The covertness of being Jewish in these parts

A student needed to make up a test this week on account of attending a grandparent's funeral. In the course of arranging the makeup test, I said something about wishing that I had known of the funeral earlier so that I could plan for this. It turned out that her grandmother was Jewish, and so had to be buried within a certain short amount of time set by her religious beliefs - there was no earlier time that I could have found out. I realized quite suddenly that I had made what must be the ultimate Jewish faux pas: assuming that the person I was talking to was not Jewish (or Muslim, for that matter), and therefore would be following one of the typical majority-culture customs and practices. I apologized, of course, but still: big oops!

Two days later, as I was setting up the make-up exam, she told me about how her Hispanic grandmother became Jewish by marriage, about how her grandmother then took the "Jewish name" Sarah "because it's in the Bible, in the older testament," and about what seemed to her the odd peculiarities of an Orthodox Jewish funeral in Texas: the simple wooden box and unembalmed body, dirt brought in from Israel for at least the first few spade-full's into the grave, all designed to allow her grandmother's body to return to the earth from which she had come – all placed into a concrete vault, as is mandatory in most parts of Texas to prevent the expected embalming chemicals from making their way into the earth. Even when we encounter a tradition that does handle death well, it seems we modern Americans seem determined to screw it up.

But then the conversation got awkward. In an attempt to bond over our shared Jewishness, such as it was, I shared that my family attends a synagogue in the Clear Lake area. "So you're Jewish?" "Well, sort of - I haven't gone through the whole process yet, but I do belong to a synagogue". You know, that conversation. Then she dropped the bomb: "I was raised Jewish, but I married a Christian and so I converted. So I guess I'm Christian now, though a lot of my family are still Jewish." I'm afraid I let out a sigh of audible disappointment, though I tried to stifle it. It seemed such a shame, to have met a fellow Jew only to find that she was on the opposite side of American Judaism's revolving door. 

As I look back on this encounter, what strikes me is how tentative we both were to "admit" our Jewishness, how carefully superficial in our subsequent conversation, even in a private setting and one in which neither party was allowed to be vocally critical of the other. There is religious freedom and pluralism in our country, but outside of certain circles, there is still the instinct to hide that difference, to stay covert with one's counter-cultural choice or heritage, and at least for my student and I yesterday, even knowing that we shared that difference didn't move us out of that place of awkwardness and superficiality that marks most public discussion of religion by non-Christians in our country. 

Looking back, I wish I had been more honest, gone deeper into what her heritage meant to her and what my journey into Judaism has done for me and my family. I wish I had known what Jews are "supposed to" say to someone who is mourning - what is the opposite of "mazel tov," anyway? 

Most of all, I wish I had invited her to my synagogue, just in case she wanted to reconnect with her roots at this tough time. After all, any Christian (and perhaps even any UU) would have felt comfortable making a similar invitation. And it may never come up again - certainly won't if the social norms of our culture have anything to say about it. 

And that brings me to end with a question for any of my Jewish friends out there: do you ever talk openly about your faith and culture? If you are involved in a synagogue, do you ever invite people? What are the rules, here, not from the mainstream American point of view but from the Jewish one? Perplexed minds want to know.