Latest / The Uncommons / Muslim Wife, Jewish Husband: What Makes an Interfaith Marriage Work? | Ep12

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Muslim Wife, Jewish Husband: What Makes an Interfaith Marriage Work? | Ep12 · The Uncommons

• Parisa Bady: Interfaith marriage. I remember I was a kid and people wouldn't sit next to me because I was a dirty Jew. It's very hard to be a Muslim woman r growing up in a Muslim country. How can you dictate the law? The common belief is that if you are getting married with different religion background, there's a good chance that it's gonna fail, especially when the kids come. The rabbi called me up, was like, what are you doing? You're marrying a Muslim girl? So your dad wanted me to convert. Everybody asked me, how do you raise your kids? Do you k raise your kids Jewish or do you k raise your kids Muslim? How can you say don't be with someone because they're a different color or religion or race? Even though being from two different religions has its own barrier sometimes, it also has the opportunity. Hi everyone, welcome to the Uncommons podcast, where we challenge the ordinary and explore what it really takes to build a fulfilling life. I'm Parisa. Paige. And today we're going to talk about interfaith marriage. Muslim, Jewish, and we were raised very differently in different countries. I grew up in Iran. You spent most of your ⁓ childhood here in the US. Since I was twelve. very different backgrounds aside from both of us being Iranian. So as far as religion goes, nobody expected us to get married because Muslim and Jewish people don't get married to each other, apparently. And usually Jewish families are very strict in getting married within Jewish families. And my family is even more strict because I was born into a Muslim country. And we were kind of like we had to be Muslim, but my family is traditionally Sufis. There's a lot of spiritual aspect of it, but they do not like getting married outside of that circle. Like they want the religion or whatever the traditions to stay within the circle. So it was very against the odds for us to be married on top of everything else that you know by now. But ⁓ religion was a big one. Do you want to talk a little bit about your family and how ⁓ what being Jewish means to you and what it means to marry somebody who's not Jewish? The Iranian Jews are a little different than the American Jews, for example, but we're not very very Jewish family. Like we're not very, very strict. You know, we didn't keep kosher. ⁓ we lived in a Muslim country. But the j Iranian Jews are the original Iranians. We've been there for ⁓ from the beginning of the Persian culture and the the Iranian Jews always stayed together and married within the the Jewish culture. Even though we didn't really practice a lot of Judaism. We did the high holidays and so forth. And we had Shabbat, which was not a religious thing but more of like a a reason and excuse for the whole family to be together one night a week, no matter what happens. ⁓ ⁓ which now that I look back, I cherish those moments. It was amazing. ⁓ that you have the entire family get together every week, no matter what. And even when we got older in the US, all the kids went to the families, they had their dinner, and their Friday night started late after they had bit been with the family. So and everybody knew, but I grew up I grew up in Iran with mostly Muslims. a lot of people thought we were just Muslim, especially when I moved to the US after the revolution. There's a lot l lot of Jews and Muslims migrated out of Iran. And there's a little bit of a distinction between the Jews and the Muslims, that the Iranian ones. It's just like they're just different and and just in simple ways. And so everybody thought I was Muslim. All my friends were Muslim. So I was exposed and I really also personally down deep inside, I just didn't understand religion. I like the fact that people have belief. You know, but I always thought that all these religions is just a way to segregate humans. Like I just never understood. Like how how can you dictate love? How can you say don't be with someone because they're a different color or religion or you know, race or belief, have a different belief than you? Well, I understand it a little bit. I mean, I'm not Down deep inside, I'm not religious, you know. especially being raised as a Muslim towards that religion, I have I have trauma from it because I was raised in Iran. I have a lot of trauma from Islam being forced on us and having to be Islam and the way Islam entered that country. I do have a lot of respect for people who have the faith and they want, they choose to be Muslim. And they practice it, and we do have a lot of friends who do, but and they're great people, but for me personally, it was forced on me. I didn't have a choice, I couldn't decide. But it was like a lot of oppression that came from ⁓ the the government being Islamic, ⁓ being a woman and being raised in an Islamic country. I mean, it's rough, it's rough in