He’s Jewish, She’s Christian: Dave & Jennifer Goldstein
Dave's family were Jewish academics who pursued spirituality in Buddhism and Japan. Jennifer's family were all-American Christians from Indiana. How did a daughter of heartland America and the son of Jewish Buddhists find spiritual harmony together. Dave and Jennifer Goldstein tell their story with fun and laughter.
"Growing up, the idea of Jesus had bothered me. I love history and having returned to the synagogue, I just felt very uncomfortable with Jesus. And so, I wrote our wedding vows, and I pretty much took Jesus out of the equation. ”
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Interview Transcript
Tuvya: Today we’re with David and Jennifer Goldstein. They live in Michigan where there are lots of Jewish people and lots of Jewish-Gentile couples like them. When I was doing studies in cultural anthropology, we heard that people who know just one culture really don’t know any culture. So, David, I understand you have quite an interesting multi-cultural background. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
David: Sure. Well, actually, my parents started going to Japan in the early 1950s before I was born. Although they were both Jewish, they became adherents of Zen Buddhism. So, we would travel back and forth to Japan. I spent several years living in Japan and in the U.S. So, I think that’s a different perspective from other Jewish kids.
Jennifer: Ironically, his mother was an anthropologist, and part of her desire to be in Japan was to kind of test the nurture/nature equation raising children.
Tuvya: Interesting. I wondered about that. Were they in Japan initially for academic or professional reasons, or was it spiritual pursuits?
David: Actually, my father got invited to teach at Niigata University on the Sea-of-Japan side away from Tokyo. And so, they liked it so much there, that my father and mother got academic positions at Purdue University. Whenever they had a sabbatical, they would go back to Japan. While in Niigata, we went to Japanese schools, not American schools. For me, that was from nursery school, kindergarten, first through third grades, freshman, and sophomore years of high school, and all in Japanese schools.
Tuvya: Wow, that’s an unusual start. When you were living in Japan, was there any connection with Jewish culture, Jewish people, Jewish holidays?
David: No, not really any at all. My father grew up going to Orthodox synagogue with my grandfather. Like many Jewish kids of our generation in Jewish families, the older they got, they fall away from Judaism. My parents are both academics. And so, that’s how he got the job in Japan teaching English. He was an English major and had his doctorate in English. So, he ended up going over there. But even now, there’s only two synagogues in Japan. One in Tokyo, and one, I believe, in Kobe, which is in the western portion of Japan. And so, when we were in Japan, I don’t even remember any connection with Judaism—only when we were back here in the US. When I visited our relatives in Cleveland, I had a sense of some of my Jewishness. I always felt Jewish, but actual participation was only in Cleveland. Like I said, my parents became adherents of Zen Buddhism, so that kind of took up their spiritual life.
Tuvya: Jennifer, tell us a little bit about the spiritual foundation and background of your upbringing.
Jennifer: Well, I was from a small town in southern Indiana. I would say there was not a lot of diversity in that environment. And it seemed to me that any time the church door was open, we were there. We had, I think, assigned seats, right? Always in the same place. But it was a generational church commitment. My mother and father were from small towns near one another. So, they attended my father’s family church. I think he had perfect attendance in Sunday school. So, my mother’s family, back to my grandmother, were Christians. So, I thought grandma and Billy Graham had a hotline to God and that anything they thought or prayed was whispered directly into His ear. She was very devout, and you couldn’t be around her without talking about Jesus and loving Jesus. It was very apparent that she was a loving follower of His. And that was kind of my background. And for whatever reason, although I always had a strong prayer life and a really deep connection to the Lord, I never knew I needed to make it personal until I was in high school. I just thought it was by virtue of being in the community or something.
Tuvya: Did you know any Jewish people growing up?
Jennifer: I don’t think I even recognized that Jesus was Jewish. I just didn’t have a frame of mind for that. Both Jesus and Santa Claus, for all I knew, were from my hometown. **Laughter**
Tuvya: Okay. So where was it that your paths crossed?
