Cross-Cultural Richness: Marisa & Andrew Alexander
Marisa and Andrew are a Jewish-Gentile couple in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their eyes are wide open to the wonderful cross-cultural richness of their country, home and marriage. It's natural for Marisa to be Ashkenazi Jewish and fluent in Zulu. Andrew is comfortable almost anywhere having grown up as a Scotsman in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Now he is discovering the Jewishness of faith in the Old and New Testaments!
"I was looking for that as I grow older, and that’s the relationship we’ve got now. And it’s fantastic. It’s just that Marisa’s Jewish, and I’m Gentile.”
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Interview Transcript
Tuvya: Hi, everybody, this is Tuvya Zaretsky with www.jewishgentilecouples.com, and I’m here today with Marisa and Andrew Alexander. They’re joining us from South Africa. Greetings!
Marisa: Hi, Tuvya. Good evening. Good evening this side; good morning your side.
Tuvya: You’re right. We’re nine time zones apart. Marisa, tell us about your family background, with your spiritual, cultural upbringing.
Marisa: Sure, Tuvya. My mother was Jewish. Her parents were both Jewish. My dad’s father was Jewish but not his mother. So, my dad’s not actually Jewish. But they got divorced when I was seven years old.
Tuvya: You say your dad’s father was Jewish, his mother was not. So, they’re a Jewish-Gentile couple.
Marisa: Yes. My grandparents were also a Jewish-Gentile couple on my dad’s side, yes.
Tuvya: Okay. Why would you say he’s not Jewish?
Marisa: My dad’s not Jewish because his mother wasn’t Jewish. So, in the eyes of Judaism, he’s not regarded as a Jew because his mother wasn’t Jewish.
Tuvya: I understand that. And for our audience, I want to just bring out, the rabbis have said that Jewishness is derived from the mother because you always know who the mother is. You may not know who the father is in the case of rape or something else. However, biblically, it was through either of the parents. If it was only through the mother, then, for example, the children of Moses would not have been Jewish because his wife was a Midianite.
Marisa: Oh, right.
Tuvya: Not everybody thinks about that.
Marisa: Oh, no they don’t.
Tuvya: We have quite a few examples. The tribe from Jacob’s son would not have been considered Jews because their mother was not Jewish. She was an Egyptian.
Marisa: That’s very interesting.
Tuvya: Okay, your mom was Jewish and that helped you to confirm your own Jewish identity.
Marisa: Yes, and my grandparents, my mother’s parents, were very influential in my life.
Tuvya: What kinds of things did you do that expressed your Jewish identity?
Marisa: My grannie could cook all the Jewish foods.
Tuvya: You must identify what you mean by “Jewish foods.” From your life in South Africa, what are you thinking when you say, “Jewish foods?”
Marisa: Okay, so she used to make kneidlach, which are matzah balls that you boil in chicken soup. That’s a Jewish staple. It is still today. She also made blintzes, which are like little pastry pies, either filled with a meat filling, like a mincemeat filling, or a cream cheese filling, and fried. She also made—what else did she make? She made teiglach, which is a Jewish sweet dessert, which is like a hard biscotti.
Tuvya: So, when you say she made “Jewish food,” you’re describing food that’s Ashkenazi or Eastern European.
Marisa: Yes, traditional Ashkenazi, European, Lithuanian, Russian Jewish food groups.
Tuvya: Right. The fun part about this is when people say, “Yeah, we had Jewish food growing up.” Well, if they grew up in a Jewish community in Tehran, that was really a different Jewish food.
**Laughter**
Marisa: Okay, we had chopped herring and chopped liver and … (**Laughter**)
Tuvya: So, did you celebrate any holidays at home?
Marisa: Let me put it this way. We didn’t traditionally have any of the Jewish festivals at home. We knew that over the Passover, we ate matzah. So very, very traditional. On the very High Holidays, on your New Year, on your Yom Kippur, on your Passover, your Feast of Tabernacles, we used to go to the synagogue only because my grandfather did. So, as his children, my sister and I used to accompany him because it was like an outing. And even though they spoke Hebrew in the synagogue, so we never ever understood a word that was being said, we never learned Hebrew at all, but we used to go to synagogue with my grandfather on very High Holy Days.
