Spirituality
INTERFAITH
Another Term For The Non-Jew
Ann Arbor
0
ur society craves labels. We
love to know how to identify
and classify objects, places and
people.
In the world of interfaith marriage and
the Jewish community, we generally refer
to the people in the relationship as the Jew
and the non-Jew. Even relatives of the cou-
ple get labels, e.g. the Jewish grandparents
and the non-Jewish grandparents.
Perhaps because classifying people
can hint at some sort of hierarchy, there
is a movement among synagogues and
outreach professionals to do away with
the term "non-Jew." What options do we
have, though?
I am used to my moniker of being
the non-Jew in my marriage by now
However, when I started dating my wife
23 years ago, it was a little unnerving to
think of myself as a non-something. I
had always been a something. I had not
once referred to myself as a non-female
or a non-Canadian.
So what would be a better term than
non-Jew? I'm a Protestant; you could
always just call me that. However, that
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doesn't fix the problem of general ter-
minology when referring to a group of
people of unknown background. I know
of some outreach professionals who call
the non-Jew the "person of other-faith
background!' Accurate, but ifs
a mouthful.
Of course, we already have
a couple of words for the
"person who didn't grow up
complaining about going to
Hebrew school!' There is the
Hebrew word goy. It means
"nation:' as in a "person from
another nation." The problem
with goy is that it's considered
derogatory. Then, there's the
word gentile. Nothing mean
about it, except that it's just so
old-fashioned and musty.
It's clear that we need something
new How about "Jewish supporter:' as
in someone who supports the Jewish
spouse? Nah, it sounds too much like
"athletic supporter:'
How about "Friend of the Tribe?" We
already have "members!' The abbre-
viation could be FOT. This name is too
broad, I think. The problem is that it
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February 26 • 2009
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❑
Jim Keen is author of the book "Inside
Intermarriage: A Christian Partner's
Perspective on Raising a Jewish Family"
(URJ Press, forthcoming) and a contribu-
tor to the book "The Guide to the Jewish
Interfaith Family Life: an InterfaithFamily.com
Handbook" (Jewish Lights publishing). He is a
columnist for InterfaithFamily.com . His e-mail
address is jckeen@umich.edu .
GRobert GMann
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As our language stateside continually
evolves, we are getting many of our new
words from Spanish: salsa, cafeteria,
macho, El Niho, ay caramba!
Borrowing from Spanish, I have cre-
ated the word otrafe to describe the per-
son of "other faith!' It is only one word,
has three syllables, and can be used in
many situations: the Jewish spouse and
the otrafe spouse; the Jew and the otrafe;
the Jewish grandparents and the otrafe
grandparents. New. Succinct. Accurate.
Use this word at your next dinner
party or during the after-service oneg.
You'll be on the cutting edge. Sure, it
may take a while for otrafe to catch on,
but that's fine. I wonder how long it took
English kids to call jumping over one
another, leapfrog.
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could also simply refer to someone who
supports Israel, but is not in a relation-
ship with a Jewish partner.
What about affiliated, adjunct,
cohort, consort, federated or associate?
According to Roget's Thesaurus,
these words suggest one who
is united in a relationship.
"Associate-Jewish partner?"
Nope. Too reminiscent of a
lawyer's title. "Did you hear
about Aaron? He just made
associate-Jewish partner!"
Sadly, I don't think that
there's an existing word in
English to describe what we
are looking for. According
to Bill Bryson, William
Shakespeare invented a few
thousand words of his own including
"lonely, leapfrog, zany, well-read, and
countless others — including countless!"
Now I couldn't soliloquize my way
out of a wet paper bag, but I think a
new word is in order here. With a rate of
about 50 percent, intermarriage is very
common in America. Sometimes you
just need an American word to describe
your situation.
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