Intermarriage: A Complicated Question

In this excerpt, I ask Lore some questions about interfaith marriage.
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(And one son…Philip… has a pretty serious girlfriend, or is she not very serious?)

Well, I think at his age, he’s 23, I don’t know what is very serious. But it seems that they like each other a lot, although they respect their space, which I think is wonderful nowadays. They’re both studying a career. She’s studying design, graphic design, and you know, whenever they have exams, or whenever they have to study for an exam or for a project, they don’t really see each other. They don’t interrupt their studies. So I think that’s fine. As far as I know, he says it’s very serious. I don’t know. At 23, what can I say?

(But it’s very hard for him to think of marrying a Jewish girl in Salvador, because there aren’t that many?)

There aren’t. The Jewish girls in Salvador are all lovely girls, I mean, they’re really lovely girls, and they come from wonderful homes, but they’re very young. I think the eldest, if I dare say, must be sixteen or seventeen, if at all. So they’re living in different worlds right now. Phillip is in university and the young girls are barely in high school. So I don’t think that anything is going to happen along these lines. Who knows?

(So if he doesn’t marry a Jewish girl, you’ll accept that?)

Yes, I would accept that. In fact, I asked him about it the other day. I said, “What would happen if it’s that serious?” He said, “Oh, no, my children would be brought up in the Jewish religion.” I said, “Yes, but you understand that the woman is the one that usually carries religion for the children?” I don’t think it’s gotten that serious yet so that we have to worry about it. But definitely I find that if it’s the right person for him, I wouldn’t interfere. I think there’s enough Jewish background in him for him to continue with his religion and to continue with his traditions. I think basically it’s the upbringing.

(So you guys in the late ‘80s—I’m sorry, when the war was really in its prime, did you decide to stay here?)

Yes. I decided to stay—let me see how I’m gonna word it—because I was the only one of the siblings, the family, that had a house. We had this house. But I really think I decided to stay because I had nothing else to do in the States. At that time, I only had Eric. That was in 1979, when my family moved to the US. I also went up there for two months and I really had nothing to do. I was very bored, so I decided to come back. I don’t know whether it was a mistake at that time or not, but that’s what I did. So we lived here throughout the war, and then the other two children were born here as well.

(Were you involved with the Jewish community throughout the war?)

Yes. Definitely. We were very few people and we used to hold Shabbat services as well as the High Holidays. I remember at the beginning, after they had to close down the synagogue which was located downtown, because it became very dangerous, they moved all the torahs and everything up to, I believe it was Ernesto and Lea’s (Freund) house, and if I remember correctly, Don Chepe Baum had some sort of cabinet built, with casters and they put the torahs in there. This cabinet was moved from one house to another, depending where we were gonna have the services. And yes, I mean, services were held, let’s say, in somebody’s living room and we continued the tradition. Then the situation got worse, and many more people moved away. I remember there was a very small house, near the Deportivo (Tennis/Sports Club), that was rented to serve as our Synagogue. Also, I remember that Claudio and Maria Kahn, used to call us reminding us to go to services. And we did. We always went to synagogue on Friday evenings. And this kept our community going. This gave us continuity. I always say that it was his interest in giving the Jewish community in El Salvador a continuity that has allowed us to have the community that we have now.

(So throughout the war you were here?)

Yes.

(And when the peace accords were signed, you were still here?)

Yes.

(And you’ve never moved?)

No. I never moved away. The children were born ’82 and ’84, the two younger ones. My parents were living away, and then they moved back down to Salvador in 1984, shortly before William was born. Unfortunately my father passed away in ’85. Then my mother stayed forevermore, and it was great, because possibly something that I had never done before, I hadn’t had the opportunity, to really get to know her. And we had the best time, for the last fourteen years of her life we had the best time together. I mean, she used to—if we had a dinner party at home, she was here, La Oma. Or if friends of ours would invite us, or friends of mine would invite me to go for dinner somewhere, La Oma was always invited. So she was part of these last fourteen years. She always was with us.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC