YAWP

🧵 some personal context as I'm posting about Israel-Iran:

I grew up in a household that was not at all religious.

My maternal grandparents were Mormons from Salt Lake City who objected to the intolerant elements of LDS doctrine and were excommunicated by the church prior to my birth; they later were active for many years in their local Unitarian Universalist congregation. They were the kind of social justice activists who pushed for fair housing laws and would go to the aid of Black folks who had run-ins with racists in a nearby Indiana burg whose "sundown town" reputation persisted up until as recently as 2017. My mom was cut from that same cloth.

meatbag version of a custom LLM ⚡️  lifelong learner ⚡️ physician assistant ⚡️ recovering newspaper journalist

My wife was born and raised in Iran in a liberal Muslim household. I think she went to mosque about as much as I went to church or synagogue, which is to say never (or almost never). Her father was fond of alcohol, and I don't recall either of her parents ever having any qualms about eating pork, if that gives you a better sense. My wife left Iran as a teenager to study in Turkey and never lived there again. Like me, she's atheist/leftist in her beliefs.

My two brothers and I grew up observing Easter and Christmas but in a purely secular manner — I guess it was just the default in our small Indiana town. I don't think I'd ever been to a church service until I attended one with a girlfriend as a teenager. I identified as agnostic when I was younger, jokingly saying I just wanted to hedge my bet; nowadays, I'm solidly atheist.

My dad was raised in upstate New York in a household that was more culturally than religiously Jewish (though my mom did nominally convert to Judaism before their marriage to appease his mother). He's never been to Israel and doesn't seem to have any interest in going there. His second/current wife grew up in a more observant Jewish household and has been to Israel but she leans toward reform/liberal beliefs; her brother (a Tocqueville scholar) and sister-in-law (a Yiddish teacher, author, editor, and translator) are considerably more conservative Jews and have visited Israel a number of times, occasionally for extended stays.