I don’t see it as a gender thing as much as a general and incorrect assumption that Judaism is a sacred card that trumps other religions. I think because Jews are often seen as “the other”, and because there is a stereotype that we come from tight knit, tribe-like communities, that Jews and non-Jews assume the Jew in the couple is in a fix, permanent religious space from which they would not exit but where their spouse would join them.

In the 1940’s my mother was in the hospital for weeks for the removal of six cysts. Back then, this was a very grave situation due to the state of medicine. We forget how much we’ve learned medically, since then.

During the many weeks she was in the hospital, an evangelical protestant preacher began praying over her and in her weakened condition she saw the light and got “saved.” When she eventually returned home, she was determined to bring the “good news” to everyone.

The first to receive the message was my father and we three boys. Previously, I think, my father was a sort of humanist and did not like organized religion, especially the evangelistic protestant variety. I think he had a simple belief in one God and otherwise concentrated on life in this world.

The discord that resulted in what had been a very harmonious family, has affected me all my life. I can’t describe to you the insecure feelings that I had during the argumentation that took place daily. I remember being unable to touch my dinner one evening during one of these unpleasant occurences. I remember it with such clarity and in crystal clear detail as though I were there again! I was constantly depressed by all the talk of divorce, a child’s nightmare.

In the end I remember my father going to a Seventh Day Adventist church a few times as though to compromise (Saturday as the sabbath and no unclean foods such as pork, etc), but it didn’t seem like a serious dedication to me.

And after a year or two, he died from a stroke. During his year of convalescence before he suddenly took a turn for the worse, religion took a back seat as my mother realized she might lose him at any time. After my father was gone, Mother’s faith in this wild religion gradually eroded over the years and she eventually gave it up never to return.

Now that I’m 75 years old, I can look back more objectively and with a more philosophical frame of mind and it amazes to see just how deeply that religious strife affected me all these years and I wouldn’t want such a situation to happen to any child if I could prevent it.

Currently I am in limbo faithwise. Some of the old Christian ideas still surface in my subconscious occasionally. Although my mother wasn’t a Jew, I feel as though I am Jewish and I even observe much of the kosher Law even though it is often very inconvenient, especially outside the home.

So, I agree with you, but I must say it really would be neat if Chelsea did want to convert. My favorite movie is “Keeping the Faith.”