Tuvya: In your Ashkenazi home, did the family speak any Yiddish?
Marisa: My grannie spoke only Yiddish at home growing up. Her parents could only speak Yiddish. But we only spoke English at home. But I must be honest, I picked up a lot of Yiddish words that I still use today. I can’t speak like sentences or anything, but Jewish sort-of-little words that come up every now and again I do say, and I then teach it to Andrew as well. He’s picked up a lot of the sayings and understands them as well.
Tuvya: So, Andrew, you told me that you were born in Scotland. When you were about five, you moved to South Africa. Can you tell us a little bit about that background?
Andrew: Well, I was five, so I don’t understand the reasons why my parents moved until I got older. Then we were in South Africa ‘til I was in about—I don’t know how you would grade schooling—but the apartheid era didn’t go down well with my father, coming from a very open country like Scotland, where there was no segregation or anything like that. So, my parents decided to take us to Rhodesia at the time, which is now Zimbabwe. Also, when you got there, it was the same, same type of whites only, but it wasn’t on the scale as it was in South Africa during the apartheid era. I mean, I remember going to school. There were young black children with us at our schools, and when we were doing our apprenticeships, they were doing their apprenticeships with us. So, it wasn’t as bad as it was in South Africa.
We were brought up in a Protestant home. None of my parents were church goers. We were never ever forced to go to church. The choice was entirely up to us. And we never really did unless we went to a wedding or a christening or a funeral. But other than that, we were basically left to our own devices. You know, the choice was ours.
Tuvya: Scotland traditionally has a very strong Presbyterian background. Was that part of your upbringing?
Andrew: My dad was a member of the Orange. I never knew what it was. That was something they did when they were growing up in Scotland.
Tuvya: I’m sorry, I don’t know what it means that your dad “was part of the Orange.”
Andrew: Okay, Orange is Protestant world. It is only Protestants. So Orange was like a community of Protestants that did their own thing. Once a year, like on Saint Patrick’s Day, they had the “Orange Walk.” Things like that. We were never ever involved in any of that growing up because we weren’t in Scotland. We grew up in Africa.
Tuvya: So that was more political or sociological than it was religious? So, your family moved to Zimbabwe.
Andrew: Yes, well, then it was called Rhodesia at the time. The kids in our family were basically left to our own religious devices. Like I said, we weren’t forced to do anything. So, growing up, we didn’t really have any religion in our home at all.
Tuvya: You didn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter?
Andrew: Yes, we did. But being Scots, New Year’s, Hogmanay was our biggest celebration. Any other holiday was a bonus. But New Year’s Eve was the holiday for us.
Tuvya: What would you do on New Year’s Eve?
Andrew: Well, being Scotsmen, we’d drink whiskey until we passed out.
**Laughter**
Andrew: I couldn’t put it any other way. But it’s one party that just goes on from the 31st of December until the sun rises on the 1st of January the following year. So, it’s just one big party. But Easter, Christmas Day, we really didn’t celebrate at all.
Tuvya: Okay. Marisa, you were raised in a traditional Jewish home. You were married to a Jewish man and have two children by that first marriage, correct?
Marisa: That’s correct. Yes, Leon was Jewish but not religious, just very secular. We didn’t have any celebrations or Jewish festivals in our home. My children grew up learning about Judaism and religious studies at school because we weren’t part of a synagogue. I was only married to their father for three years. But he still plays a role in their life today. My children are 30 and 28 years old now. I celebrated Christmas with my dad’s mother when I was very little, until I was about seven years old. But it was a Finnish Christmas because my dad was born in Finland. So, I had a very traditional Finnish experience with Finnish Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. So, that’s another interesting fact in my life.
Tuvya: So, you as a single mom, created a culture of your own in your home raising the two children?
Marisa: We were Jewish. They did Jewish studies at school, my son and daughter, with the Jewish studies which was in primary school. They were even learning Hebrew. My son had a bar mitzvah.
Tuvya: Was that at a Jewish school that they went to then?
Marisa: No. It was a government school. So, it was all religions and all races. But they did have quite a big Jewish class. So, they’d have Bible study for the non-Jewish children, and they’d have Jewish studies for the Jewish children. But it was only for an hour a week.
