A Muslim, a Jew, and a Jerusalem Kabbalist

One man's trash is another man's treasure—and sometimes, one man's trash is another man's history. In her second novel, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, Ruchama King Feuerman explores the ways two men—one Jewish, one Arab—build an unlikely friendship despite Jerusalem's cultural and political divisions.

Isaac Markowitz, a Lower East Side haberdasher who makes aliyah to realize his unfulfilled potential, finds a job as an assistant to a Jerusalem rabbi who is part Talmudist, part psychoanalyst: Jews from all walks of life gather in his courtyard to seek his guidance on everything from romance to kashrut.

When Mustafa, a custodian at the Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif with a rare medical condition, arrives at the courtyard, Isaac is surprised by the intimate—and curiously volatile—friendship that arises between them. One day, Mustafa brings Isaac an ancient stone pomegranate from the Temple Mount, leading Isaac—and the police—to discover that such artifacts are being buried, broken, and cast aside. Occasionally, the men come dangerously close to archetypes: the old-fashioned Ashkenazi, the devout Muslim. But in Feuerman's hands, they are human: conciliatory, contradictory, and hoping their lives have meaning.

- Leah Falk for Jewniverse

Grandparenting Interfaith Children

Sharing Your Jewish Heritage and Values

from ReformJudaism.org

As grandparents, you want and need to tell your grandchild “who we are,” and you have a right to do so. It’s the how of doing it that’s so important and so difficult. In the real world you must be sensitive to the feelings of your non-Jewish son/daughter-in-law. You want, after all, to maintain the affection of your children as well as your grandchildren. Of course, that’s true even in a single-faith marriage. However, in some interfaith situations, you may have a bomb with a short fuse that can be touched off with what often seems to be no provocation. Remember, whether or not your son- or daughter-in-law has a justifiable reason for acting resentful, he or she does have the upper hand and can deprive you of seeing your grandchildren.

We must always remember that grandchildren are not our children. We’re not their parents. We’re not bringing them up. We don’t have the responsibilities, which means we don’t have the authority either. It is important for you to respect your adult children’s prerogative in raising their own children. Communicate with your children. Ask them how they feel you might improve your relationship with them. Offer to babysit the grandchildren for a weekend.

One of the most difficult things about grandparenting is learning to use diplomacy and tact. Perhaps you didn’t have the relationship you would have liked while your own children were growing up. Nature has given you a second chance. Don’t blow it!

You absolutely have the right—the obligation—to speak your thoughts. But think carefully before you speak and act. Much of the time, what you do isn’t nearly as important as how you do it.

A Working Agreement

We often know what we seek to accomplish, but aren’t sure how to go about it. You want to share your Jewish heritage and values with your grandchildren without offending your non-Jewish son- or daughter-in-law and without creating or exacerbating problems for your child. What to do?

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Another Way To Join the Jewish People?

Jewish Cultural Affirmation, for Those Who Want the Culture Without the Religion

By Steven M. Cohen and Kerry Olitzky for The Jewish Daily Forward

Almost two weeks ago, the two of us proposed that Jewish communities consider instituting an alternative pathway to joining the Jewish People. As the Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 demonstrated, thousands of Americans – many married to Jews, many with Jewish children and grandchildren, and many with Jewish friends – have already chosen to identify as Jews without converting. Though not raised Jewish, these people – amounting to 5% of the adult Jewish respondents in the New York study – affirm their sense of Jewish belonging without necessarily taking on a Jewish religious identity. In contrast, those who have undergone conversion constitute barely 2% of the respondents in the study.

We believe this already widespread phenomenon merits encouragement and enrichment. Not only do we wish that more people embrace being Jewish, we seek to deepen their Jewish identification by their encountering the full breadth of Jewish civilization – history, literature, politics, music, Israel, communal life, social action, acts of caring, and, yes, holidays, congregations, sacred texts, and ritual practice. For those who would prefer not (yet?) to acquire a Jewish religious identity but still want a Jewish social/cultural identity, they could undergo what we tentatively called, “Jewish Cultural Affirmation.”

