Jewish Rant in Inside My Head

Disclaimer I am Jewish so any complaints posted are not by an anti-Semite, just a disgruntled Jewish chick.

Almost everything in my life, for once, is going the way I want it to. I'm almost 15 weeks pregnant. Everything seems to be going well thus far with the pregnancy. Michael was not only transferred to another department, but also promoted. He finally passed the CPA exam. I recently found out that I passed my board recertification exam. If you fail, you essentially cannot practice as a physician assistant any more. At least, you can't in the state of NJ.

I have two hiccups in my life now. First is my brother John and how he has essentially disowned our family in favor of his girlfriend with questionable intentions. I do not have the energy or emotional stability to address this now and will leave it for another entry. My other gripe, and the point of this entry, is my synagogue.

Most synagogues charge a monthly membership fee. Mine is almost $200 a month. My car payment for my Lexus is more than double that, but I use my car on a daily basis. We attend Shabbat services three or four times a year and attend four holiday services: Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Chanukah. I have to pay $2400 a year for a temple we attend once every other month which I find ridiculous. You can walk into almost any church (I am not sure if mosques charge membership fees) in the country and not have to pay a monthly fee. In fact, a church would most likely welcome us with open arms. A synogogue will also welcome new members with open arms....once you hand them the check.

We asked the temple last year for a partial waiver in dues. Instead of paying $200 a month we asked to pay $100. I feel more comfortable with $100. It's the equivalent of a nice dinner out. I can forgo a nice dinner out to pay for a temple I attend once every other month. But $200? That's a car payment. They granted us the waiver last year, but denied us this year. It really pissed me off because the administrator that I spoke to said many people are given waivers for years. We just have to submit a tax return every year to the temple. While I hate submitting our tax info to the temple (who are they to determine what we can and cannot afford?!?!) I complied because I really do like our temple. Most of the services are in English, our rabbi makes services entertaining, and the rabbi of the temple is also the person that married Michael and I. I love our rabbi. I think she's absolutely wonderful and I would love nothing more than to have her perform our baby naming or our bris. However, we cannot shell out $200 a month on a service we infrequently use.

I cannot stay at my job after the baby is born. I will have to look for a 9-5 gig (instead of working the crazy schedule that I work now which covers nights, holidays, and weekends). I will most likely take a pay cut. Daycare is a fortune. I cannot justify spending $200 a month on a synagogue when that money is needed so many other places in our budget. So I wrote the administrator a somewhat frustrated and angry e-mail about the temple's refusal to work with us (it's not like I'm asking to attend for free) and she responded by sending us a generic card that basically said 'Sorry to see you go, good luck and fuck off.'

It is frustrating to me that since there are so few Jews one would think that they would try to boost their numbers and attempt to attract potential members. Nope, not us Jews. Can't pay? Fuck it, don't come. We will just complain about poor attendance at synagogue and the dwindling number of Jews in the world.

It reminds me of Syracuse University. I spent a year at SU before I transferred to Binghamton. Transferring schools was one of my top five best decisions. (Marrying Michael holds first place). Anyway, amongst other problems that I had at SU, one of them was with Chabad. I have always held an interest in learning more about the Jewish faith. I did not attend Hebrew school, did not have a bat mitzvah, I cannot speak a lick of Hebrew, and attended temple infrequently as a child. However, I thought if I went to services more frequently I could increase my Jewish knowledge. Clearly, this pattern of thinking was foolish. Even though I attended reform services, I was ridiculed and looked down upon for my lack of knowledge and education. Instead of being taught, I was shunned. I stopped going after a few weeks and transferred schools after my spring semester.

This is the inherent problem with Jews. The Hassidim look down on the orthodox, the orthodox look down on the conservatives and the conservatives look down on the reform Jews. There is a general refusal to teach others about the religion and to ridicule other Jews that aren't as religious as themselves. If I joined a church, I feel like I would be more welcome and others would generally be more willing to teach me. Hell, Christians send out missionaries to teach and potentially convert others. Although I strongly dislike many aspects of Judaism, I do not feel that I would ever convert. However, it's still hurtful.

So my rabbi who I love called me yesterday saying that she saw that we were leaving and asked why. I wanted to cry. I wrote her a much nicer version of the email I wrote to the administrator and explained that we cannot pay the full amount of membership dues. I'm clinging to some small hope that the rabbi will somehow fix everything and let us continue paying the $100 a month, but I am not particularly hopeful. And I'm downright sad and pissed off that I cannot attend the synagogue that I like with a rabbi that I love because of money. I know I've been blessed with so many other things this year, but this is like a thorn in my side. It is times like these that I really hate being Jewish.

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