Saturday 4 August 2007

Atone deaf

The Day of Atonement usually comes but once a year. In our house, it came whenever my father damn well pleased. A childhood encompassing escape from 1930s Berlin to set up home in the UK as a dispossessed, orphaned Jewish teenager who spoke only German and Hebrew gave him, not altogether surprisingly, the sense that organised religion hadn’t done him or his family much in the way of favours thus far (cosmic wishing, at that time, not having been invented) – so he decided to ditch it.

The world, he told us, would be a better place if all religion were abolished, given that it tends to benefit only those who are card-carrying believers of whichever God happens to be in vogue with those in power.

These were fine sentiments. Unfortunately, being Jewish isn’t something it’s easy to give up. It’s a race thing. You can’t be born a Christian. With a Jewish mother, you can’t be anything else. My father did his best, marrying a Gentile or, as we liked to call her, Mum, but however hard he worked on renouncing his Jewish ancestry, it insisted periodically on creeping up on him and giving him a gentle nip on the bottom.

His resulting bouts of ambivalence had me swinging from steeple to synagogue faster than Tarzan in a cassock. One minute I’d be belting out ‘There is a green hill far away’ in school with the rest of my Church of England class mates - Christianity might have manifest flaws but at least they were conveyed in a language I could understand - the next, thanks to a letter from my father, I’d be whisked into a side room for a quick burst of Jewish assembly, where a clever girl called Natasha led the prayers in Hebrew and I mouthed the words, miserably conscious that I was opening the book at the wrong end and that every word I failed to pronounce proclaimed nothing but my half and half, in-between status to the world.

Because my father had married out, I was not only not Jewish but, as my father occasionally reminded me when I was being a bit uppity, ‘worse than a bastard’ in the eyes of the orthodox Jewish community. I felt bad about this for years, until I worked out that unless I’d used latent pre-foetal telepathic powers to bring my parents together, they could have been part Klingon and it still wouldn’t have been my fault.

Objectively, of course, my father knew this. But his heroic early history – scrimping and saving to buy food for his parents; wheeling and dealing until he acquired a pistol when Jews faced severe punishment for possessing firearms – made him, I now believe, envious not only of his own child’s relatively pampered existence but also of the fact that I took it for granted. He did his best to get the message across, lending me grim autobiographies of life in concentration camps; one, I remember, was called, simply, ‘I survived’. I read them as I read everything, fast and uncritically, enjoying it as a gripping adventure story while feeling guiltily conscious that this wasn’t what I was supposed to feel.

Some mixed marriages provide a happy fusion of cultures. In my family, what we ended up with was a kind of religious half-life that concentrated on all the negative emotions – notably guilt and fear - provided in generous abundance by all religions everywhere, and avoided anything approaching a celebration. My father’s belief – that we were sufficiently Jewish not to celebrate Christian festivals, but not Jewish enough to enjoy theirs, made Christmas a tough time as my mother, whose birthday also fell on December 25th, felt strongly that celebration of some description was essential and resorted to guerrilla tactics, planting decorations at night like explosives, and disguising entire Christmas trees as over-sized pot plants. We even managed a Christmas meal of sorts, although my father’s valiant attempts to fight back by refusing to make small talk were so successful that one year, when we timed it, we sped from turkey to crackers in under 15 minutes.

My father’s dead now, but his half and half legacy lives on. Even at his funeral we mixed and matched, playing traditional Jewish prayers for the dead but scattering his ashes in the woodland he loved – something his parents would have considered sacrilegious but we thought he would approve of.

Now I have to work out what, if anything, to do about my own children. Their ancestry shouldn’t, of course, make any difference in a society where religion is, supposedly, in decline. And for those in full possession of their spiritual credentials, whether or not they choose to flash them about in public, this is probably true. But, as with all these things, religion looks anything but a spent force when you’re having to operate on its fringes.

My children know that their inheritance confers a difference that I’d like them to be proud of, but they don’t really understand what it is. The youngest keeps asking to be christened; I keep saying no. Christmas, with Santa’s visit and a string of light polluting, ASBO-worthy outside decorations has become a big deal but when we go to church, I mumble my way through the prayers and leave out Jesus’ name when it appears.

All this I can live with. But I struggle with legacy of the Holocaust. To me it’s a family memory. To my children, it’s something to tick off on the list of National Curriculum projects, a bad thing that happened to other people a long time ago and has nothing to do with them.

Some of my cousins, who share my half and half inheritance, have gone the other way, strengthening the blend by marrying Jewish partners and having children who, within a generation or two, will be up to full religious strength. I’ve gone for full camouflage, with an identity, name and lifestyle that relegates my Jewish ancestry to an interesting sideline in dinner party conversation.

For now, that’s where it will stay. But, every now and then, as I survey my children, the irony of their situation strikes me. For while their Jewish ancestry remains something they comprehend only with difficulty, if at all, the Nazi party, which required only one Jewish grandparent to have shipped them straight off to a concentration camp, would have had no problem acknowledging the legitimacy of their inheritance straight away.

18 comments:

Stay at home dad said...

Fascinating - now I understand your latest comments to me. I love the fact your father lent you the books!

Omega Mum said...

SAHD: Until you mentioned it, the significance of the word had escaped me - I used it without thinking. Thanks for the insight. PS have you seen that Lady Macleod has cited your family reminiscences as a must read post. Rightly so.

I Beatrice said...