Tuvya: Okay. You said your son had a bar mitzvah?
Marisa: My son had a bar mitzvah in an Orthodox shul, synagogue. He studied for two years to read Hebrew. So, you know, we’d hadn’t been to synagogue that often. The kids attended synagogue on some High Holy Days with friends. But I wanted to give my son the choice. If he wanted to marry a Jewish girl one day, then he would have a bar mitzvah. So, I gave him that opportunity of being able to carry on Jewish tradition and religion with a wife who was Jewish. And if he married a Jewish woman one day, it would help his children to be raised Jewish.
Tuvya: You told me there was a spiritual transition in your life. Can you describe that?
Marisa: Absolutely. I was married a second time for 15 years. He came from a Christian family. I was 45 years old when we visited his sister over an Easter weekend. She lived in Durban, South Africa. They invited us to their church where “The Passion of Christ” was enacted. Now I had been to church probably more times than I’d been to synagogue. After the Passion play, they gave an “altar call” at the end. Now, I’d heard altar calls before, and I wasn’t stirred. But during that altar call, I was. I sat in my chair. After others had gone up to the front, he said to them, “Repeat after me.” Well, sitting in my chair, I repeated after him. And that’s when I knew without a doubt that the Holy Spirit had entered my being because I became very quiet within. And anybody who knows me, knows I’m not quiet. So, I became very, very, very quiet, and I internalized the feeling. And I knew without a doubt that I became a child of God, became a child of Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach.
Tuvya: When you say Yeshua HaMashiach, you’re speaking of “Jesus the Messiah.”
Marisa: Jesus the Messiah. I know without a doubt that Jesus is my Messiah. And yes, so I’m a Messianic Jew, a Jew who doesn’t have to give up being Jewish, but a Jew who believes in Jesus the Messiah.
Tuvya: Thanks for sharing about that transition in March of 2008. I know that the second marriage ended sadly because of circumstances that were beyond your control. That left you open and looking to remarry once more. Andrew, how did you two meet?
Andrew: We met on an international dating site called Elite Singles. We met online and then we talked for a while online. I got Marisa’s number, and then I started phoning her. And then I invited her over to watch rugby. She said, “No.” Okay, that was fine because I was in a wheelchair. I’d just had a motorbike accident. So, she reconsidered and came over, so we watched the rugby together. And we’ve been together ever since. That’s how we met.
Tuvya: How long ago was that, that you first met?
Andrew: 12 years.
Marisa: Six and a half. It was the 31st of October 2015.
Andrew: It was five years ago.
**Laughter**
Marisa: You can’t count.
Andrew: It was. She’s right. It was six and a half years ago.
Tuvya: You’re well recovered from the motorcycle accident at this time.
Andrew: Yes.
Marisa: He did lose a toe though.
Andrew: I did lose a toe though.
Tuvya: Do you still ride motorbikes?
Andrew: I did up until last year. Last year I sold it. I took my earrings out. I took everything out, except the tattoos. The tattoos you can’t take out. They’re there for life.
Marisa: I always laughed about it because I’m married to a tattooed biker with four toes on one foot.
**Laughter**
Tuvya: Andrew, what kind of a person were you looking for when you put yourself out there on the dating site?
Andrew: Somebody that I could share time with. My late wife passed away from ovarian cancer. And we had been together for 20-odd years. I do have children, but they’re all grown up. I didn’t want responsibility of somebody else’s children. So, I was looking for somebody that I could go out and enjoy my life with. So, when I met Marisa, she told me she had children. When I met her children, it was different. I mean, the children had been brought up by a single mother. They are unbelievable. They just told us, “Get on with your life. Don’t worry about us. You just go on. Don’t worry about us.” It took me about two years to get over the idea that Marisa’s got children. Sometimes they’re at home, and sometimes they’re not. Then I realized they’re not going to be there forever. They’re going to be gone one day. So, there were no restrictions on our relationship. I was looking for that as I grow older, and that’s the relationship we’ve got now. And it’s fantastic. It’s just that Marisa’s Jewish, and I’m Gentile.
