"It Takes a Jew to Live With a Jew"

Part of the fall-out from my conversation with Ta-Nehisi -- one of his commenters writes in to say:

Jeff mentioned self-preservation as a reason for Jews to marry each other, and I for one think it's certainly what leads to a lot of conversions (as is considering the imminent rage of your mother), but I think there's also another aspect of self-preservation that goes along with this that Jeff didn't address. That is, self-preservation of your own identity.

As a Jew, raised by Jews, I have a really well-tuned Jew-dar, not just for identifying Jews I see walking down the street and on TV, but also for identifying those Jewish things, mannerisms (call them neuroses if you must), and idiosyncrasies that make us who we are. While I'm not near marrying anybody regardless of her religious persuasion, I'm pretty sure that there are a ton of these Jewish things that my wife would really need to be a Jew to understand and empathize with.

In other words, it takes a Jew to live with a Jew.

It's difficult to identify specific situations, but I'd be interested to hear if black folks feel the same way at all, and of course if there are other Jews out there.