268 Lynn Davidman
part...the best part, and I almost missed it, but when Tevya sings that stuff about if
I were a rich man, and he says at the end, about if he could just study all day, if he
could just study the Holy Books....I’m getting goose bumps as I say this, and Tevya
said, ‘That would be the greatest gift of all.’ That’s what makes Tevya such a great
guy. That’s why you’re so drawn to him. He...I know it’s almost like a cartoonish
figure, but it’s almost like the embodiment of the Jewish spirit. Yep. So I think that
one can be born with those kinds of traits. Who we are has come through. I mean,
there are people who have been Cohens [the name for individuals who are heredi-
tarily members of the priestly caste] for thousands of years. So maybe there is, I don’t
know, like a collective spirit. Who is it? Was it Jung that talked about that? The idea
about collective spirit.Cindy, a thirty-year-old single teacher, also expressed a “genetic” view of Jewish
identity: “Yeah, I do think that we are better. I do have the notion in my mind growing
up where on the one hand I was embarrassed to be Jewish, but I do think there is a
supremacy thing, even though that is also a horrible thing to say...especially after what
the Germans did to the Jews.”
In this quotation we see her ambivalence about a genetic argument. On the one
hand, she feels that Judaism is inherited genetically and that Jewish accomplishments
through the ages suggest Jewish superiority, but, on the other hand, she understands
that such an argument can lead to profound racism.
One particularly sensitive issue in this genetic/ethnic view of Judaism is the question
of conversion and whether, if Judaism is indeed inborn, a convert can ever truly be a Jew.
Belinda, a fifty-year-old businesswoman, expressed this tension as follows: “Well, I don’t
really think somebody can convert to Judaism....They can convert to the religion, but
they can’t convert to being a Jew, I don’t think.” Cindy, the thirty-year-old teacher
mentioned earlier, similarly expressed uncertainty about the meaning and nature of
conversion as an index of “real” Jewish identity. When she told me that she feels she
has “something in common with all Jews,” I asked her what that was. She replied,
“History, genetics, very specific genetics.” When I queried her in return about whether
Judaism is something you’re born with she responded in a confused manner. “Unless
you convert. There are some people who convert who are more religious than me.
But they don’t have the genetics and I think that one of the important parts of being
Jewish is the genetics. And it can get watered down, and then once it’s watered down,
it’s less Jewish.” I asked, “So do you think if a Jew marries a non-Jew and they have
children, the children have watered down genetics?” In response, she said, “Well yes,
and no...I mean, yes and no. Yes and no.” Here, she demonstrated her lack of certitude
by wavering back and forth three times! She continued, “Yes, but I guess it depends on
the father and mother. If it’s the father who is Jewish, then yes, but if it’s the mother,
then no.” In the end, she resolved her own tensions and contradictions in favor of the
traditional perspective on Jewish heredity.^5
Onepossibleinterpretation for this emphasis on genetics is that those who are
unattached to a Jewish community put far more stock in being biologically Jewish –
Jewish because they were born that way – than those who see their Jewishness mediated
(^5) In traditional Jewish law, religion is passed down though the mother. Therefore a child born
to a Jewish woman and a Gentile man is Jewish, whereas a child born to a Jewish man and a
Gentile woman is not.