OM that was a masterly essay, worthy of the widest possible hearing! I especially loved the idea of "Tarzan in a hassock" (or is it a cassock? I never remember which is the coat and which the cushion!)

It must have been very difficult though, having to try to embrace both and neither faith. And I can see how hard it must have been for you as children, to be denied the fun bits of BOTH religions!

I agree mostly with your statement that religion benefits few but its card-carrying members. Though I too have a sneaking lingering fondness for them, the robes and hymns and cassocks of my childhood...

You and I seem to be about the only people blogging at the moment. I too go away on the 18th -do you also go soon?

DJ Kirkby said...

Oh wow. This post made my chest feel tight.

dulwichmum said...

I agree with Stay at home dad, this is absolutely fascinating. I am torn between feeling emotional and empathising with you about your experiences, congratulating you for your outstanding mastery of the written word, and excitement for you that you have on your hands the plot for a most fascinating book. I hope you have an agent.

Anonymous said...

What a powerful and moving piece, Omega Mum.

Chez o, Christmas has become a kind of all-embracing winter-solstice-y, bring light into the dark long winter celebration. Something for everyone. I'm not sure my kids, who were baptised despite my resistance (M said: it's tradition! - he didn't mention the words: faith, belief or religion, if I remember correctly) know that Jesus was supposedly born then.

PS. You Brits and your "dinner parties". Love it!

Stay at home dad said...

No I hadn't, thanks. Blimey, if mine's must-read, yours is National Curriculum. Enjoy your car boot oddyssey.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing that OM. My mum thinks she has Jewish connections but my dad used to say it's because she like Barbra Streisand.

Crystal xx

Zig said...

very interesting post!

The Good Woman said...

What an amazing post Omega - a bit unexpected, and deeply thought provoking. I suppose we cannot force spiritual insight, or historical significance on our children. But we can hope that, like you, they grow mindful of these things as they become ready.

I'll miss you this week!

Mutterings and Meanderings said...

Echo SAHD, absolutely fascinating and beautifully written.

I don't do religion but for what it's worth, I'd say let the kids make up their own minds.

Gwen said...

What a wonderful post. There's a novel in there surely.

Catherine said...

Deep and dark, OM. I think you would be interested in Vikram Seth's 'Two Lives' which I wrote about in my blog a while ago, it had such a profound effect on me. It is a vivid, true to life description of the world your father grew up in, based on letters Seth found in his Uncle's attic in Hendon.

As for the whole extermination thing, it is now far beyond our comprehension how this situation could have been normalised. Perhaps I could just chuck in here that my grandfather and grandmother left Ireland with their young family, having been given 24 hours to do so, or be killed. Hatred knows no boundaries.

Around My Kitchen Table said...

Great post - a mixture of humour ("My father did his best, marrying a Gentile or, as we liked to call her, Mum," - still laughing at that one) and poignancy. The most heart-breaking account of the holocaust I have ever read is "Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust" by Lyn Smith. It's survivors' accounts written down verbatim. It absolutely made me weep at man's inhumanity to man. It's written in a really easy-to-read way and I think it should be compulsory reading for schools.

Anonymous said...

Its so strange that out generation is castigated as irreligious and irrverent yet we are the first to have to think about ....

Omega Mum said...

IB: So glad you enjoyed it. We overlap now for a week until you go away, I think.

DJ: But tight in a positive sense, I hope?

Orchidea: Like the solstice idea. Think may try it out.

Dulwich Mum: Thanks so much. Agents strangely absent from my life, despite soliciting on virtual street corners.

SAHD: Without wanting to turn this into total admiration fest, you write brilliantly. Couldn't get the image of the sad boy in picture out of mind. Would love to know more about him.

CJ: That's so funny. (Unless he was serious, of course).

ziggi: Glad you liked it. Thanks for visiting.

the good woman: I needed to open pores and flush out traces of Bad Lindy in summer crackdown operation. Glad you enjoyed it.

M&M: Thank you.

Gwen: It would be interesting to try. Maybe a collection of second generation imigrant stories?

Marianne/Around my kitchen table: Thanks for your comments and v interesting book recommendations. Adding them both to must-get list.

Mutley: Think I agree with you - you're operating on philosphical level that slightly floored me when reached the dots - though understood it completely up to there. Do you mean that we have to confront more deep-seated religious issues than previous generations because of current conflicts or am I way short of the point here?

Unknown said...

Hmm... I see what you mean about the ditto thing. The guy who I am touring around with at the moment is my very good friend who is both Jewish and gay. We talk quite seriously about having a child together (gulp, I can feel your more conservative readers eyes widening as they read this...), and I always say that if we did we would have to take the child to synagogue etc.

You know, another Jewish friend of mine who is very learned in the Jewish faith says that this business of having to have a Jewish mother to be considered Jewish is a bit of a myth. Jews have got it wrong. I figure if I do have a Jewish child, I would at least want him to have the option of choosing. It is a shame your parents were so weird about it all. Roots are important. And it is great that you want to give them to your kids.

Omega Mum said...

Snuffles: Wow! This is quite something and I feel proud to have your comment here. For what it's worth, I think it would be a wonderful thing to do. He sounds as if he'd be a committed father - and, personally speaking, I don't think you can go wrong with a little Semitic blood in the mix. (Though I would say that, wouldn't I). Also interesting about Judaism via the mother. I was always told that it was a practical measure - because if you were assaulted by a non-Jew, the baby would still be Jewish. Not sure how much comfort that was for the mother, though.