Between Gods: A Memoir by Alison Pick Read Free Book Online Page A

she says. “We’re already halfway through the fall. But I like you. And you’re obviously sincere.”
    Good. Fantastic.
    But I see there’s something else.
    “They probably haven’t told you this in your Doing Jewish class,” she says.
    I wait for it.
    “No beit din ,” she starts to say but stops again, realizing I don’t know the term. “ Beit din —literally ‘house of judgment.’ It’s a Jewish court. A panel of rabbis.”
    I nod.
    She continues. “No beit din here in Toronto would agree to create an intermarriage.”
    I exhale, relieved. “I’m not married,” I remind her.
    “No. But you will be.”
    I pause, not understanding.
    “We don’t want Judaism to be a wedge between you and your fiancé,” she says.
    I am silent. How would it be a wedge between us?
    “Degan is …” I pause. Didn’t I already say this? I repeat it, just in case. “Degan is incredibly supportive.”
    “Is he interested in raising a Jewish family?” the rabbi asks.
    I stare blankly. We don’t even have a date for our wedding. Suddenly just the thought of a wedding is scary. But Rabbi Klein persists. “Is he interested in being Jewish?”
    This is like asking if our postman is interested in becoming the king of England. I continue to stare blankly, but no more help is forthcoming. And then it dawns on me. Slowly. She makes me say it myself. “I can’t convert unless Degan does, too?”
    “Right,” Rabbi Klein says, relieved I have finally figured it out. “We want to make sure you are on the same path. Together.”
    And what if we aren’t? I wonder.
    I leave the rabbi’s office in a daze. Biking down Bathurst Street, I almost get run over by a delivery truck; it whizzes past me, horn blaring. I feel there has been a mistake, that I didn’t make myself clear. My family died in Auschwitz. My father is Jewish .Frankly, I am surprised that I can’t just call the religion my own and have that be the end of it.
    Degan also receives the news with incredulity. “What’s she saying? You’re not good enough by yourself?”
    “I guess.”
    “What does she—” he begins. “What’s her name again?”
    “Rabbi Klein. Rachel.”
    “It sounds to me like Rachel is saying you’re not good enough for them.” He scratches his beard. “No. They’re saying I’m not good enough because I’m Christian.” He shakes his head. “It’s ridiculous.”
    “The religion is very family based,” I say.
    “And your family died in Auschwitz .”
    “They were Jewish enough for the Nazis,” I agree.
    “And how would it hurt them? To have you?”
    I shrug. Mentally I do the math: right now, in our household, there are two people. And no Jews. If we have a baby, that baby will not be Jewish.
    If I alone could convert, there would be one Jew in our home. In that scenario, if Degan and I have a baby, the baby will be Jewish. Two Jews where before there were none. Two sincere Jews, in the rabbi’s own words.
    It’s hard for me to see the harm done.
    I do a bit of reading online. The Reform Movement’s 1983 Resolution on Patrilineal Descent is clear. It allows for the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother—a child like me—to be accepted “as Jewish without a formal conversion, if he or she attends a Jewish school and follows a course of studies leading to Confirmation. Such procedure is regarded as sufficient evidence that the parents and the child herself intend that she shall live as a Jew.”
    In other words, such a child is taken at her word. Couldn’t the same concept hold for an adult who decides to apply herself?
    The document refers to the Reform Jewish community of North America but in practical terms seems to apply only in the United States. In Toronto, apparently, the maternal line is all that matters.
    I do some more digging and discover that in biblical times Judaism was patrilineal: any child sired by Abraham (who had multiple wives and concubines) was an Israelite. The change came in the