We believe that some prospective converts to Judaism feel that religious conversion demands what, for them, would be an insincere affirmation of religious faith. Perhaps they are agnostic or atheist or secular, or even committed to another faith tradition. As a result, many would-be members of the Jewish People have no possibility of engaging in a course of study and socialization leading to public recognition of their having joined the Jewish People, and they have limited access to enriching their familiarity with “lived Judaism,” the actual culture and ethos of Jewish life as lived in families and communities.

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What happens when Jews intermarry?

BY GREG SMITH AND ALAN COOPERMAN for Mosaic

American Jews have been debating the impact of intermarriage for decades. Does intermarriage lead to assimilation and weaken the Jewish community? Or is it a way for a religion that traditionally does not seek converts to bring new people into the fold and, thereby, strengthen as well as diversify the Jewish community? The new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews did not start this debate and certainly will not end it. However, the survey’s findings on intermarriage, child rearing and Jewish identity provide some support for both sides.

For example, the survey shows that the offspring of intermarriages – Jewish adults who have only one Jewish parent – are much more likely than the offspring of two Jewish parents to describe themselves, religiously, as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. In that sense, intermarriage may be seen as weakening the religious identity of Jews in America.

Yet the survey also suggests that a rising percentage of the children of intermarriages are Jewish in adulthood. Among Americans age 65 and older who say they had one Jewish parent, 25% are Jewish today. By contrast, among adults under 30 with one Jewish parent, 59% are Jewish today. In this sense, intermarriage may be transmitting Jewish identity to a growing number of Americans.

Surveys are snapshots in time. They typically show associations, or linkages, rather than clear causal connections, and they don’t predict the future. We do not know, for example, whether the large cohort of young adult children of intermarriage who are Jewish today will remain Jewish as they age, marry (and in some cases, intermarry), start families and move through the life cycle. With those cautions in mind, here’s a walk through some of our data on intermarriage, including some new analysis that goes beyond the chapter on intermarriage in our original report. (We would like to thank several academic researchers, including Theodore Sasson of Brandeis University, Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew Union College and NYU Wagner, and Bruce Phillips of Hebrew Union College and the University of Southern California, for suggesting fruitful avenues of additional analysis.)

First, intermarriage is practically nonexistent among Orthodox Jews; 98% of the married Orthodox Jews in the survey have a Jewish spouse. But among all other married Jews, only half say they have a Jewish spouse.

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Can Jews Celebrate Christmas?

Ask the Rabbi: Interfaith Family Questions

By Ariela Pelaia for About.com

Question

My husband and I have been thinking a lot about Christmas and Hanukkah this year and would like your opinion on the best way to deal with Christmas as a Jewish family living in a Christian society.

My husband comes from a Christian family and we have always gone to his parents house for Christmas celebrations. I come from a Jewish family so we have always celebrated Hanukkah at home. In the past it did not bother me that the kids were being exposed to Christmas because they were too little to understand the larger picture - it was mainly about seeing family and celebrating another holiday. Now my oldest is 5 and is beginning to ask about Santa (Does Santa bring the Hanukkah presents too? Who is Jesus?). Our youngest is 3 and isn't quite there yet, but we are wondering if it would be wise to continue celebrating Christmas.

We have always explained it as something that grandma and grandpa do and that we are happy to help them celebrate, but that we are a Jewish family. What is your opinion? How should a Jewish family deal with Christmas especially when Christmas is such a production during the holiday season? (Not so much for Hanukkah.) I don't want my kids to feel like they are missing out. More than this, Christmas has always been a huge part of my husband's holiday celebrations and I think he would feel sad if his children didn't grow up with Christmas memories.

Answer

I grew up next door to German Catholics in a mixed suburb of New York City. As a child, I helped my “adoptive” Aunt Edith and Uncle Willie decorate their tree on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and would be expected to spend the Christmas morning in their home. Their Yuletide gift to me was always the same: a one-year subscription to National Geographic. After my father remarried (I was 15), I spent Christmases with my step mom’s Methodist family a few towns over.

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