My dear Daddy was Jewish, and we used to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every day - for him it was like a religious requirement to do so. Both my parents' families more or less cast them out for the dreadful sin of falling in love and getting married, and my sister and I were raised as atheists. Part of my teenage rebellion was exploring my Jewish roots, but eventually I saw the light - of scientific truth - and accepted that there was no magic superbeing behind the clouds looking after us all - if there was he would deserve a punch on the nose for doing it so badly !

Some of the foods that my Daddy's relations had were really nice, and they taught me me how to cook them when I used to visit them when I was at Uni, which was just round the corner from where they lived. In Jewish law one's Jewishness is inherited from the mother, so technically I am a Goy. But after WW2 most branches were quite keen to recruit new members, after losing 5 000 000 in Europe. There are lots of different sects just like in christianity and islam, and only the Orthodox follow all the dietary rules now, the Reform and the Liberal ones do not. You could compare these three main branches with the RCs, the CoEs, and the Methodists, approximately. My cousins on my father's side celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, but relations of Daddy's generation were not allowed to have an xmas tree and presents and all that.

As we all got older the relatives on both sides became more friendly towards us, and my Sister and I both enjoyed all the festivals but remained unbelievers nevertheless, until my Sister married a man who suddenly got dragged into a born again christian sect. I understand that after their preacher got them to contribute to the cost of a car for him to drive to Africa in, and he then vanished with car and a lot of money, she has returned to being dubious about being a believer although her husband apparently still is one! Some people cannot be helped !