Seriously Dating someone outside of your religion/race
 

I know that many of us have interracially/inter-religiously dated. Some of us are married to someone who is of a different race/faith. For GCers who aren't married, will you consider marrying/seriously dating someone who isn't of your race/faith? Why or why not? What if that person is of a different race/faith, but their upbringing was similar to yours (since upbringing is usually cited as to why one shouldn't date)? Wouldn't you think that you'd have more in common with said person than someone who is of your race/faith, but brought up completely different from you?

It would depend on how IMPORTANT those things were to me.

For instance, I have a Jewish friend for whom it's VERY important that he marry a nice Jewish girl. I have a sneaking suspicion he'd ask to take me out if not for that.... but it's important to him, so he doesn't.

If she is hot i really don't care what her background is lol . . ..

I'm serious! :p

It's important to me that the person I date have something that they believe in...and by that I mean I don't care if they're Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, whatever, as long as they're not agnostic or atheist. That's just my preference. I'm not "officially" any religion, so it wouldn't cause problems on my end. Race isn't really a consideration for me anymore, either.

I'd date outside my race no problem - religion as long as we had similiar ideas.

I have no problem with race, but if their religious views were extreemly different than mine, there probably wouldent be much of a future.

I've never been religious as in I never went to Temple much when I was younger. We celebrated Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, etc. but it was more of a family get together then us doing any religious aspects.
My boyfriend was raised in a Catholic home but, like mine, his family was not religious.
It's never been an issue in either of our families to find "a nice Jewish boy" or "a nice Catholic girl". My parents have said that they prefer I date a Jewish boy but as long as I've found a guy who has other wonderful qualities than it's ok. My mother has always said that my current boyfriend is exactly who she would want her daughter to date except that he's not Jewish. :)
We've discussed marriage and children. My religion, per se, is not as important to me as the cultural aspects behind Judaism. As many others have stated, Judaism is more than just a religion. My boyfriend and I have agreed to have a Jewish wedding. When we have kids, they will be raised as both religions but I will probably teach them more about Judaism. They'll be taken to Temple occasionally and they'll learn about the history. They'll also be given Hebrew names.
Also, according to the Jewish religion, your children are the religion of the mother.

I would have no problem dating outside my race. As for religion, I have never seriously dated a Jewish guy. Not that I wouldn't want to (and I know my mom would love it!) but there aren't a whole heck of a lot of nice Jewish guys in the town where I live. I don't want kids, so the whole marrying someone of my religion thing is not as big of a deal to me as it is to some.

I do prefer that whoever I am involved with believe in something. I have a friend who is an atheist and he did have a big thing for me for a while. That was part of the reason I didn't want to date him. (Other part-I just wasn't attracted in that way.)

Just because someone is an atheist does not mean they don't believe in anything. They may have strong convictions about politics, family, etc, etc. Just because they don't believe in a god/higher power does not mean that they don't hold vaules/high moral standards or believe in something.

Re: Seriously Dating someone outside of your religion/race
 

I don't have a problem dating someone from a different race. As for the Religion part, I'm pretty flexable.

By believing in something, I meant in some sort of a higher power. That was worded a bit vaguely though! No offense meant.

No offense taken. IT was worded a bit vaguely so I just wanted to say something.

Ok....so I would LOVE to date someone who was Jewish. But to tell you the truth, all of the Jewish guys that I have ever dated have been interested mainly in sex...and pretty much nothing else. Even recently, I started going to Chabad partially to meet jewish guys because, yes, the jewish culture is REALLY important to me, and I would absolutely love to seriously date someone who is jewish as well. BUT.....almost all of the guys I have met are interested in hooking up...and nothing more.

Interestingly enough, all the guys I've ever gotten even remotely serious with were Catholic. I sort of have this feeling that as much as I'd love to marry someone Jewish, I'll probably end up marrying someone who's not...because that's just the way it seems I'm headed!!!

BUT...I think it's really important that I teach my kids all about Judaism, and make sure they go to religious school and get b'nai mitzbvahed and be sure they keep mostly kosher!! So ideally I'll end up with someone who respects my wishes in this department!!

I'm dating a Catholic Mexican right now...I'm a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Prodestant) .... you do the math...

What's Chabad?
And do I understand it correctly that a Jewish person (aka a Jew - is that correct + inoffensive??) is someone who practices the religion judaism? In Israel, is judaism the primary religion (like catholicism in Italy say?)?
I'm confused about it - race/religion/culture (?) and don't know any Jewish people so thought I'd ask. Only way to learn :).

Thanks!
Richard :)