What It's Like to Date Outside of Your Faith

If I had to claim a religious identity, I’d probably say this: I’m an atheist Jew. You might be wondering how that’s possible.

I grew up in a northern suburb outside Chicago to (mostly associative) Jewish parents with atheist tendencies. Even though I had a bat mitzvah (like the majority of my town), a strong connection to faith wasn’t so much the reason as was the recognition of the transition into Jewish adulthood. Yes, a bat mitzvah (or “bar mitzvah” if you’re a guy) is the Jewish equivalent of a quinceañera. I had a party with family and friends, wore an obnoxiously pink dress, and danced gracelessly to Fall Out Boy for the entirety of the night. Even though I occasionally attended Sunday school (my parents’ half-assed attempt at submerging me in Judaism), I never directly tied my Jewish identity to the religion itself. Instead, my claiming of Jewishness came from a desire to preserve what my ancestors had fought so hard to maintain, through suffering years of persecution and by surviving the Holocaust.