Tuvya: What did you do or think spiritually about her life and yours? Did you mesh there meeting somebody who’s a Messianic Jew?
Andrew: Yes. And she told me right from day one what it was. And you know when we were dating, I used to go to Saturday church and listen to our minister, and I started to understand. It’s something that I’m learning all the time, and you’ve got to be patient because you can say the wrong thing at the wrong time, and it can be offensive, because we weren’t brought up the same. So, I’m getting there.
Tuvya: That’s okay. Since all communication is cross-cultural.
Andrew: Yes.
Tuvya: All communication is cross-cultural. We learn words and meanings as we grow up, and sometimes we meet somebody who uses the same vocabulary, but they have a different dictionary.
Andrew and Marisa: Yes.
Tuvya: And so, we may say things innocently that we understand and how we explain the world around us, and suddenly, we realize, That person is hearing me completely differently. For example, earlier when Marisa said, “My grannie made Jewish food,” with my tongue in my cheek, I asked, “What do you mean by ‘Jewish food?’” Some people listening may think of Jewish food made with couscous or chickpeas. They would not have any idea of what some of these Yiddish-named foods are.
Marisa: Yiddish, that’s it, yes, yes.
Tuvya: Yes, so when you say you kind of stumbled into a world where you could accidently say something that was offensive and have no intention of doing that, that’s really what we’re talking about. When people come from completely different cultures, they can move toward greater understanding. That inspires social intimacy, and physical intimacy for a married couple. When a couple shares the same faith, they can experience spiritual intimacy as well. That can be the most difficult to find if spiritual or religious ideals are different and deeply held. So, tell me how you both found the same faith. Was it about a year ago?
Marisa: Well, he gave his life to the Lord on the 4th of April last year, and he was baptized on the 8th.
Andrew: No, I think it was the 24th of May.
Marisa: The 24th of May. It was the next month he was baptized.
Andrew: Then I started spending more time with Marisa when everything was on Zoom because of COVID. So, we spent a lot more time interacting with Marisa’s minister, Michael, and then with some of the other people in the congregation.
Tuvya: You and Marisa got married.
Andrew: Yes.
Tuvya: And you were going to church with her at a Messianic congregation?
Andrew: Yes.
Tuvya: You were going to a Messianic congregation called “Beit Yeshua”? And it was a congregation for Jews and Gentiles that had a welcoming orientation for Messianic Jews?
Marisa: Yes, but in fact, there were more non-Jews at Beit Yeshua than there were Jews. But the Jews that were there were Messianic Jews, yes.
Tuvya: So, Andrew, Marisa said you “came to the Lord.” What was happening as you were moving toward that faith in your experience?
Andrew: They were discussing religious things that I’d never heard before.
Tuvya: Like?
Andrew: I never realized how Jewish the Bible was. I always thought it was Moses was Moses, and Jesus was Jesus, and Jacob was Jacob, and Edom was Edom, and Eve was Eve, until we started studying the Scriptures with Marisa’s pastor, Michael. If you look at the Old Testament, it’s all about the Jews. So, to me, it was strange that everything in the Bible was about Jewish people. I’m asking, “Where’s my part of the Bible? I’m not Jewish, so which Bible do I read?” That was one of the things that was hard for me to understand. When we were growing up, there were no religious instructions. When we started studying this with Michael, it was eye opening. It was okay, so Joseph and Moses were all Jews. But there were no Gentiles that had this kind of attention. I’m like, “So in other words, when they tried to build the big tower up to heaven, and God said to them, ‘I don’t like what you’re doing so you’re going to start speaking different languages…’”
Tuvya: You’re referring to the Tower of Babel in Genesis.
Andrew: Yes. So, God decided they can’t do that, and they all were going to speak different languages. Everybody went their own separate ways. But the Gentiles, I still haven’t found any reference to us in the Bible. So, for me, it’s hard to understand that so much of it is Jewish. That’s the hardest part of understanding Marisa’s religion. I understand all the holidays, why we light the candles on Friday night, and why she lights a candle on her mom’s death. Things like that have all come to me. I realize that Jewish people wrote the Bible. This is what some Christian people need to realize. The Bible can be a cross-cultural reading experience if you will look at it from the Jewish perspective. That’s what I’ve had to do.
