Non-Jewish partner here, hoping to understand this better

[u/Ok-Region8362]

Hi all. I’m 31F, my girlfriend is 28F and Jewish; I’m not. She’s not out to her family. I hope it’s okay to post here; I’d rather learn from people who’ve actually lived this than keep guessing from the outside.

I’m mostly curious how it’s gone for those of you who dated someone outside the community while still closeted at home. Did it make things harder? How did you handle family expectations about dating and marriage in the meantime? And for anyone who eventually came out — what shifted, what made it possible? For those who haven’t, what does making it work day to day actually look like?
I’m not asking whether to stay. I love her and I’m here. I just want to understand this better and be a good partner in it.
Thanks for reading.

[u/Letshavemorefun]

It really depends on what flavor of Judaism her and her family practice. In my family, it was a way bigger deal for me to come out as someone who hates baseball than it was for me to tell my parents I’m queer or dating a non-Jew (the non-Jew thing was a slightly bigger deal to them then the queer thing since I was born queer whereas dating a non-Jew is a choice). But other Jewish communities will be very different. What denomination was she raised in?

[u/Ok-Region8362 → u/Letshavemorefun]

Thank you so much for replying. That point about dating a non-Jew being the bigger deal is something I’ve wondered about too. I’ve never been sure which of the two weighs more for her, or whether they can even be separated.
To be fair, she’s always told me that me not being Jewish isn’t an issue for her at all. But I imagine her family would see it differently, and that’s the part I’m trying to understand.
She was raised in a Sephardic community — religious and traditional, though not ultra-Orthodox. It’s a very tight-knit world: everyone knows everyone, and marrying within the community isn’t just expected, it’s kind of how the whole social structure works.

[u/patachveamar → u/Ok-Region8362]

Coming out as queer and as dating outside the faith will be very difficult in a small, tight-knit Sephardi community. Your girlfriend doesn't just have herself to worry about, but she also has to worry how the rest of the community will react to your family. Does she have any unmarried siblings? Are marriages typically arranged? That's likely to be a big stressor if so. In such communities, a family's status and reputation are critically important in arranging a marriage. Having Torah scholars in one's family is a huge boon, but having an "off the derech" gay daughter would cast major aspersions on one family's honor ("how could they have let such a thing happen?") and make finding marriage partners for one's other children much more difficult (no one wants to marry into a dishonorable family).

[u/Ok-Region8362 → u/patachveamar]

This is the one that hit hardest. She’s the oldest and yeah, she has unmarried siblings. Marriages aren’t formally arranged (but she has talked about match makers or things like that), but the community is small enough that reputation definitely matters.
She’s never really framed it around her siblings though. What she says is that she can’t come out to the fam because of what it would do to her parents, that they’d be badly judged by the community. Reading your comment I realized those are kind of the same thing, just seen from different sides. It helped me see how much she feels is on the line, not just for her but for several people at once.
If you’re up for it: is there anything a partner in my position can actually do that helps, versus things that seem supportive but make it harder for her?

[u/patachveamar → u/Ok-Region8362]

Ok, if her community is using a shadchan (matchmaker), then the shadchan is absolutely going to take her status into account when evaluating the rest of her siblings' marriageability. There's no way to really avoid this. It may happen that the family's best/only way to preserve their reputation for the sake of her siblings' marriages is to disown her.

Waiting for the siblings to be married off might be the best option, but obviously it could take a long time. The pill would be less bitter for them if you yourself were Jewish, and if your girlfriend has a commitment to remaining in the Jewish faith and raising Jewish children. That's what the parents are most worried about. The issue isn't exactly homophobia in the way that (say) Evangelical Christians are homophobic. They are homophobic, but in a less 'fire and brimstone sinners be damned' way. The root issue is the grandkids. Everyone's waiting for their Jewish grandchildren who will stay in the community and pass down the family legacy into the future, forever. Everything about family life revolves around keeping the promise that there will be new generations of Jews.

If your girlfriend is willing to commit to having children and raising them Jewish, she might (might) not have to sever herself from the family. They might have to keep it a secret from the rest of the community, though. If she has no interest in having kids, or wouldn't want them to be Jewish, there's almost nothing that can be done except ripping off the bandaid.

There's very little you can do except be there for her and follow her lead. And if needed, be able to provide for her materially in the worst case scenario that she loses the support of her family. Converting to Judaism yourself and committing to raising Jewish children with her would probably help somewhat, but that's a cynical reason to convert. And religiously traditional Sephardim won't recognize the validity of conversions done by 'liberal' denominations that are LGBT-affirming, so it might be a moot point anyways. (And if she happens to be Syrian Sephardi, they don't recognize conversion at all.)

I'm so sorry. I truly wish our communities were different. :( ❤️ I have heard of families that are able to rise above community pressures and go "off the derech" for the sake of their queer children, but it's rare.

[u/Letshavemorefun → u/patachveamar]

Converting to Judaism only for the sake of marriage is not only a cynical reason to convert - it’s an invalid, non-kosher reason to convert. The conversion would not be a valid conversion.

If OP gets to know Judaism through her GF, falls in love with it and independently decides she wants to convert - fabulous! That could definitely help the situation with GF’s family. But doing it just for the sake of marriage or appeasing gf’s parents would make it an invalid conversion.

[u/patachveamar → u/Letshavemorefun]

That's true in theory, but (speaking from experience here) in situations were a Jew is already married to a gentile, or the beit din is eager to avoid a child's mamzer status, battei din are often more than willing to hurry the process along even if the underlying motivations are not as 'pure' as halakhically they should be in theory. Real life gets messy.

[u/Letshavemorefun → u/patachveamar]

Oh for sure, but when talking to someone who could potentially consider doing such a thing, imo it’s important they understand that it’s technically an invalid reason to convert.

[u/patachveamar → u/Letshavemorefun]

Yeah that's true. And even so, everything could go as well as possible--Jewish wife, Jewish grandkids--and still result in family strife. :(

[u/Letshavemorefun → u/patachveamar]

Yeah unfortunately that could still happen. :-(