We met in college at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. We were both studying classical music and it’s the kind of subject that requires such devotion, such total focus and dedication that it becomes all-encompassing. It has its own language, culture and references, much like a religion.

We had music in common.

We were both born and raised in musical families. Everyone in our worlds is interested in music; I grew up attending operas and everyone in both our families plays guitar or piano and lives and breathes music like we do.

We also both come from mixed families. My father is Ashkenazi dati leumi (religious nationalist) and my mother is sfardi masorti (traditional). My father went to B’Nei Akiva (religious scouts) while my mother went to Tzofim (secular scouts). His family, although entirely secular, are mixed sfardi and ashkenaz, so we both grew up with respect, tolerance and diversity as part of our culture.

We had compromise in common.

It was far from love at first sight, however. I was 25 and he was 31 – I thought he was over the hill! For such a secular guy, he asked me out in a very religious way. He approached a friend of mine and asked her if I might consider dating him, considering I was religious and he was not. Given that I was already 25 and from a religious family, I considered myself over the hill, so I thought, why not?

We discovered immediately that things were going to be difficult. He lived with a female roommate and not only didn’t keep kosher; they had bacon in the fridge!

By our second date, it had become clear that it was going to get serious, fast. So he sat me down and said, “You don’t know how secular I am.”

And I returned that with, “You don’t know how religious I am.”

But this was a musician who had Oscar Wilde novels on his nightstand. How could I pass up such a person? I realized then and there that I was setting myself up for a life of compromise. I never looked back.

The meshing of the families started out as complicated. In Israel, when you want to introduce someone to your family, you invite this person to a Shabbat meal. It’s simply what we do here. But I could never go to his mother’s for a meal, Shabbat or otherwise, since she fried schnitzel in butter! And he considered a religious Shabbat the most boring thing on the planet, so he didn’t come to my parents house either. For months and months, we spent Shabbatot separately – he did his thing with his family and I did my thing with mine.

As for food, at the beginning, when I went to visit him, we bought bread and cheese. Then, I brought a kosher pot.  After a year, we began to consider living together. My father said, “Yofi. How comfortable for him to drink the milk without buying the cow”, but his mother (my Savta) supported us. I was 26 and she was scared I’d never get married.  She was so happy I found someone that she bought us a whole set of pots!

Before the decision to move in together, each of has had an ultimatum for the other: I was inflexible about keeping Shabbat. He was free to do what he liked, but I was Shomer Shabbat and I wanted to make it clear that he shouldn’t expect this to change. I would always keep Shabbat. He understood. For his end, he said that he was inflexible about eating at his mother’s house. She would prepare a “kosher style” meal, not mixing dairy and meat ingredients, but it would be cooked in her nonkosher kitchen using her nonkosher pots and pans and served on her nonkosher dishes. It was important to him that I felt comfortable with his family and that they felt comfortable with me. And that meant not only eating there, but also embracing the experience. We both agreed, and these agreements stand to this day.

Our wedding was lovely; it was a small, intimate gathering on a Friday afternoon and featured Baroque dancing which reflected our tastes beautifully and didn’t offend anyone. It doesn’t require touching and is very refined. Of all potential issues at such a mixed wedding, the only dramatic piece was the music! It always comes down to the music. His family wanted the traditional wedding march.  But my father said it was Christian music and he refused to attend the wedding if we featured it. In the end, we chose classical music and everyone was happy.

Today, after 10 years of marriage and three children, we still live our lives by compromise.

His family thinks we’re crazy religious, and my family thinks we’re crazy secular. We know we’re crazy, but we love it. We raise our children in a very matter-of-fact manner: Abba does these things, and Ima does these things. We send our kids to a mixed Meitarim school which promotes tolerance and respect as much as we do.

We keep Shabbat, although I had to stop going to synagogue because I didn’t want to leave my husband and my kids alone every Shabbat. I miss it, but it’s more important to me to keep the family together on Shabbat. Perhaps when the children are grown, I’ll be able to return to it.

We decided very early that we were more important to each other than anything else. That what binds us is more important than what divides us. Every day is a compromise, but in what marriage is that not the case?

(The names have been changed only because they appreciate their privacy on the Internet and want to maintain the lack of a digital footprint.)