Iran. Women could vote, thankfully, which was a luxury of like if when you look at all the other countries around it, women could drive, women could actually work, which is nice. Like we went to school and to college and all that, but still, like just being a woman in an Islamic country, men get a lot of freedom, a lot of perks, like men's ⁓ testimony at court. One man equates two women's testimony. You know, it's just like you're half a man, no matter what you do. Yeah, what men get pay twice for the same thing as women. So it is a lot of I don't wanna sound like a feminist movement because I don't believe in that, but it's very hard to be a Muslim woman r growing up in a Muslim country. And Iran is a good. It it got a good for women compared to all the other countries. Like in in ⁓ Pakistan, a woman cannot in a lot of cities, a woman cannot walk outside of the house without being accompanied by a man. Like you can't do that. Or in ⁓ Saudi Arabia until very recently women couldn't drive or couldn't vote. Or it's just like when you look at it deeply, it's not hard to resent that religion and that culture as a woman, let alone that Islam entered Iran by force. And when Muhammad and his crew came over, they either made people convert, men convert, or they killed them and raped their women to impregnate them with Muslim. Kids. So that's how they grew the religion in our country. I know it's a little painful for some people to hear it, and there's a lot of like emotional attachment to to Islam versus Judaism and all that nowadays and out in the world, but it's just that's how Iranians became Muslim. We were not Muslim, we were either Jewish or Zoroastrians or very like minority religions that had nothing to do with Islam. So to me. I think our situation is a little different because neither one of us is very religious. If you were very religious, and even if you wanted to keep kosher, which is very basic for being Jewish, like we would probably have a little bit of a hard time because I don't believe in it, you know? Or if I wanted to do some some traditions from Islam that I know you have a lot of emotional attachment. To that too in a in a different way. Like when you grew up in Iran, like they would call you names because of being Jewish and all that. By Muslims, you were like disrespected because of being Jewish. So if I if we had a little more attachment towards these religions and the religion aspect of it, not just culture, but the true religion aspect of it, I think it would have been different. And then it becomes difficult when you raise kids together. I think that's why a lot of our like grandparents and their grandparents they would not let their kids marry outside of the religion because then it becomes hard to decide like how to raise kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think if our family was any more Jewish than ⁓ than they were, things wouldn't work out. But I remember I was a kid and people wouldn't sit next to me as recess because I was a dirty Jew. Yeah. And then I moved to the US. And we thought we're coming after the revolution. And ⁓ you know, I lived in LA in the white neighborhood, and they were doing mandatory busing to integrate the blacks and the whites. So I got busted to downtown LA with all the blacks when I first moved to the US. So I'm all my friends were black. And I saw the racism there. So seeing the racism, I kind of like I was the other way around. I was like, You know, you can't judge people by their you know race or color. No matter no matter what the the ⁓ Islamic people thought of me when I was in Iran, I have so many good Muslim friends that are really good Muslims. Right? They pray, they they they they're connected to God, they believe, they do good things, they're just great people. They're very close friends of mine. ⁓ so even though ⁓ I understand what you're saying as far as The Persians, we Persians, have a very, very deep connection to our culture. Greater than our religion. Yeah. So I remember in Iran, there was like ⁓ there's a big soccer tournament and the Israelis were there. And before the revolution. Before the revolution. And people thought all the Jews are gonna are are gonna be going rooting for Israel. And None of them are voting for it. It is all about the culture, Iranian. Like like I'm an Iranian Jew. I'm Iranian first. Period. I'm a Persian Jew. Right. Persia first. Right. So and same thing with with a lot of the Persians that are now Muslim because Muslim became the religion, but before there was something else. So the culture lives deeper it within us than anything else. This racism that I saw converted me. So if you love someone if they happen to be the different religion, as long as their background doesn't interfere. ⁓ I mean if your family was super religious, I don't think things would have worked out. Yeah, they wouldn't have led to you know, and ⁓ but here we are. And at the beginning my parents were against me ever marrying a non Jew. Yeah. That didn't work out. Then I moved to a white