More families celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah

By Steven A. Rosenberg, Boston Globe Staff

Just a few decades ago, it would have been unusual for a family to decorate a Christmas tree and also have a Hanukkah menorah prominently displayed in the same room. Known as the “December Dilemma,’’ it represented a quandary that sometimes caused great anguish between interfaith couples around how to celebrate their respective holidays.

That issue has all but disappeared with the public’s acceptance of Christian-Jewish unions, with a marriage rate now over 50 percent among Jews in the United States.

“The interfaith dilemma has diminished because people intermarry, and the next generation is becoming more comfortable with that,’’ said Rabbi Baruch HaLevi of Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott.

These days, it’s not uncommon for religious symbols to sit side by side in a household. Tucked away on a quiet street of ranch homes in Marblehead, an angel-topped tree glistens with lights above a silver menorah in the Bornsteins’ sunken living room. Along the base of the fireplace are monogrammed Christmas stockings; throughout the house are Star of David and dreidel streamers.

For the Bornsteins and other interfaith couples who have chosen to continue to celebrate the religious holidays they grew up with, there is no road map or established etiquette. Some, like the Bornsteins, are keeping holiday traditions of both faiths but raising their children Jewish. Others raise their children as Christians or with both religions; some with none. Few see it as a contradiction, and most say the holidays are more about American culture than religion.

“Nobody seems to care anymore. There’s no feeling of angst at all. Everyone accepts it,’’ said Bruce Bornstein, a chemist, when asked about having a tree and a menorah in his house. Bornstein enjoys watching his wife, Sandy, decorate the tree, and the couple believe both symbols are reminders of a heritage they want to pass on to their children. They also see food as a big part of the holidays: Together they make latkes - potato pancakes - eat matzo ball soup, and sit down for a turkey dinner on Christmas day.

For Sara Bornstein, an eighth-grader who had a bat mitzvah, Christmas and Hanukkah represent family. “I love doing the Hanukkah prayers with my family, and the best thing about Christmas is spending time with my mother’s family. I love the tradition and the memories,’’ said Sara.

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A Quiet Home, a Kosher Home

Originally published on InterfaithFamily 

Before my husband and I could get married, I had to mourn mashed potatoes and hamburger gravy.

I needed to sit on his couch, weeping and trying to enunciate through my snot, while he held me. “But. It. Is. My. Favorite thing. That my mom makes. And my grandma. Taught her. How to make it. For my dad. And I always. Thought. I. Would. Make it. For. My. Own kids.”

Our courtship was quick. We got engaged after six months of dating and married seven months after that. It sometimes feels like we spent that entire pre-marital year talking about religious practice and how far each of us was willing to go to help the other be spiritually fulfilled without violating our own spiritual and identity needs.

An interfaith family wasn’t what either of us had imagined for ourselves. But we couldn’t deny that love, similar communication styles, shared values and goals, mutual geekiness, and the ability to make one another laugh made us too compatible to pass up the opportunity for the hope of someone who also shared the same faith tradition.

Both of Jacob’s parents were born and raised somewhat secularly Jewish, but his father began to keep kosher as a young adult as part of what would turn out to be a lifelong trajectory toward modern Orthodoxy. The legend goes that he asked Jacob’s mother--an ardent vegetarian--to marry him by asking if she could ever see herself eating meat again. We know how she must have answered as Jacob and his siblings grew up in a house that kept milk meals and meat meals separate; only ate hechshered (kosher) meat; and completely avoided pork, seafood that lack fins and scales, and any other meat forbidden in scripture.

They do not need all of their food to be certified by a rabbi like many families that keep kosher do, but rather read labels vigilantly, making sure that hot dog buns did not contain whey (which would make them dairy, not suitable for using with meat hotdogs) and that desserts are not made with gelatin or marshmallows (animal by-products can’t be assumed to be slaughtered appropriately). They eat in any type of restaurant, not fussing if their fish is prepared on the same grill as shellfish, but asking if the soup is made with chicken stock before ordering it and sending back dishes containing pancetta that was not disclosed on the menu.

