Bintel Brief: intermarriage is totally cool, but not for my kid

[jadelennox]

Another classic Bintel Brief. The ones I like the most fell into two camps: everyone, including the columnist, is a dyed-in-the-wool revolutionary leftist; or a letter about family drama that someone could have written today. This one, from 1928, is the latter.

Dear Editor,

I consider myself a progressive woman who thinks there should be no difference between Jews and Christians. Years ago when I was a girl and sometimes heard that parents would not allow their daughter to marry a Christian, I maintained that they should not interfere. I believed that a fine Christian was as good as a fine Jew.

Now, however, when my daughter has fallen in love with a Gentile, I have become one of the mothers who interferes so that the match should not succeed. I am not one of those fanatic parents who warn their children that they will disown them because of such a match, but I’m trying with goodness to influence my daughter to break up with the boy.

My daughter argues with me. . . . She is educated, she knows how to talk to me, and often I have no answers to her arguments. But I feel this is no match for my daughter. Her friend comes here often, and as a person he appeals to me, but not as a husband for her.

I don’t know how to explain it; he is quiet and gentlemanly in his ways, but he talks differently from a Jew and is different in nature too. He is an intelligent person, his parents are ordinary American Yankees, they speak of President Coolidge as of a holy man, never miss a Sunday at church, and when I think that they might become my machutonim and their son my daughter’s husband, I just tremble. I feel (a mother’s heart feels) that my daughter could never get used to these people.

When one is young and in love, one is in the clouds and sees no flaws. But when the love cools down, she will see it’s no good. . . .

I would very much like to hear your opinion on this question.—Respectfully, A Mother

--

You, yourself, answered everything in your letter, and our opinion is the same as yours. Your daughter might also understand that according to logic the match with the Gentile is not a good one, but her infatuation draws her to the young man. And when love begins to speak, then all the sensible arguments are worthless.

Comments

[kindkit]

I wish we knew what happened. The dude sounds kind of tedious, honestly.

[jadelennox]

But they speak of President Coolidge as of a holy man! How could that be tedious!

[blueinkedfrost]

These historical advice columns are a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

[oursin]

I wish to know more about this religious cult! (I knew there were a lot of strange alternative spiritual paths going around in the 1920s, but Holy Calvin Coolidge is a new one to me.)

[oursin]

It's not so much that they are Christians per se, but that they appear to embody to a quite spooky degree WASP to the max as a social category.

Run, girl, run!

[minoanmiss]

Run from the WASPs!

[adrian_turtle]

They might have meant "holy" in the sense of "he is a good man because he goes to church," not in the sense of someone who deserves worship.

(I did hear someone say, in so many words, that Ronald Reagan spoke for God. I was eavesdropping in a northern Virginia restaurant after Reagan's funeral, and it sounded like the man who said it really believed it.)

[adrian_turtle]

I also want to know what happened! We don't hear anything especially problematic about the young man, just that he is an educated stranger who is quiet and polite to his girlfriend's parents. But his parents? Gevalt. Are they just WASPs, or antisemites? LW doesn't say it directly, but I'm positive the question has crossed her mind. She thinks of her daughter as marrying into a family, not just marrying a man...and if the family is hostile, there will be trouble.

[hashiveinu]

I had a friend that said the Red Sox pitcher was a prophet because he told people to vote for GWB. It was really common during that time that evangelicals thought GWB was God's agent.