chick who was Christian. And they were kind of okay with that. You know, and then like at this point, any anyway. If you remember, the the rabbi that knew our family called me up. It's like, what are you doing? You're marrying a Muslim girl. ⁓ your dad wanted me to convert. Well, he called my dad, yeah, telling how can you let this happen? You have to make her convert. So my dad talked to you about converting and stuff like that. But Now you know how much my family loves you. Having said that, now that I have kids. I feel like not j not just religion, like ⁓ I wanna be religious, but the Friday nights that we had that brought all the family together. The traditions. The traditions, Persian or whatever is is but that that was a Jewish tradition, it wasn't a Persian tradition, is gr was great and I love it. And I wanna I wanna bring that to my family because I think I mean and there's you learn things from different d different cultures and religions, whatever is. Like for example, I for a time I was a Buddhist. I was a Sufi, you know, which is a Muslim branch of ⁓ the mystic religions. ⁓ I studied Kabbalah, ⁓ you know, a little bit so I've done all this all this studies, but Hinduism was also big for me. I prayed to to to many of that. And I would love for us for my kids to for us to sit down and meditate together in in you know with Buddha. It's not as much of a religion thing to me, is the fact and idea of believing in certain things. And some religions, now that I have kids, make more sense of not because of a religion, but it's a way of life. Values. Values, right? I don't even know what Mormons were, but I have a lot of Mormon friends and they they they have this beautiful culture. Now, trust me, I've seen a lot of negative things in there. Just like negative things in Musl in Islam and the Jews and you know, all of it. ⁓ and ⁓ to me, to me personally, ⁓ no offense to anybody else, anything fanatic, I want nothing to do with. Fanatic Islam, fanatic Jews, I wanna have no part of it. Same with the Mormon religion, but they also have some really good factors about. I mean, the fact that they go and I know they're trying to spread their religions for two years, but the kids do missions. Would they go and just help other people for two years in a place away from everybody else? And I'm like, ⁓ my God. You know, I would love for my kids to do that and get their ass handed to them in some third world country, you know, to see what life is all about. Yeah. You know, I love that. And serve. And serve. Yeah. Yeah, serve. Go serve. But those are values, you know, those are values that we can pick and choose from. Like act of service is is a beautiful value that we can teach our kids. And I feel like we have I p to what you said, that like how much we if my c background and my family was a lot more religious, it wouldn't have worked out. If yours was a lot more rel religious, probably like we would have more obstacles. But I feel like as long as two people in any religion, like even People from the same faith and same religion, if one of them is a lot more religious and one of them is less difficult. I I'll tell you what, if I was dating someone that happened to be Jewish and they were a kosher, there's no fucking way I would I just I ⁓ I mean I love traveling the world and eating all kinds of shit. I wanna experience life to the fullest. It's just a lot more restrictions. And limiting to that to that belief that I don't believe it. I ⁓ there's there's no way I would be with the Jewish girl. Yeah. That That is like that, yeah. Yeah. Sorry to cut sorry to cut you up. But no, I I agree. I think it's just like couples that one is more more has more democratic views and one has more like Republican view, whatever, you know. As long as none is too extreme and the levels match, it's easy to handle. But the more extreme you go in beliefs and in views, then it's just harder to find a common ground because you get further and further and further. And that's what I dislike. I think religion has a lot of values that it brings to people's lives, a lot of like values that you can live by, a lot of traditions and all that. But what I dislike is that as you go more extreme in any religion, people become more and more separated. And it's a way of separating people. And that's what doesn't sit well with me. And that's what I don't want to teach my kids, you know? So I think it's a beautiful opportunity. Like everybody asks me, so how do you raise your kids. Do you k raise your kids ⁓ Jewish or do you raise your kids Muslim? And I'm like, we neither. Like we take the good from each religion and from each culture and we just bring it all together. And my goal is to teach my kids that you can be from different backgrounds, from different religions, from different skin tones, from different countries, from different faith, and still love is the common language in between people. So just teaching that alone, like if I can get that across, I feel accomplished as a mom. No, I gre agree. So even though