David: It was at Indiana University. I was a year ahead of Jennifer. The university stages a race called “The Little 500.” It mimics the large race in Indianapolis, but it’s with bicycles. It’s 200 laps, for 50 miles. Dorm floors, male and female, they pair up, and they do fun activities together. Well, that year, I was still on my old dorm floor, and we paired up with Jennifer’s floor and had gone through that Little 500 season. In the summer after, I was having a gathering at my apartment, which invited some of the ladies, friends, and folks from that dorm floor over. Jennifer happened to be there that evening. I ended up speaking with her that evening. She was trying to get away from me. But in a very nice southern-Indiana-charming style, she said, “Why don’t you give me a call sometime.” That’s all I remembered. So, I called her, although that first conversation didn’t quite go as I had expected.
Tuvya: Why not?
David: Well, I called her up to ask her out, and she was making excuses about how her aunt was going to be in town, and she was busy. So, I knew when I was getting rejected. I was just about to hang up the old rotary landline phone. In fact, the receiver was between my ear and the phone cradle to hang it up, and she said, “Wait a minute.” I picked the phone back up to my ear, and she said, “What are you doing? I thought you were engaged to be married.” And she was right. I had been engaged to be married to another girl. She was a conservative Jewish girl, but I had struggles with her parents. They were not happy about their Jewish daughter possibly going to Japan with somebody who was going to live outside of the US. We realized we weren’t compatible, so we had broken up. I was not in that relationship anymore. I explained that to Jennifer. Again, through her Southern hospitality and charm, she thought, “Oh, you need a friend.” And we ended up getting together. **Laughter**
Tuvya: Okay. Were you practicing Buddhism at that point?
David: No. I never practiced Buddhism. We were back in Japan., I was a freshman in high school going to a Japanese high school, and my mother, very unfortunately, just after we had gotten there in 1972, had passed away. So, we stayed in Japan to finish that commitment. When I was 16, we returned to the US. My dad said, “We are going back to synagogue.” I got right back into it. I was at the Sons of Abraham Congregation in Lafayette, Indiana. I was in B’nai B’rith. I loved celebrating the holidays. So, my Jewishness, in my own hometown, returned immediately. I could go to synagogue and enjoy those times again.
Tuvya: Did you feel any pressure or obligation to marry somebody Jewish?
David: No, I did not.
Tuvya: So, you’ve lived in this multi-cultural environment. You can think and speak Japanese fluently. You’ve finished up your college work and you two meet. Jennifer, what happened after you decided that you were going to be his friend?
Jennifer: Yes. I was at the end of my sophomore year of university. He had just finished his master’s degree program. So, he was leaving for a two-year commitment to Japan at the time that we met. I worked on the weekend at a resort, and that was halfway between the university and my home. So, I didn’t know the guys from the university dorm when they were having that summer party. I was going just because my girlfriends from university were going to be back in town. That was part of the reason why I didn’t know who was calling after the party. He had referred to me by the wrong name anyway. And then at the last second, I thought, Wait a minute! I think I do remember who you are! That’s when I was going to give him a piece of my mind. I’m thinking, We’ve got a girls’ club, and you don’t call when you’re engaged, and la-de-da-de-da. I had previously been serious with someone all through four years of high school and two years prior to that. I had broken that off, and I felt God really saved me from that one. That young man was from my hometown, and our parents were both from my hometown. I just probably grew up into that relationship. But I found out who I was. Anyway, so I reacted to David’s story about the broken engagement thinking, Oh, you need a friend. I wanted him to be free to go back to Japan and become the best person he could be since he was leaving hurt and broken. Anyway, I had a message to share with him. So, I went right back after work that afternoon, after giving him a piece of my mind, and almost hanging up. I just gushed saying, “You can do it. Yay. God never wastes anything. You’re going to be fine. Go, go, go!”
Tuvya: Was any of that … did it include anything about your faith?
Jennifer: Um, I don’t think I knew that he was Jewish, and I’m not sure that I even thought he would have a problem if I told him, “God’s gonna use this.” I wasn’t careful about it. I’m sure it was just a part of my conversation.
