this woman’s work

Oh and another thing

Apr 22, 2005 Adoption, Judaism

Nothing like hitting save and then remembering that I meant to write a totally different entry.

So we’re not celebrating passover. I know, we suck. I am a Bad Jew. I really am. Here are the reasons we’re not celebrating it:

–I have mixed feelings about Passover. You know why it’s called Passover, right? Because the Angel of Death passed over our firstborn sons and instead slaughtered everyone elses. We traditionally have lamb because G-d told us to put lamb’s blood on our doorposts so that angel would know to skip our houses. I say “we” here but really I mean the Jewish people who actually celebrate Passover and not incomptent Jews such as myself.
–And more importantly, we never celebrated Passover growing up. Ok, once we did and my then 3-year old brother got really drunk on the Manischewitz. But because we never really celebrated it, I don’t have all kinds of lovely family memories to make it a meaningful holiday.
–Also, since I never celebrated it, the ritual feels awkward and stiff to me. I don’t even really know how to do it properly although we have somewhat faked it before.
–Which leads me to another reason: I’m the only one who cares. Brett doesn’t care. Noah begged me not to put on a seder. He doesn’t like the food and he finds it boring and he feels that his model seder at school was plenty.
–No one else in my extended family celebrates it. My dad did for a couple of years and it was great. It wasn’t properly done but that was ok because it was about family togetherness and celebrating our Jewish heritage. This year when I asked him if he would be inviting us over for Passover, he acted like I’d asked him if he was planning on dancing naked in his front yard for the new moon. (I think this is because his new girlfriend is drowning in -isms and I’m pretty sure one is anti-Semitism.)

I’m sad about all of this. I worry that Noah will grow up feeling like I do — what holiday? where? who me? — but I just don’t know how to fake it. What I try to remember is that Judaism, for me, is a belief system in which to ground my personal search for truth and a relationship with God/G-d (as I understand him).

On Sunday, I volunteered for the model seder, remember? And afterwards I sat with the woman who organized the event while she talked about her Passover plans. I so envy real live Jewish people with Jewish families and Jewish cultural history. I feel like a fraud sometimes at synagogue because I never know the prayers or the proper greetings for holidays (I mumble a lot, duck my head and smile). Sometimes I feel really angry with my father because he had the ability to give us his Jewishness and except for some bad jokes and memories of his mother’s rugalech, he blew it. (None of us is even able to imitate the Yiddish accent he puts on for jokes — what will we do when he’s gone and we can’t tell those jokes anymore?)

But you know what? I realized when I was thinking on this that this is really valuable for me because it gives me an inkling — just an inkling, mind you — of how deeply I will fail Madison if I don’t give her the tools to be a part of her African American culture.

I imagine how much worse it would be if Judaism was something everyone could tell about you at first glance and then they’d look at me and say, “Hey, what’s that prayer over the wine again?” And I’d feel constantly like a fraud, like someone living in costume. I’d feel disempowered and unsure of who I was. It would be like hanging at the oneg at Shabbat services for the rest of my life — trying and failing at making small talk.

I was reading this Jane Brown article the other day (Amber, that rabble rouser, turned me on to Jane Brown) and this part really struck me:

Often, Caucasian parents of transracially adopted youngsters, we choose environments to live in or schools based on what we think are places that offer the “best” opportunities. Yet we make these judgements about what IS best based on Euro-Caucasian standards. That this is sometimes a class issue as much or more than it is a racial one. They pointed out the many wonderful and often overlooked resources and benefits that are sometimes passed over by Euro-Caucasian people that are NOT passed over by parents of color raising children of color. That not everyone values the same things.

I have been thinking on this because I am contemplating preschool for Madison. Yes, I like to plan ahead. See, I’m realizing that I can’t make Black friends for Madison. I can help her make adopted, Black friends living in white families (that’s a cinch, we have a support group) but I cannot go out and find her some nice Black friends living with Black parents and taking their Black culture for granted. She’s going to have to do this. And how I can help her do this is find her a preschool where she’s not the minority.

Fortunately we live in a racially mixed neighborhood and near a neighborhood that is predominantly African American and so I think I can find out by hitting the libraries and rec centers that are nearer to that neighborhood and asking people. But I was kinda stymied because I was trying to figure out which is more important: finding a school that resonates with our family values? Or finding a school that may in some ways go against our family values but is predominantly attended by African American children and has African American teachers. I’ve decided that the latter is more important because I don’t think Madison will be harmed by going to a part-time preschool that maybe is a little more structured or a little less playbased than I would prefer. I mean, I still hope to find a preschool that is both — similar to our values and can give her the cultural exposure she needs — but I think the deal-breaker will be a school that has lots of Black kids.

What I hope is that Madison makes friends and has playdates and through her our family makes friends and this is how we build our Black community. Right now our Black community is very limited to some biracial kids we know who have at least one non-Black parent and the aforementioned adopted kids in our support group.

Now I need to go do dishes.

Possibly related posts

• Madison is a chatterbox (4)
• High on iced coffee (5)
• Grandparents on the other side (3)
• Dearest Gawdess asked (5)
• Brett is going to kill me (5)