Tuvya: I want to interject a thought. Something in your background certainly has opened you up to a unique perspective. Your family came from Scotland, and so there is that Protestant perspective.
Andrew: Mmhmm.
Tuvya: Then you moved to South Africa, and as an outsider, you saw what was happening with apartheid. That was very difficult. Your family moved to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. You went to school with Blacks and Jews in the school with you. That was normal.
Andrew: It wasn’t unusual.
Tuvya: Yeah, but you were living in countries where you were a minority within a larger Black population. So, you were a minority in that cross-cultural world …
Andrew: Yes.
Tuvya: … and I gather that was an easy place for you.
Andrew: Mmhmm.
Tuvya: So, that opened you up to enter the cross-cultural, minority experience of a congregation called Beit Yeshua, which is a church established especially for Messianic Jews.
**Laughter**
Andrew: There’s just one thing more. When I was at school in Rhodesia, it was a predominantly Jewish school called Milton High.
Tuvya: Mmhmm. A Jewish school.
Andrew: It was a Jewish school. I’ve never had so many holidays in all my life!
**Laughter**
Andrew: When there was a Jewish holiday, the school shut down because 90 percent of your teachers were Jewish. There was no religious education at schools in Rhodesia. There were after-hours activities if you wanted, but during school time, it wasn’t ever mentioned that someone is Jewish or you’re Gentile. They just said, “We’re going on holiday now, but you guys have to go to school.”
Tuvya: Marisa, what would you tell somebody who, like you and Andrew, are culturally intermarried?
Are you able to help Andrew know what is your Ashkenazi Jewish culture and where that differs from the universal spiritual message that is found the Bible?
Marisa: Yes, we are learning that there is no separation in God’s plan between the Old Testament and the New Testament. It’s not thinking “Jewish Old Testament, non-Jewish New Testament.” It’s one book that joins us in one truth for both Jew and Gentile through Jesus dying on the cross for all.
Tuvya: And Andrew, you’re more comfortable now that you don’t see yourself as an outsider but as one in that body?
Andrew: Yes. To be honest, initially I was very reserved in the community. But as I’ve grown with Marisa, it’s also happened with the people around her. There is a group of us, which is welcoming. They open their arms to you. If you need anything, you may ask anything. We are there for each other. That’s why with Marisa, when I did find the Lord, I became at peace with myself. It’s a lot easier for me to understand Marisa’s ways. It’s come through to me in the small things. Like in the morning, I don’t put the TV on because she reads her Bible. Fair enough. It’s her quiet time. Cross-culture relations can be extremely difficult, especially in Africa. We’ve got 11 official languages here in South Africa. The biggest tribe is the Zulu. In the old days, they ruled Africa. Now, we’re seeing cross-cultural marriages. And 90 percent of them in Africa now are ending in divorces. One reason is because an African male will never leave his mother, especially a Zulu man. His mother is first, even though he was brought up by his grannie. When he becomes a man, his priority is to his mother. And, when he’s married, his first priority is to his mother. So, 11 different languages, 11 different cultures, all in amongst 55 million people. So, with all this intermarriage, you’ve got to understand your partner and your different cultures.
Tuvya: You made a great point, and I want to summarize because I think that’s one of the most important things that the two of you can say for our listeners. Bridging cross-cultural communication takes a lot of work. It takes patience and work to listen to one another. We need to keep asking what they mean and lovingly serving one another. It requires hearing our differences so that we can grow together. You’re both growing spiritually in a congregation that exists within a minority culture. I mean there’s only 16 million Jews in the entire world. You’re in a Messianic congregation where Jewish culture dominates, but the larger percentage of the people in that congregation are non-Jews. So, it’s remarkable that you both feel welcome there. And Andrew, I’m glad you have seen yourself as an outsider who is welcomed, loved, and you have a place there. That’s fantastic.
Andrew: Yeah.
Tuvya: So, I want to thank you both. Thanks for taking the time to share these stories. I think it’s valuable for our listeners.
Marisa: It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
Andrew: Thank you.
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If you or someone you know would like support in your relationship, write to tuvya@jewishgentilecouples.com.
