Published: 21 July 2025
Last updated: 15 September 2025
Dear Sex and the Shtetl,
One of my partners is Jewish and the other is not (we are polyamorous). My Jewish partner doesn't enjoy participating in festivals or Shabbat. My non-Jewish partner, on the other hand, is super interested in all of it. I would like to bring my non-Jewish partner to a Friday night meal with my extended family but my parents think it's inappropriate. Are they being unreasonable?
Jew-nicorn in the Shtetl
Dear Jew-nicorn in the Shtetl,
So you’ve got one partner who shares the heritage but has no interest in sharing the herring, and another who’s got all the ruach but none of the bloodline. In other words, your Jewish partner shrugs at Shabbat while your non-Jewish partner wants to lead the blessings, and your parents are clutching their chai pendants as if you’ve just invited Kanye to officiate your nephew’s bris.
Let’s pull this apart like an enthusiastic Sephardi uncle distributing challah at chag (my morsels of truth will be hard, but unlike him, I won’t throw them at your head).
You asked me if your parents are being unreasonable? My knee-jerk reaction is yes. And also, no. And also nu, it’s complicated.
I’m going to assume you’re aware that you’re living a life that challenges the default settings; not just monogamy but also the neat little categories that the majority of Jewish people use to make sense of relationships, religion, culture and whose turn it is to bring the challot.
For your parents, Shabbat dinner might still feel like a sacred space that’s governed by centuries of tradition, rituals and whatever your most intimidating cousin thinks is ‘appropriate’.
Comments1
Simon Krite22 July at 07:37 pm
What’s the real question here?
There’s a lot packed into this brilliant and funny response = polyamory, tradition, generational friction, identity. But the deeper question beneath all of it isn’t really “are my parents being unreasonable?” or even “which partner gets to come to Shabbat?” It’s something more confronting and clarifying:
Who do you want to build a future with: or put more bluntly, who do you want to have a baby with?
Not necessarily in the literal sense (although maybe!), but in the broader sense of continuity, shared values, and co-creating a life. Jewishness, whether cultural, religious or ancestral often travels in the shape of that question. You can have a dozen dinners, dozens of lovers, but sooner or later you have to ask: who do I want to carry my story forward with? That’s the lens that reframes the whole dilemma.
Because once you know that, the question of who leads Kiddush or gets a seat at the table stops being a debate about approval or parental comfort and becomes a choice about alignment, meaning, and legacy.
And if we’re being brutally honest, that question also touches on the age-old tribal anxiety: who’s helping the gene pool, and who’s just swimming in it?
So, what’s the right question to ask?
Probably this: Who helps you honour where you come from and inspires you to build where you’re going?
Everything else, the Shabbat politics, the frozen challah, even the intimidating cousin, is background noise.