"I guess it was the Jewish part of
me coming out;' she says. "You don't
ignore other people just because you
are the majority."
Not everyone is satisfied with his
upbringing. Twenty-one-year-old
David asked that his real name not
be used. He says his Jewish father is
"not into religion" and his non-Jewish
mother is "negative about doing
traditional things that didn't make
sense" — like ritual and prayer.
David believes his parents had an
agreement to raise their children as
Jews. David had a bar mitzvah at
rIbmple Kol Ami. "Most people at the
temple wouldn't be keeping kosher,"
he says. "But us especially."
He complains that because of his
parents' indifference to Judaism, he
is now uncomfortable during Jewish
holidays. He says he feels ignorant
and awkward about Judaism.
"When I was in junior high, I
tried to do some things — like have a
seder, to say some prayers or songs at
Chanukah. My parents never in-
itiated things that much.
"Mom resisted 'fanatic' Jewish
things," David says. "She wouldn't
have liked the idea of keeping kosher.
Dad had gotten us to be Jewish and
he didn't push. I don't know if they
would have cared if we became Chris-
tian. It almost seems like my mom
was never fully resigned to us being
Jewish?'
David says he would like to marry
a Jew and raise Jewish children.
Because he is not considered a Jew by
Halachah, Jewish law, he says he
would go through a formal conversion
to marry a Jewish woman.
He says he would like to study
more about Judaism to strengthen his
Jewish identity.
David's interest in strengthening
his Jewish identity is unique. Accord-
ing to Dr. Egon Mayer, professor of
sociology at Brooklyn College, the

remember that you're half Christian;
I guess because he was Christian and
he didn't want me to be Jewish."

M

Bunny Miller Shaw and her husband, Melvin Shaw.

problem of confused identities stem-
ming from an upbringing where no
heritage is important doesn't last
long for children of mixed marriages.
"With almost no exceptions they
marry non-Jews, so the problem is
resolved when they become adults?'

Mark Brown's mother is Chris-
tian. His father is a Jew. Neither
parent is religious, although the fami-
ly celebrates Christmas at home and
occasionally Jewish holidays with
family friends. Recently, Brown, 30,
was married in a Catholic ceremony.

"I don't like to say I'm Christian,"
he says of his identity. "I like to say
I'm Mark Brown."

Glenn Triest

Brown was raised in the Lafayette
Park neighborhood near downtown
Detroit. He attended the racially in-
tegrated Friends School. In Lafayette
Park, it was common for blacks and
whites to socialize and to marry.
Other Jewish-Christian mixed mar-
riage families lived in the area. With
racial, religious and ethnic dif-
ferences so de-emphasized, Brown
never had to consider his ancestry.
"It was one of the least prejudic-
ed neighborhoods you'll ever find.
They took me for Mark Brown."
He didn't think about his Jewish
background until he became an adult
and people began to point it out. "So-
meone said to me, 'I have to

any children of mixed
marriages say they are
more sensitive to preju-
dice in whatever form
it takes. One woman,
raised as a non-Jew in the Unitarian
Church but who is halachically
Jewish, describes the anti-Semitism
she sees because those around her
don't know she's Jewish.
"Anti-Semitism is more subtle
than it used to be," she says. "If it
wasn't that I could pass [as a non-Jew]
I wouldn't be as aware as I am."
Does Brown consider himself
Jewish? When talking about Jewish
things, about Israel, about the long,
tangled road of Jewish history, he
wonders if he should use the pronoun
"they" or "we."
After some thought he answers,
"We."
At Brown's wedding, the priest
referred to those gathered as "Chris-
tian company."
"The priest knew that my father
is Jewish;" Brown says. "It was
callous, but I wasn't going to ruin the
whole wedding because of it. We
didn't have a mass because it would
have kept out most of my family."
He and his wife plan to raise their
children as Catholics. Still, this
descendant of Jews believes the
Jewish people should survive.
"If you have mixed marriages
you'll have fewer Jews in each genera-
tion. I don't know if it's important
that people be 100 percent anything,"
he says.
Brown stops to consider the future
of the Jewish people if that path is
traveled.
"The ideas survive; the history
survives. But the homogeneous per-
son is not critical."0

In a 1982 study, Dr. Egon Mayer, professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, compared the commitment of children of mixed marriages with children of conversionary marriages — in which the
non-Jewish partner becomes a Jew. The results indicate a stronger Jewish identity among children of conversionary marriages.
Information compiled by Staff Writer Elizabeth Kaplan.

IF BORN AGAIN, I WOULD
LIKE TO BE JEWISH

I WOULD BE UPSET
IF MY CHILDREN DID NOT
CONSIDER THEMSELVES JEWS

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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