It turns out that I can do all of those things too but I would not have been comfortable keeping a separate set of dishes or having to reject the hospitality of others if they did not keep the same level of kosher that our family does. I believe that breaking bread together is sacred; I would not want to offend anyone by declaring their food offerings as not “pure” enough (beyond the basic request that it be vegetarian, which makes it an acceptable “milk” meal by default).

There has been some haggling along the way. I used to leave my wrapped leftovers from the restaurant in his fridge to take to work for lunch the next day. This seemed OK to both of us since the trayf (not kosher) food wasn’t being eaten in the house but in the end, he realized that it bothered him. Passover was a bit of a sticking point and continues to evolve in our life. At first, it seemed needlessly legalistic but I have begun to realize that traditional food is as much a celebration of “being Jewish” as the seders themselves. However, we still do not have dedicated Passover dishes as Jacob would like.

The other negotiation was similar to Jacob’s parents’ negotiations. I was also a vegetarian when Jacob and I met, for environmental and humane reasons. But much of Jacob’s Jewish identity involves feeling set apart from the majority: being different because he is Jewish. He wanted our shared life to involve negotiating the separation of milk from meat, because the rest of life is a negotiation between being “chosen” and assimilation. Simple vegetarianism would not force that negotiation.

I agreed to keep a kosher home because constantly thinking about the boundaries God has given us is a valuable daily reminder of a healthy relationship with God. Additionally, we feel that being deliberate about incorporating traditional rules will make it easier for our children to form their own Jewish identities in a house that practices two faiths. Going back to eating meat sometimes feels like it is a step backward for reducing my negative impact on the world but it is a dance I am willing to do for our life together, which is several steps forward.

Finally, I had to abandon my own dream of preparing the ultimate comfort food of my life for my own children. My German heritage of preparing meat in milk gravy was also going to have to take a backseat to this shared life of ours.
In the end, the Jewish spiritual practice of being deliberate about what I put in my body and what I feed to my daughters has equivalent or even greater impact on my life and on the world as my choices to be vegetarian or to be German and Presbyterian.

Rebecca Cynamon-Murphy is the Christian partner in an interfaith marriage. Both she and her Jewish husband practice their faiths individually and share what they can of each other's traditions. She considers this lifelong process of cultural and personal reconciliation fulfillment of God's consistent commandment to mend the world. She has degrees in English and Public Policy and is currently spending the majority of her days reading books to her toddler.

My Interfaith Daughter Wants to Know About Jesus

 By Ashley Avidan for Kveller
“Who is Jesus?”

Of all the questions my daughter has about the two faiths we celebrate I find this question to be the one that makes me the most nervous. How can I possibly answer her without offending or discrediting our faiths?

My daughter asked this question last week after she noticed my mother wearing a cross. I do not have crosses hung in our house or any other specific religious ornaments other than mezuzahs (which my father in law insisted on hanging for protection). She was immediately intrigued with the necklace for two reasons. Mainly because she has never seen a cross necklace before, and partly because any type of shiny jewelry makes my princess-obsessed daughter giddy with excitement.

My mother explained that it was Jesus hanging on the cross. She quickly changed the subject. She would much rather have me explain religion to her because she insists on being the fun-loving grandmother. She does not want to say something that might be considered hurtful one way or another.

Later that night, I was inundated with questions about the cross and, mainly, Jesus. I have always tried to explain things to my daughter with honest mature answers. It is amazing to me how much she understands certain aspects of our two faiths. I told her my faith believes that Jesus was the Savior and came to die for our sins, and that Daddy’s faith, one she also shares, believes that Jesus was not the Savior. The part she responded to best was when I told her that Jesus was in fact Jewish. I ended the discussion telling her that sometimes people believe in different things and that when she is older she can decide what she believes or does not believe. I did not get into any additional specifics with regards to the differences and why they believe or do not believe that he was a Savior. I figured that can at least wait until she is 5!

