Culture vs. Religion: I’m a Jewish Atheist
It’s possible and valid to be both
My parents met in college. They lived in the same dorm and on the same floor. They shared the same friend group. My mom had a boyfriend and my dad had a girlfriend, but they were smitten with each other.
Long story short, they fell in love and left their respective mates and ended up together and have been for the last 28 years. My mom was born and raised Jewish, and my dad was Christian. My mom really wanted to get married in her childhood synagogue. In order to get married in this synagogue, both the bride and groom had to be Jewish.
So my dad being the borderline-sappy romantic that he is, went through the arduous process of converting to Judaism so he could give my mom her dream wedding ceremony.
Come to find out, my mom’s conservative Jewish temple did not recognize my dad as being a “real Jew” and wouldn’t conduct the ceremony. My mom was obviously quite upset by this, but my parents got married anyway, but at a hotel instead.
Now when I was a kid and heard this story, I was astounded. “Dad is just as Jewish as Mom.” To be quite honest my dad probably knew more about Judaism than my mom did at that point, because converting is a lengthy and intensive process. He knows everything about the Torah, about the high holidays, and about our culture. We used to joke that Dad was a “better Jew” than any of us combined.
Why was I considered a full Jew, while my dad was not? He chose this life, I did not. I was born into it. Judaism is passed down by the mother, so my sisters and I were all born fully Jewish. My dad chose to be a Jew. Why isn’t he recognized by synagogues as such, yet I am?
I discovered later that I was actually an atheist and didn’t believe in God at all. A driving factor in that realization was absolutely the fact that my parents couldn’t get married in the way they wanted simply because of my dad’s conversion. It didn’t seem fair; if there was a God, why would he care if my mom married someone who was born Jewish, or someone that loved her so much that he became Jewish? Wasn’t their love enough?
While I absolutely identify as an atheist, I also consider myself to be a Jewish woman. This puzzles a lot of people. How can I be both?
There seems to be a bit of debate on whether Judaism is a religion, a culture, an ethnicity, or a combination of all three. I’m in the boat of Judaism being complex and far more than just a religion.
Yes, the Torah is the Jewish scripture and Orthodox as well as many Conservative Jews live and breathe by its rules. I was brought up what we call “reform” which we use to mean “casual.” We don’t keep Kosher in the house, I went to Hebrew school and we went to temple weekly when I was a kid, and we observed the holidays but many of the rules written in the Torah we didn’t abide by.
For example, men and women are not allowed to sleep in the same bed while the woman is menstruating. They are not allowed to do or share a lot of things, actually. My family has never observed those sorts of rules.
Today, we don’t observe any rules. We celebrate the high holidays at my grandparents house — pre-pandemic, that is — but other than that we live our lives without religion. We stopped going to synagogue when we moved to a more conservative part of our state because there was only one temple in the county and we didn’t like the rabbi. I stopped studying Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah because we didn’t belong to a synagogue.
While I don’t believe in the teachings of the Torah or follow the rules laid out by it, I do think the culture is beautiful. Our traditions are deep and meaningful, the food is out of this world, and the rich history our people have goes back further than I can imagine.
Did you know that Jews put stones on graves instead of flowers? We do this because stones don’t die, but flowers do. When my great-grandfather died, I was about seven years old and not really old enough to understand what was happening. So my dad and I spent the burial ceremony searching for the perfect rock to put next to Pop-Pop Leo.
Jews don’t have Heaven or Hell. Jews are buried without clothes, in a plain pine casket. We don’t have viewings. We do not recognize the body as being the person we love. The body is a shell, and the person we love will live on in our memories and our storytelling. Tell me that isn’t a beautiful way of handling death.
We have matzos and challah, apples with honey, brisket, Jewish apple cake, and so many other foods that all have significance and history. Food is such a huge part of any world culture, so Judaism is no exception.
Hannah Witton, a YouTuber and author, made a video several years ago about her relationship with religion. While it was in 2016, I still resonate with her words and identify similarly to her. Witton describes herself as a “secular Jew” which she goes on to explain means that her relationship with Judaism part of her heritage more so than her spiritual belief system.
One of the most important aspects of Jewish culture is family. Family is such a strong bond for Jews, as with many people across the world. We gather for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Passover, Hanukkah, Purim; we spend time together sharing stories and learning about our ancestors. Not just Jewish ancestors, but my family’s direct relatives all the way back to 19th and 20th century Russia and Hungary.
My mom did an ancestral DNA test a few years ago, and it showed that we have direct ancestry links to Ashkenazi Jews. Interestingly, this puts myself, my mother, and my sisters at a higher risk of certain kinds of cancer because the genetics have been passed down so far.
I think it is just plain wrong to say that Judaism isn’t an ethnicity. When you Google the word, the official definition is “the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.”
This is precisely how many Jews identify. I have a strong cultural and ethnic relationship to my Jewish heritage, despite not having any spiritual affiliation. My Judaism is valid.