Tuvya: As you said, “Gushing.”
Jennifer: Yes, I do that.
Tuvya: David, what did that sound like from your side?
David: Well, we got together. We went to a Pizza Hut, and it was just fascinating. Before I knew it, three hours had gone by. I’d never met anybody like this. She is just so pleasant and just joyful, and there was something just very attractive about that to me. She was, still is, so incredibly competent and just kind of a self-assured, great personality, a strong person. I think a lot of that is probably through her faith. And I just had the time of my life. And I was thinking to myself, I want to see this person again. And so, we did end up seeing each other. I won’t call it dating because we were just kind of friends back then. And then the last night before I left for Japan, I met her parents and had a wonderful time with them at their home in Bedford, Indiana. They were just two of the nicest people you would ever know. They had such a great relationship. That night I said to myself, I want to be a part of this family, and I started calculating. I said, I’m gonna start with the oldest daughter here, but there’s one that’s two years behind that if this doesn’t work out. And then there’s another one that’s six years behind the second daughter, but I want to be in this family! And that’s kind of how I found myself leaving for Japan.
Jennifer: He is joking!
David: Well, I was very attracted to Jennifer, absolutely.
Jennifer: He was not going for my sisters, but it’s a line he likes to say a lot. **Laughter**
David: I did want to be a part of that family. And the Lord really blessed me in that.
Tuvya: It’s huge though. I don’t think a lot of people think beyond the attraction, the hormones of the moment, when they’re considering a marital bond with somebody. You looked at the whole context of the family. That’s pretty special. So, David you went from there back to Japan. How did you two ever get back together?
David: There was just this pull with Jennifer that I felt. I think she was starting to feel it, too. So, I decided that I would write every day, which I did. Then I made cassette tapes. It was too expensive to call. And there was the time difference of 13 or 14 hours. Occasionally, I talked to her on the phone. And then in October, I got this idea to ask her to come to Japan for her Christmas vacation. To me it just seemed, Yeah, let’s invite her to Japan. And you know what? I’ll even sweeten the pot—I’ll pay for the trip! Of course, this did not fly very well with her family, thinking about sending their daughter over to Japan with a person they’ve only met one evening. So that gave them pause to really think about. It ended up happening, but let Jennifer talk about what her parents went through to let her come to Japan to be with me that Christmas vacation in 1982.
Jennifer: Actually, my sister gets the credit for talking my parents into it at the end. Because they did not want me to be obligated to him for that kind of gift. It was probably a $1,300 ticket at that time. My mother felt it’s a very generous offer, and it would be a chance of a lifetime. But, “There will be a lot of temptations when you’re there, and you need to be able to withstand those temptations. And also, you need not to feel beholding to that generous gift.” So, they said, “No.” I knew somebody I thought I could get a loan from, and I wondered if my parents would let me do that. I worked all the way through college, I was an RA, and my parents had helped me some. My sister convinced them saying, “Oh, she’s such a good girl. She should be able to do this.” And so, I did. And it was an amazing trip. But this is a very important fact: David and I fell in love through the mail at long distance. When he left for Japan, we were already becoming very good friends. But it was only 10 days or two weeks. How long did we know each other before you left?
David: We basically met six times, and it was less than two weeks. So, from the time we met ‘til the time I left, that’s what it was.
Jennifer: We didn’t have much time face-to-face before he left. And, at one point, he pursued me with a kiss, and I pushed him back and said, “We’re not doing that. We’re friends.” And I explained to him that I was a believer in Jesus and that my eternity was in heaven, and that he wasn’t. So, I didn’t want to get married to someone who wasn’t going to the same place I was going to.
Tuvya: At that point, did you think at all about converting to Judaism or feel the need to?
Jennifer: No. I wanted to play Holy Spirit and get him into a born-again relationship with the Lord so that we could both sit in the pew and be lukewarm.
Tuvya: But I’m curious if you had shared this with David? Had you disclosed this as a precondition or that your faith and life is founded on a relationship with God in that way?
