My parents got married when they were 19 and 20 years old. They had six children: four girls and two boys, in that order. I am the second daughter. My siblings and I went to Catholic schools for all of our elementary and junior high school years. For most of our childhood, we looked like a big stereotypical Catholic family.
But.
If things had gone a different way, a very long time ago, things might have been different for us. Like, really different. Sooooo different.
My older sister sometimes jokes about being baptized at the "Church of the Kitchen Sink." We were talking about this the other day, and she couldn't remember if she has any kind of baptismal certificate anywhere, or if there's just church documentation that my maternal grandmother baptized her. There was no medical emergency, and that's only one of the reasons the sink baptism was not something our grandmother was technically allowed to do. My sister's sink baptism, in Catholic terms, was valid (it still "counts") but illicit (not in "legal" form). I am only thirteen months younger than my older sister, and we're not sure if I had a sink baptism or not. Knowing our grandmother, she very well may have done it and never told anyone, but we'll never know. There are pictures of my older sister and I as toddlers at what my sister says is my church baptism, and I do have a baptismal certificate somewhere. I can't remember the date on it, but I think I was about a year and a half old. That's actually was pretty old for a Catholic infant baptism in my family, so it would have taken something pretty major to hold up my baptism for over a year. While there are many details about this time in my family's life I will never know, I do know what the main reason was for the delay in my baptism, which is also the same reason our grandmother decided to baptize my sister in the sink.
It's because we're Jewish.
Since before our parents were married, religious conflict in our extended family would be a constant in our lives in one way or another. Over forty years later, whether we know it or not, we're all still "paying" in varying degrees for the fallout.
Here are the basics:
1. My father was raised Jewish.
2. My mother was raised Catholic.
3. My mother made an Orthodox Jewish conversion.
4. My parents were married.
5. Their first daughter was born a little over a year later, and she had a Jewish naming ceremony.
6. My maternal grandmother decided to baptize my sister.
7. I was born.
8. My mother returned to the Catholic Church. (The sequence of #7 and #8 events are pretty much a guess here.)
9. The rest of our siblings were born, and each had Catholic infant baptisms in a Catholic church.
10. My father converted to Catholicism. (He does NOT consider himself a "completed" Jew. He finds that idea very offensive.)
I know very little about the specifics of my mom's initial conversion. Someday, I hope to know more. I was not even aware that she'd formally converted to Judaism until some time after I was married, years ago.
I have early memories of lighting Hanukkah candles when I was maybe three or four, and I remember telling friends that my father was Jewish when I was in Kindergarten and first grade at a Catholic school. It was normal to me. In that time period, I don't remember self-identifying as either Jewish or Catholic. I imagine that's pretty standard for a 5 or 6 year old.
We stopped lighting Hanukkah candles at some point. I can't explain why, we just did. I remember when my dad was baptized into the Catholic church. I was in second grade at a Catholic school, and he had his First Communion the same day I had mine.
I'm going to skip a couple of dozen years now, because there is simply too much in my head to continue on a chronological path. I might write more someday about the winding religious paths my parents took, but I don't even know where to begin. For now, I figure I'll just start with how I have managed to come to terms with my own identity.
Because my mother had a formal Orthodox conversion to Judaism before marrying my dad, I am Jewish. It's the state of my birth, and no matter what religion I practice, I will always "be" Jewish. The same is true for my siblings, and the same is true for my children. A rabbi once told us that the fact that we practice Catholicism simply makes us "away from the flock." Being Jewish is more like a nationality; we're citizens whether we observe any form of the Jewish faith or not. Nonetheless, we're still in a little bit of a pickle. I have already had my Dark Night of the Soul about it. It's weird to have had one foot in each of two fairly incompatible worlds. Despite the early tug of war for our religious practices, our Jewish citizenship remains.
My two grandmothers were products of faiths and cultures with long histories and deeply held principles. My Catholic grandmother was desperate to baptize my sister, and maybe me, because she truly believed our souls were in danger. I know less about what my Jewish grandmother may have felt desperate about, but seeing us baptized was not part of the plan as she knew it at all. I imagine that if things had gone the way she thought they would at the time of my parents' wedding, things would be very, very different; we would be unquestionably, undeniably Jewish by both nationality and practice.
I am proud to be Catholic for many reasons, one of which is that unlike so many Evangelical Christians, the Catholic Church does NOT seek to convert the Jewish people, and we do not (any longer) pray for their conversion. I'm glad the Catholic Church has the willingness to reflect and correct past wrongs and misunderstandings, even if it takes a while. For the record, it's not okay to baptize Jewish babies outside of a parent's permission, even if it is a medical emergency.