being from two different religions has its own barriers sometimes, it also has the opportunity to show our family, show our kids that okay, this is how we maneuver in in when we don't have the same beliefs when we have differences, when we have different point of view, like you can still find a common ground and common practice and then get the good from each side and create our own cultural traditions, you know, that we just live by. Like we do Shabbat dinner most of the times now. Or we do ⁓ celebrate most of the whole high holidays. It's fun for the kids, you know, they we get together, we have fun, like it's just good memories for them. we do celebrate Christmas and like Hanukkah and anything any celebration we do. Any celebration, excuse for celebr any excuse for the kids to get gifts. They love it. Like the more the better. The pr the you know Persian New Year. Yeah. That's that's always amazing and awesome. So I want to raise our children to respect our religions, which I I do personally. And I also agree that that I don't think religion should be a dividing factor. Which it is now in in the world is is it of course. It's just of course more than ever. Yeah, yeah. I mean, r especially now, if you're Jewish, then you must be anti-Palestine. Right? And if you're a Democrat then you're pro-Palestine. And if you're you watch Fox News then you must be against that. Just like all these divide all these dividing and and I think I think that's what that's what the the the the higher people want. The the ⁓ the more division between the the the the common people, the easier it is to control. Divide and conquer. Divide and conquer. Divide and conquer. And ⁓ which is like Sal Elinsky's number one path of controlling the world and masses is putting poor people against rich people and and taking over their healthcare. Just it's like a very dividing thing, you know? And I think as the population of the world gets bigger and bigger, there's gonna be more and more pressure on division between them. Because it's if all eighty billion people were in harmony and they were they did things in a very harmonious way, it would be very difficult for for people to feed or governments or you know whatever to f to feed off these people. It's just people will get very emotionally charged by what they consume as far as the media. You know, it it goes back to like I have a friend that our son and her daughter used to go to the same school and she is British. So she grew up in the UK, which has a certain offers a certain view, you know, towards like Palestine versus like Israel. So it's a certain way of looking at like when you look at a snapshot that they look at, like you will be like, ⁓ my God, right? And she got married to a Muslim, so she converted to Islam and all that. So she's very hardcore pro Palestine. And I'm married to a Jew. So We have a little bit of a different like perspective. Like I grew up in Iran, so I have very different perspective towards like Palestine and Israel, because we saw it from the government's point of view and we're against it. You know, whatever they say, we say no. But it's just like completely seeing the propaganda from another way, right? So the screenshots that the snapshot that we watched is very different. And if they saw ours, we'd be like, what the fuck, right? So we grew up with different values, different cultures, different like processing in the mind, and we were fed different media. So we have very different views, her and I. But we still get together and we still have lunch and we've agreed that we agree to disagree. We're not gonna let this take us apart. You had a discussion with her about it? I had a discussion with her about it. She told me, she actually told me I all my pro-Israel. friends have disowned me because I'm so hardcore pro-Palestine and it blows my mind how you and I can be friends. And I'm like, well, you know, we are two different people. We have different upbringing, right? We're from different countries. We have we're from different religions. We're married to different people. Like if you just have we're so different, who tells me that I can tell you how to think? And who who tell ⁓ how would like why would you think you can tell me how like why not have different views? You know, and we still can be friends. And we are friends. And to be honest. And I love her. I love them. I I I always tell you like like I like I mean they're hardcore people, which is fine, you know. Yeah. ⁓ but I personally I love them. I love the guy. Yeah. I love I love the kids. They're they do the right things, they bring their kids up great. They have values that are very similar to the tour, yeah. You know, the way they raise their kids, the way they run their family. So So what that we have differences in our political views, you know? And who said that she's right or I'm wrong or that. Maybe maybe we're absolutely wrong in what we and and and and and to be to to be honest, I mean I don't want to make politics, but any child dying from any country. Any culture or religion is like a huge pain for me. Yeah. I was twelve years old. I migrated from Iran during the revolution to the US. Got on a plane. 