Would you feel discomfort if your child dated a person of another race?

[DavidB.]

Different race, no. They can date a Jew of any race or background. Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, doesn't make a difference to me. But it would be very important to be that they'd be dating Jews.

[DavidB.]

Different race, no. They can date a Jew of any race or background. Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, doesn't make a difference to me. But it would be very important to be that they'd be dating Jews.

Would it matter if it was a jew by lineage/ethnicity who is an atheist, or a jew who converted into the religion?

It doesn't matter to me if someone is a convert or a Jew by birth, a Jew is a Jew.

I would prefer my children to marry religious or traditional Jews and not atheist Jews, however, because this would be in line with the way I hope to raise my children. It would be very hard for my child to stay religious and to raise their kids the traditional way if their partner were a Jewish atheist. However, marrying an atheist Jew is certainly preferrable to marrying a non-Jew.

[DavidB.]

Given Matrilineality, would you accept a daughter dating a Gentile?

Dating a Jew would always be preferrable over dating a non-Jew, but I could think of cases where it would not be extremely problematic for a daughter to date a non-Jewish man as it would be for a son to date a non-Jewish woman, yes. I don't think any of this is about "accepting", though: once grown up, children are autonomous people who make their own decisions and as a parent you will have to "accept" that, whether you like their decisions or not.

That raises a difficult question of: at what point does desire to preserve culture and traditions become a form of racism? I am not accusing you of being racist, but it is a gray area.

DavidB,

I am curious of your opinion on this as well.

I don't really know, but I'm very reluctant in calling people's dating preferences racist because I think it is legitimate for people to select their partners on about every criterion they want to use for any or no reason.