My own children share a Jewish heritage because of mine, and we all practice Catholicism. We attend Mass weekly, and have spent many years in Catholic schools, although we do not attend exclusively Catholic schooling now. We also light Hanukkah candles and we celebrate Passover most every year. We do a "real" Passover, and not a "Christianized" Passover, which has become quite popular in some Christian communities. I've been to the "Christianized" version, and while I understand the point, that interpretation makes me a little uncomfortable. That's for another post, too.
Now, my mother is the head of the religion department at a local Catholic high school, where my oldest daughter attends school. She and my dad attend Mass weekly. She also takes Hebrew classes at a local synagogue, and sometimes she talks about taking out a membership. We'll see if she ever does it. My dad jokes that even if my mother insists, he'll never keep Kosher again. (He says he converted for the bacon.)
And so long story short, that's why I had a "late" baptism, why my sister was baptized in a kitchen sink, and why my mom makes an incredible matzoh ball soup.
Here are the basics:
1. My father was raised Jewish.
2. My mother was raised Catholic.
3. My mother made an Orthodox Jewish conversion.
4. My parents were married.
5. Their first daughter was born a little over a year later, and she had a Jewish naming ceremony.
6. My maternal grandmother decided to baptize my sister.
7. I was born.
8. My mother returned to the Catholic Church. (The sequence of #7 and #8 events are pretty much a guess here.)
9. The rest of our siblings were born, and each had Catholic infant baptisms in a Catholic church.
10. My father converted to Catholicism. (He does NOT consider himself a "completed" Jew. He finds that idea very offensive.)
I know very little about the specifics of my mom's initial conversion. Someday, I hope to know more. I was not even aware that she'd formally converted to Judaism until some time after I was married, years ago.
I have early memories of lighting Hanukkah candles when I was maybe three or four, and I remember telling friends that my father was Jewish when I was in Kindergarten and first grade at a Catholic school. It was normal to me. In that time period, I don't remember self-identifying as either Jewish or Catholic. I imagine that's pretty standard for a 5 or 6 year old.
We stopped lighting Hanukkah candles at some point. I can't explain why, we just did. I remember when my dad was baptized into the Catholic church. I was in second grade at a Catholic school, and he had his First Communion the same day I had mine.
I'm going to skip a couple of dozen years now, because there is simply too much in my head to continue on a chronological path. I might write more someday about the winding religious paths my parents took, but I don't even know where to begin. For now, I figure I'll just start with how I have managed to come to terms with my own identity.
Because my mother had a formal Orthodox conversion to Judaism before marrying my dad, I am Jewish. It's the state of my birth, and no matter what religion I practice, I will always "be" Jewish. The same is true for my siblings, and the same is true for my children. A rabbi once told us that the fact that we practice Catholicism simply makes us "away from the flock." Being Jewish is more like a nationality; we're citizens whether we observe any form of the Jewish faith or not. Nonetheless, we're still in a little bit of a pickle. I have already had my Dark Night of the Soul about it. It's weird to have had one foot in each of two fairly incompatible worlds. Despite the early tug of war for our religious practices, our Jewish citizenship remains.
My two grandmothers were products of faiths and cultures with long histories and deeply held principles. My Catholic grandmother was desperate to baptize my sister, and maybe me, because she truly believed our souls were in danger. I know less about what my Jewish grandmother may have felt desperate about, but seeing us baptized was not part of the plan as she knew it at all. I imagine that if things had gone the way she thought they would at the time of my parents' wedding, things would be very, very different; we would be unquestionably, undeniably Jewish by both nationality and practice.
I am proud to be Catholic for many reasons, one of which is that unlike so many Evangelical Christians, the Catholic Church does NOT seek to convert the Jewish people, and we do not (any longer) pray for their conversion. I'm glad the Catholic Church has the willingness to reflect and correct past wrongs and misunderstandings, even if it takes a while. For the record, it's not okay to baptize Jewish babies outside of a parent's permission, even if it is a medical emergency.
My own children share a Jewish heritage because of mine, and we all practice Catholicism. We attend Mass weekly, and have spent many years in Catholic schools, although we do not attend exclusively Catholic schooling now. We also light Hanukkah candles and we celebrate Passover most every year. We do a "real" Passover, and not a "Christianized" Passover, which has become quite popular in some Christian communities. I've been to the "Christianized" version, and while I understand the point, that interpretation makes me a little uncomfortable. That's for another post, too.
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| My youngest son in the same baptismal gown all my children have worn. |
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| This is my sister's Seder plate all loaded up for Passover. Sometimes we have up to 40 people at our Seders. |
Now, my mother is the head of the religion department at a local Catholic high school, where my oldest daughter attends school. She and my dad attend Mass weekly. She also takes Hebrew classes at a local synagogue, and sometimes she talks about taking out a membership. We'll see if she ever does it. My dad jokes that even if my mother insists, he'll never keep Kosher again. (He says he converted for the bacon.)
And so long story short, that's why I had a "late" baptism, why my sister was baptized in a kitchen sink, and why my mom makes an incredible matzoh ball soup.
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