Later that evening I told my husband that our older daughter Delanie started asking about Jesus. He rolled his eyes and asked what I had told her. I know my husband supports my religion (we had two wedding ceremonies, one of which was in a church) but for some reason, simply the name Jesus gives him anxiety. I don’t really understand why it bothers him so much and when I inquire he simply brushes it off. I think this is another reason why I try so hard to make the Jewish holidays an important part of our lives. I do not want him to feel that I would push our girls in either direction regarding their faith.

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Tzedakah Loves Company

Originally published on InterfaithFamily

In my interfaith partnership, life has been filled with surprises. Family visits are one of these surprises. Every year for six months, my Nepali in-laws come to live with my husband, me and our two small children. This arrangement can either highlight every detail that makes us different or it can illuminate what makes us similar.

Living with any in-laws can be an adjustment, but living with mine takes on an added challenge because of our cultural differences. Not only do we speak different languages, practice different faiths, and eat different foods, but we also come from completely different areas of the world. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish, upper-class suburb of Chicago while my husband and his family lived in a third world country in which more than 30 percent of Nepalese people survive on less than $14 per month. While my peers vacationed in beach resorts, dressed in designer clothes and attended private colleges, my husband’s family lived in a country in which half of the children under five in rural areas do not to have enough to eat, proper health care, access to education or sanitary facilities.

Why mention these statistics? In an interfaith marriage, building relationships that are peppered with differences requires immense understanding and empathy. How can you understand another person if you do not know where he or she has been? While my in-laws live amongst a challenging socio-economic background every day of their lives in Nepal, I continue to be surrounded by opportunity and good fortune. My family lives in Silicon Valley. The average workers here are among the best paid employees in the country with the average individual earning $3,240 per week. Our area boasts the most millionaires and billionaires in the entire nation.

Since my in-laws and I are living on the extreme ends of the world, we have to find a common ground and a balance when we are all together. I know it is tough for me to adapt to collective living but my in-laws also have to change, especially when it comes to what they observe as waste in our way of life.  Because my mother-in-law has directly experienced poverty around her, she takes absolutely nothing for granted. When we do not finish our food, she always saves it. This even includes tiny portions that are left over, such as something as small as a bite of fish. She makes a point to slowly and gently wrap the uneaten morsel of food and declare that it will be eaten the next day. In her soft and kind voice, she says we must not waste. Preserving food not out of hunger but out of a kind of necessity and mission, she feels a duty to eat in order to feed the world.

I am embarrassed to tell you that this behavior has bothered me at times. I like order. With all of these little parcels of leftovers in containers spread all over the refrigerator and counters, I struggle to keep what is fresh and what is not straight. Yet, slowly, when I cannot finish something and I am away from our home, my mother-in-law’s mantra will repeat and repeat in my head--we must not waste. What used to bother me suddenly becomes clear. I got it! My mother-
in-law has not been trying to cause disorder; she has been trying to do her best to save the world in the way that she could.

While I grew up living amongst affluence, I could relate to her kindness in another way. In my Jewish upbringing, I was immensely influenced by the concept of Tzedakah. I remember being taught to help an elderly person cross the street, to give coins in order to help another out, and to donate canned food to those who were hungry. As someone who believes in Tzedakah, I realized that while my mother-in-law and I come from different worlds, we really are not that different from a moral standpoint. We both wished to perform tzedakah in the ways that we could in order to meaningfully contribute to the world.

I feel that my Jewishness, while different from the culture of my husband and his family, is actually what brings us closest together. My religious upbringing helped me to form my ideas about kindness, charity, and humanity. By saving every bit of food, my mother-in-law is performing a charitable act of her spirit every day. She chooses not to waste in order to give. Once I made the connection between her behavior and Tzedakah, I felt less like we were polar opposites and more like we were in the same world even if we took up different spaces in it. My kinship with my mother-in-law grew once I could see how small my inconveniences were in comparison to how big a heart she has. I started by telling you that my marriage has brought surprises. It has. It has brought the company of my in-laws into my
home and it has brought the richness of Tzedakah back into my life.

Heather Subba lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children. She works in the field of educational publishing.