Jennifer: I think it all came out through my conversation. I don’t remember preaching because I didn’t look at us as a future couple. I looked at it like … I had a lot of friends that were guys that I could talk to earnestly and openly than maybe gal friends. But I didn’t look at this yet as a particularly romantic or as a possible long relationship. I was so happy to have the rest of university days just to discover who I was. But when he was leaving for Japan, I sort of blurted, “If after this two-year contract, you’re not committed and I’m not committed, maybe we should try to pick this up again.” I didn’t expect to fall in love with him or get married to him before his two-year contract in Japan was up. I wasn’t pursuing a relationship.
Tuvya: So, when he later extended an invitation to go to Japan to spend some time with him, that was a big step for you?
Jennifer: Yeah.
Tuvya: But you already said, “My faith is important to me. I’m not going to relinquish that.” David, obviously her faith wasn’t an issue for you. So, what happened when she got to Japan?
David: We had a fantastic time. I took her around, and we experienced much of Japan, being in Niigata, and going to a Japanese hot spring, visiting a temple, sightseeing, and things like that. And in my mind, I was not thinking longer term, because I think for a lot of people who get into these interfaith marriages, they see themselves, but then, they don’t think far enough to when they have children. And I think it’s really when you have children that you start thinking, Well, you know, we need to put our son into Hebrew school. No. No we don’t. We need to put him in Christian daycare. And I think that’s really where that thought process would come in, and I wasn’t thinking that.
Tuvya: How did you get engaged? Where did that happen?
David: In Japan, we started talking about how maybe Jennifer could finish her degree and then come to Japan, and we could live together. It was just a crazy, though, process that we were having. And we’re thinking, how could we get together? That was obviously not a very good idea. We rejected that. But we were at a family friend’s house in Japan a few days after Christmas, on New Year’s Eve 1982. And we had a wonderful evening, and they had obviously seen that we had a connection. So, they said to us, “Why don’t you get married?”
Jennifer: “If you want to be together, just get married.”
David: Yeah. It was like a lightbulb. “What? We could get married?” And we both looked at each other. Then we were walking back to our housing, and we stopped in front of the post office. I remember the snow was falling. And we looked at each other. And I think I said, “What do you want to do?” And Jennifer said, “I don’t know. What do you want to do?” It was like, “Should we get married?” “Sure! Let’s get married!”
Jennifer: “Let’s get married.”
David: I mean come on. We’ve known each other for what, three weeks?
Jennifer: Yeah. David remembers it as maybe we would live together. But what we said was, “I wonder if I could get a teaching job in another city, and at least we’d both be in Japan.” And our friends said, “No, that’s not gonna fly in the Japanese culture. If you want to be together, get married.” He was a doctor, and they had done time in the United States as a foreign couple. And they said that’s a very good way to get to know each other is to be in a foreign land together during your first year of marriage. And it turned out to be true.
Tuvya: So, did you get married in Japan?
David: No. Jennifer flew home, and I won’t say what her mom said to her at that time. It was kind of interesting. So, she went home in January, planned the wedding.
Tuvya: Wait. Wait a minute. You can’t just leave that out.
Jennifer: He’s teasing.
Tuvya: Jennifer, what happened when you got home, and you told your mom you and David were going to get married?
Jennifer: Well, we said, “Should we get married?” It was really based on whether we would have my parents’ blessings. If we would have my parents’ blessings, then we would get married in the summer. And if not, we would date long distance and be married after his two-year contract was over and he came home. They picked me up at the airport. I later learned my parents expected that our relationship would either have intensified or it would have blown up and dissolved. There was probably no middle in their thinking. I was having heart palpitations in the back seat on the way home. I was so nervous about asking them for their blessing and telling them what we wanted. I finally asked them, “If we have your blessing, we’d like to be married in the summer.” That was January, and we want to be married in July. There had been very little time, and they’d only met him the one time. But my dad pulled over and found a pizzeria. We sat down, had a pitcher of beer, so he could kind of absorb all of that.
