with Arab men. So many of them end up like the woman I described above: shadows of their real selves, broken, embittered, and truly captive to their Arab husbands and their families: emotionally, and often physically. They have no escape; if they try to run away, they will be caught and cruelly punished. But it's their hearts, minds, souls that are truly captive; these Jewish women, like most Arab women, are treated with cruelty, barbarism, and deep inferiority by the men, and the women's spirits and self-images are utterly shattered. They can barely muster up the courage to think about escaping, never mind to get out and run for their lives.
How do these trapped Jewish women find help? How can they escape? There is a wonderful organization called 'Yad leAchim' ('A Hand to Brethren') that is committed to saving Jews from assimilation, missionaries, and other tragedies whose root is in weak or non-existent Jewish identity. Yad leAchim has a hotline and other services which are available for anyone to use, and they have a section that deals specially with the trapped Jewish women which I've been discussing. Their work and dedication is legendary.
It's noble work, and unfortunately very necessary, but it would be so much better if we didn't need Yad leAchim's services. How do you prevent intermarriage? How do you stop assimilation? I believe that these issues, as well as the current leadership crisis in Israel, are all rooted in the same source: Jewish identity. If I don't know who I am, then how can I value myself and my kind? And if I cannot see any value in myself and my kind, what stops me from attaching myself to people who are so basically and fundamentally different from me? If she doesn't have a pride and interest in being a Jew, what stops a trusting, beautiful Jewish girl from being led from misguided love to captivity and brokenness in the space of a short time?
Of course, assimilation has all forms and shapes, and it's mostly not accompanied by such violence and brutality as the cases of Jewish girls marrying Arab men. Sure, we don't want anyone innocent to suffer; we want to save them from cruelty and pain. But it's crucial for us to understand that the root of assimilation, in whatever form it takes, is the weakness of our Jewish identity; our failure to feel deeply connected to the Torah way of life. We need to re-define what Jewish identity really means. What is Judaism? What is Torah?
It must surely mean more than bagels and lax, more than just living in Israel, and more than just a set of laws, do's and don't's. Our generation is desparately thirsty for meaning. Torah holds that meaning, although so many dimensions of its depth has been almost lost, hidden over the years... Today, we are returning to our Land; G-d has opened His arms to take us back to Him. And as we return to the Land, we also need to bring out the full depth and spirituality of Torah that has lain dormant for so many years, to re-ignite ourselves and those around us with the awesome light of Torah. Rav Kook speaks about the power to fight against Nature, and then the awesome power within Nature itself, with which, when the time is ready, when we are connected to our source, we can engage once again, like we did so many years ago. Torah is so much deeper, so much broader, than we can imagine. In its true, full form, it speaks to every single soul; it tells every person what he or she needs to hear, what his or her soul is so hungry to hear. Let's bring it out, and shine its light on ourselves and all of our brothers and sisters of the House of Israel. May it be very soon.
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- Yad leAchim's Hebrew site is at http://www.yadleachim.co.il/
- Their English site is at http://www.yadlachimusa.org.il/
- A recent article on the Yad leAchim site, with answers to frequently asked questions by a Yad leAchim social worker, a story like the one above, and advice to mothers, can be found here.
- For an incredible story about children and grandchildren of a Jewish woman who married an Arab man, and their return to Judaism with the help of Yad lAchim, see part 1 and part 2.
