Leaning in to interfaith love

In my twenties, I went to a lecture by a well-meaning rabbi on the topic: “Why marry Jewish?” My friends were going, and they told me there was going to be a good spread! The rabbi’s argument was relatively straightforward. In his opinion, marrying a non-Jewish person would lead to disharmony and had a higher chance of leading towards divorce.

In the years since that lecture, I sometimes think about the rabbi’s words. I married a Filipino Australian woman and, so far, my experience of disharmony and incompatibility couldn’t be further from the truth.

On our first date in 2016, at the Prince of Wales hotel in St Kilda, my now wife Janeca asked me where I was from. When I explained to her that my grandfather immigrated here from Germany via the Philippines, she thought I might be using a cheesy pick up line on her.

It was true. My grandfather fled to her hometown to escape the Nazis. She was unfamiliar with this aspect of Jewish and Filipino history and surprised to learn that President Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippines welcomed over 1,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution from 1937.  She even asked my mum about it when meeting here to confirm its veracity!

Charity, empathy and kindness are both Jewish and Filipino values. The more I learn about different cultures, the more beauty I see in humanity.

When we married in 2018 year, Janeca and I blended our Filipino Jewish families. In our mind, we have taken the best aspects of both cultures to raise our family. We love going out to Filipino restaurants in Melbourne, and we love having Shabbat dinners with my mum. We celebrate Christmas with her family, and and Jewish festivals with mine. Last month, with Chanukah and Christmas falling simultaneously, Chrismukkah celebrations were pretty packed!