Well, yeah, I've got a spare brother but that's not the point....

So today I was having a conversation with an ulpanist who was raised in a very Jewish home. I mentioned that I expect my oldest brother, who converted to Catholicism, will probably get married sometime in the not too distant future. With a laugh, I mentioned that it'll be interesting to have to explain to the IDF (assuming I'm in the army at that point) that I need some leave time to go to my brother's wedding...in a church...

I ended up having an epic conversation with this ulpanist because he said if he were in the same situation, he'd be "disgusted." He said he'd basically disown his brother, or at the very least treat him like a "gentile friend" and not a brother.

I don't know. I can't say that I'm happy that my brother no longer considers himself Jewish or that I'm thrilled that I'll attend his wedding in a church, but how could I ruin what is probably going to be one of the happiest days of my brother's life by not showing up? I told this guy that this is my BROTHER we're talking about.

Him: "Yes, but you have another brother to spare, it's not like you wouldn't have ANY siblings if you disowned him!"
Me: "That's not the fucking point!!! I have TWO brothers, not one brother and a spare!"

It's a ridiculous notion. The guy kept pushing the idea that he would disown his brother if his brother did the same (although he hinted that HIS brother would never do the same because HE was raised right...unlike me and my brothers), and I feebly tried to explain that you can't just disown a sibling. He asked why, and I muttered something about pants.

One of my favorite memories from when I was little was when I was about 3 or so and my oldest brother was 8, and he found this ENORMOUS pair of pants in our house. Like, they were even too big for our dad, who is a big guy. And my brother put them on and pulled the waist over his head and he ran around the house in them...he just looked like a bodyless pair of pants running around without an owner. And shrieking with laughter I just ran after my brother because I thought he was the funniest person in the world.

"Yeah, well you could have had that memory with a GENTILE FRIEND, Sam, it doesn't have to be your brother."

I offered that my brother drove me home from middle school, and that my brother was the one who found me sitting alone in the city park by myself when I ran away from home when I was little. My brother was the one ripping nasty farts on long car trips that the entire family angrily protested but also laughed heartily at (because, let's face it, my family has a disgusting sense of humor), and it was with my brother (and my other brother) that we made up a song to serenade our new dog 14 years ago. On my 15 birthday, my friends were all out of town, my dad was out of town, and my mother had a work emergency all day, and it was my brother who drove me around wherever I wanted and tried to take me to all the theater stores he knew about to buy me whatever I wanted using his own allowance money. And it was my brother, not my parents, who read me bedtime stories when I was little.

So it seems a little stupid to disown someone like that just because they don't believe in the same religion anymore. It's not like he's converted to worshipping evil or to animal sacrifices or whatever. It's just Christian. As far as religions go, he could have picked something much worse...

I can't believe that guy would theoretically choose to disown his own brother and ruin his brother's wedding day. Personally I'd rather have my Catholic brother that I know will always be my brother rather than have this ulpanist as a brother who would disown me at the drop of a hat.