Tuvya: It’s amazing what pepperoni and Schlitz can do! **Laughter**
David: “You’re marrying the Jewish guy—let’s get a pepperoni pizza! **Laughter**
Jennifer: So, I got their blessing, which in hindsight, I look back and think, are you kidding me? Don’t you love me? I’m going to marry a man you don’t even know. He’s taking me to a country you’ve never been to or don’t even know how to get to. I was just finishing my junior year of university. So, they wanted me to complete that year. And that didn’t even consider that we’re of different faiths. They knew what young love was like. They had married young. So, we got their blessing, and we started planning a wedding.
Now, my father’s an optometrist in town. Our family is generational in that community and well loved. So, we pretty much just extended an open invitation, I think, to the whole town came out for the wedding. It was the hottest day of the year: July 30th. We later learned that the heat was running in the vestibule instead of the air conditioning. So, the lace on my wedding gown bodice was melting off during the reception line as we were hugging everyone. And anyway, it was a well-attended event.
Tuvya: Who officiated the service?
Jennifer: The pastor at our church. We had good pastors and mediocre or poor pastors. But this pastor, well, we had premarital counseling with him. David, you tell him what the biggest issue was.
David: So, he sat us down for premarital counseling, which lasted for about, I don’t know, about 10 or 15 minutes. It might have been a little bit longer. But he was very concerned about one major point, and that was: don’t spend more than twenty-five dollars without getting the approval of your spouse. And that was the main point that he pushed. So, really, I mean there was no talk of, “Well, you’re Jewish, and she’s Christian...”
Jennifer: What are you going to do about children? How are you going to worship?
David: That could be an issue.”
Jennifer: What about the holidays?
David: So, it was in a Methodist church in Indiana. And then we went to Cleveland where we had a Jewish ceremony performed by a rabbi. He didn’t discuss with us any of those issues too.
Tuvya: How long after the first wedding?
David and Jennifer: Two days.
Jennifer: Just enough to have an overnight at a zoo and call it a honeymoon.
David: We went to the Cincinnati Zoo for our honeymoon and up to Cleveland for the wedding.
Jennifer: And then we flew, like three days later, back to Japan.
David: Tuvya, we flew back to Japan and were landing in Tokyo, after a long flight. I’m jet lagged and I’ve got a pounding headache. I look over at Jennifer, and in my mind, I think What have you done! **Laughter**
Tuvya: Why? Why did you ask yourself that?
David: I was just thinking, You’re married. She doesn’t really speak any Japanese. You’re coming to this town. You don’t really know this person that well. But this is marriage. You’re married. I mean, it wasn’t negative, like, Oh, no, I can’t believe it. It’s not like we went to Las Vegas. I loved her. It’s just realizing, Wow! You’re married!
Tuvya: During the wedding ceremony, did the pastor speak of Jesus?
David: Well, this is something that later in life I’ve regretted. You know, growing up Jewish there are aspects of anti-Semitism that we associated with the church. Growing up, the idea of Jesus had bothered me. I love history and having returned to the synagogue, I just felt very uncomfortable with Jesus. And so, I wrote our wedding vows, and I pretty much took Jesus out of the equation. And, as I was writing them, I spoke in more general terms about God or Lord. And the pastor went with that. So, it wasn’t mentioned during the vows, don’t you think?
Jennifer: We could agree to do that because “Lord” meant, to me, Jesus. And Lord meant to him something much more general. And the term Jesus was an affront.
Tuvya: That’s a fascinating description that is not all that unusual. I hear it from couples a lot. Jennifer, an important part of your story, is that you two eventually found spiritual harmony together through a mutual faith. So, knowing that now, if you were able to go back and talk to yourself, what would you say to David as you were considering getting married initially? You were a believer in Jesus, and he was not.
Jennifer: The story continues. When I went home and told my grandmother—that faithful, Pentecostal, God-fearing woman—that I planned to marry a Jewish man, she was in the hospital. I frankly thought my conversation might be the last straw, that it could kill her. But at that time, she said, “What a blessing! Your children will be of the original roots of the olive tree and not be ingrafted branches that we Gentiles are!” She saw it as a plus, a gain, and a joy. That was all I needed. That stayed my heart. I thought, Okay, Lord, I can make a pretty good wife. I can make maybe a good mom. I’m not going to make a very good Holy Spirit. So, please let me back off in this process and trust you. And I started reading a book, The Power of a Praying Wife, and it really was a godsend to me because it gave me trust to lay my concerns at the feet of Jesus. In my heart, I struggled with being disobedient, but I recognized that. I gave it to the Lord. He, in his mercy and grace, brought David to Himself. It did take nine years. It wasn’t my timetable. I wasn’t going to marry him at first, because he was Jewish, and then I certainly wasn’t going to have children with him until he was a believer. Our children were two and four by the time that he came to faith.
Tuvya: Wow! I think there’s an important part in this, and that is that you never considered relinquishing your own faith and relationship with the Lord.
Jennifer: Never.
Tuvya: And I’m sure that was a powerful statement to you, David. In a couple minutes, can you help us understand what brought about that turn to join your wife in the same faith?
David: So, initially, I just thought, Just become a Christian. Just say it, You’re a ‘Christian.’ Okay, fine, ‘I’m a Christian’—before we got married. Just do it. But then my dad, who really wasn’t religious at all, he said something to me. It was very interesting. He said, “You know what? Don’t become a Christian. Think about it. You know, God stayed Abraham’s hand from sacrificing his son, Isaac. So, God wouldn’t want a human sacrifice, so why would Jesus die on a cross?” This is an argument that sometimes we hear in Jewish circles. So, I said, “No, I’m not going to do that. During our first 10 years of marriage, I went to synagogue, celebrated the holidays, and I went to church with her. When there was communion, I felt very nervous. But what really made it happen was about nine years into our marriage, Jennifer received a postcard from our congregation which we go to now, Congregation Shema Yisrael. They told us, “The most Jewish thing you can do is to believe in Jesus.” And so, Jennifer got on the phone, asked the rabbi if he was a cult. He said, “No, we’re not a cult. We’re Jews like the first-century Christians.” And she invited him immediately over for dinner. I was in Japan because I was traveling with GM at the time. I gave her a call from Japan, and she says, “Guess what! I’ve invited the rabbi and his wife from this Messianic congregation over for dinner!”
Jennifer: It was perfect for us!
David: Jennifer was telling me, “This is great! It’s fantastic!”
Jennifer: It was because they believe in Jesus!
David: I said, “No way. Jews for Jesus is a cult. They’re not coming to my house! Either he’s gonna be there and I’m not, or I’m gonna be there and he’s not!” And my wife, who always has just the right thing to say, says, “I see. I see. You have room in your heart for the Buddhist. You have room in your heart for the Muslim. You do not have room in your heart for this man to come over because he is a Messianic Jew?” It was like, “checkmate.” I couldn’t say anything after that. He came over, and we had a very nice conversation. I’m waiting for him to thump the Bible and tell me I’m going to hell, and he never did that. He invited me to read Isaiah 53, and he asked me who this was. I said, “It sounds like a person.” And that began my search. And it took me about a year and a half because it was very hard to take that step. It’s just so hard for Jewish people. The fear is, Am I going to stop being Jewish? Am I going to lose family? You know, What’s this going to be the cost to me? My identity? But I became a believer in Jesus. Once I came to that faith, the Old Testament meant so much more to me. The Jewish holy days meant so much more to me. And everything just fit together. Just like for Jennifer, being a part of the Old Testament and celebrating the holidays has fulfilled her more. So, we’ve each been fulfilled by the other’s side of the Testament, so to speak.
Tuvya: You two are terrific! Thank you for sharing your story. This was a lot of fun. If our readers want to know more, they can write to us at info@jewishgentilecouples.com.
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If you or someone you know would like support in your relationship, write to tuvya@jewishgentilecouples.com.