15, 16 hours later, landed in the US. Turn on the TV. And what was being shown in the TV in the US was completely different than what was happening in Iran. And from that moment, I realized something when I was 12 years old. Because you watch TV, it must be true. And I realized that that could be false. Like what we see, because we're seeing with our own eyes. It must be true. But we're seeing something that someone else is sending a picture to us. It's a snapshot, that's right. It's a snapshot. It's not truly because what I saw in Iran with my own eyes was different than the picture that they were showing me. Right? So from that point on I realized that the media is wrong. If I only watch CNN or Al Jazeera, I'm gonna hate the fucking Jews. And if I watch Fox News and or whatever it is. It's the other way around. You know, so I I I think someone who's smart is to be able able to get in from i if you want information, is to get it from a different different different sector and ⁓ make make up your own mind as opposed to other people making up your mind, which is the ammo of the past fifty years. Yeah. Is making pe you know, you know basically chewing stuff for us and putting in our brains without letting us chew it, you know. dissolving and understanding what it is. Yeah, but it's an art, you know. It's great art. It's great art to grab something. I mean anybody who has experience in movie making or like media or marketing campaigns or any of that. I mean it's just, you know You know, if if you get up and you turn on the news and it says the weather is great. Skies are blue and everything's fine. You're not gonna sit there and watch it. If you turn on the news and say The Palestinians cut the stomach of a of a of a Jewish woman and kill the baby. You're like, ⁓ my god. Emotional charge. Yeah. You just like, you know, you're gonna watch that. And then you go to the next channel and it says the Israelis bombed a school in Gaza and twelve innocent children were murdered. ⁓ my god, all these like it's just It's their job. That's how they make money. Yeah. If they don't make it more retention, the more Yeah, if they if if they don't make it look crazy. They're not gonna make any money. So they make it as crazy as possible. So yeah, so I I've learned a long way. ⁓ to me, religion ⁓ has as good as as bad. I I I mostly look at it as a way to segregate people, and it's been happening forever. ⁓ I am just very, very proud to be Persian because my ancestors and Cyrus the Great was the first person that allowed. religions to be practiced as they want to be practiced and allowed to people to do what they want to do. And it was a first sign of metropolis. And the Jews, my ancestors, were allowed to be who they are in Iran way before Islam entered. ⁓ so I'm very personally I'm very connected to that. And I love that. And ⁓ the fact that you are a ⁓ Sufi or mystic, which I truly believe in, is connects with you. So my connection with my wife is way beyond this superficial religion of Jews and Muslim or whatever it is. And it goes way beyond that because the mystical language of love of poetry and wine, butterflies, and candles and music and deep connection. is what brings us together and we're not moved by the superficiality of religion. Yeah, and I think like ⁓ if you don't know if Sufism it's equivalent to Kabbalah for the Jews. So I think the reason that when you when your dad asked me to convert to Judaism so I can be married to you and I refuse is the main point is first of all I couldn't accept The religion as a whole and believe in every aspect of it to say that I convert to this. I don't even believe in my religion that I were I was brought up with. Like how can I I would gladly convert away from Islam because I don't believe in a lot of it, right? It's just hard for me to accept a religion as a set of values and things and rules that comes in a box. ⁓ And say d I connect with these values, so I accept everything that it comes with, and I take it all in, and I'm not gonna question it because it's against accepting a religion. I'm just gonna follow through with everything that it comes with it. It's just hard for me. And I think one of the reasons is that I was raised in a Sufi family, and the three like biggest values for Sufis, number one is that you experience the world. That you experience, not what they tell you. So it's not about what you are told, it's about how you live and what you gain, the inner wisdom that you gain through experiences. So that goes against like submitting as a f whole to any religion, first of all. Second is that the heart matters a lot more than what goes on in the mind or in the outside. So you whatever is in the heart will eventually shine through. no matter what you perform and how you try to act, right? So if I don't fully with my whole heart believe that I can be a good Jew or I can like take on that whole