My Own Private Diaspora

I am an American citizen, an agnostic Jew, a registered Democrat in the United States.

My girlfriend is Christian, the daughter of a Lutheran minister, a graduate also of the English Master's program at Georgetown University, as kind and sweet a woman as any I've met. 

Note also: the Hebrew scholars are on her side of the family.

I have read that if we have children, they will not be Jewish as discerned by Jewish officialdom.

I wonder if they would become unchosen people or, perhaps, other than the children of Abraham. 

Would they be barred willy nilly from placing their faith in one God?

Would they be Christian by birth if not baptized or indoctrinated?

What is this competition, I wonder, for God and Godliness and God's favor if nothing other than vanity?

Is there a check box: [ ] Us . . . [ ] Them . . . [ ] Other?

My father spent every Sabbath morning religiously out on the golf course.

Around here on Saturday: books, brunch, gardening, a little photography, a drive in the Mustang.

And on Sunday: as much the same as Saturday as we can make it but with 60 Minutes or a movie in the evening.

It's a good life, ethical, just, virtuous, and pious along lines fit to the land, ourselves, and God: would it be any less so for our own?

# # #

---

---

Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

---