religion as a whole in my heart, no matter how I act, first of all it becomes a performance. And then it's gonna show anyways. And what example am I setting for my kids that I don't I didn't believe in the religion that I was brought up with, first of all, and now I converted to something else that I don't fully believe in it. So It's all superficial. And the third thing that ⁓ Sufism stands for is that love is a common path for all. So it's that we sh we share this life because we share a love that is the same language that we all share together. So no matter what religion we come from, no matter what background we come from, that's the language of the universe, which is love. So once I have that love in me for you. And the other way around, this union shouldn't be conditional to cultural beliefs or religion or anything. So that's really like the core of why I refused, because I could have, I could have converted and things would have been a little smoother, you know. I would I think I would have been a lot better accepted into your family initially. Like I feel like you I know that they love me and I I love them so much, but I feel like initially it took Like there was ⁓ a relationship. I think a lot of it was my mom, because my mom saw through all that. my mom was very, very wise. And she saw through all that. And her accepting you made everybody else accept you. ⁓ she had a special bond with you. Yeah. That went beyond all this superficial stuff. I call this stuff superficial shit. Yeah, but I just like marriage. yeah. You admitted at the end of last episode that you do believe in marriage. So we're done with that topic. Kinda. Yeah, superficially. The common belief is that if you are getting married with different religion background, there's a good chance that it's gonna fail because especially when the kids come. But I think what we have experienced so far, like even especially 'cause ⁓ Leon Our oldest son, his mom is Christian. Yeah. So and he goes to now he goes to ⁓ church and all that. So it's a completely another one added to the mix. But ⁓ I feel like that has helped us a lot to just be that family that's more accepting to different cultures and different beliefs. And that's what I want to carry through and to through our kids to just show them that it's not about a label. You know, you can't just label and divide people like I mean you have Muslim friends that you ⁓ fast with them for Ramadan and I don't. And you just go and have iftar together, but it's just a different Yeah, I do it every year. I mean I ⁓ one one day I go and and I do I do the Muslim ⁓ fast, Iftar for Ramadan. And I love it. I and I do the Jewish fasting. I fast all the time. I fast thirty six hours a week anyway. So It's like what doesn't faze. Doesn't faze me wash except I have I can't have any water or drinks. But at the end of the day, I respect all religions. I respect what people believe. I respect what I don't respect is when people don't respect other religions and they try to force like their own beliefs. Islam is because I respect that. I have a lot of friends that I respect so much for who they are as Muslims. But looking at the Isra Islamic Republic of Iran, I'll be very clear. I have zero respect for that because they've taken Islam and made it some bullshit that is completely unacceptable and just has no merit at all whatsoever. Do you I think you can take any religion to extreme? It has a potential. You know, any religion has the potential to be taken into an extreme and be something like completely ⁓ disturbing. But I feel like I'm I've been very traumatized by being raised in an Islamic country, so I have a different trauma response to it. Which I'm working through. I think it's a sensitive subject because of all the stuff that's going on right now, but we do share the same culture. Mm-hmm. Right? Our sh our commonality is our culture. Yeah. Right. And ⁓ we were in deep, deep grief when the Islamic Republic killed all these young, beautiful children and young people or older whatever. And murdered them. ⁓ and ⁓ it's it's been very, very traumatic for us, I I I think. So And it's interesting to be in d to just witness the world right now 'cause Like Muslims are fighting like Israel is like attacking Iran, they're fighting the Islamic regime, ⁓ Americans are interfering. It's just like ⁓ I don't know, being Muslim and a Jew and watching this whole thing is really like one of the interesting times to go through. We'll see how it turns out. I'm sure I'm sure the world will be fine. It will live through it. We'll live through it. We've lived through way more challenging times. Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you everybody. Thank you for watching and listening. And ⁓ if you have any comments, any challenges that you might be in experiencing being in a inner faith marriage or relationship or anything that you can add that we can maybe practice and make our family more beautiful and more loving as a result of it, we would love that. And we appreciate it. Ciao.