How Does Your Synagogue Handle Candle Lighting with Interfaith Families?

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

InterfaithFamily/Your Community worked together on this project to gather information about the ritual policies of synagogues in the IFF/Your Community regions of Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco Bay Area. All rabbis were asked the same question, below, and their responses follow. The opinions expressed do not reflect a policy of InterfaithFamily, but are meant to be an educational resource to be shared and discussed with the greater Jewish community.

In many synagogues, the parent of a child whose Bar/Bat Mitzvah service the following Shabbat morning is invited to recite the blessing for lighting the candles at the Friday evening service. Since lighting the candles is a brachah shel mitzvah, referring to Jews being commanded to perform the act, this can be a complicated issue when one of the parents of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah is not Jewish.

What is your synagogue’s policy on candle lighting? Who can say the blessing over the Shabbat candles at Erev Shabbat services? Specifically, can a mother or father who is not Jewish recite the blessing the Friday evening of the child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah? If not, is there an alternate role they can play?

A Team Effort

Congregation Sherith Israel of San Francisco, CA (Reform)

For Shabbat evening blessings (candles, wine, challah) I/we call up to assist the family (usually parents, grandparents, other relatives) and then ask the Jewish parent to actually light the candles (or a grandmother or another Jewish member), the child to hold and lead the kiddush and the parents together to hold onto the challah with me as we all join in the brachah (blessing over the challah).

-Rabbi Larry Raphael

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Does Junior Need Jewish Preschool — or Is Shabbat Sing-Along Enough?

From The Seesaw on The Jewish Daily Forward

My Wife and I Don’t Know Where to Send Our Daughter….

My wife and I are both half-Jewish. I was raised more observant than she was, but both of us very much felt and feel American first and Jewish second. We are currently debating whether we should send our daughter to a Jewish pre-K and kindergarten program or to a public one. Pros? Give her a Jewish community and identity that she could build on throughout her life. Cons? Costs a lot of money; She wouldn’t be as used to the elementary school, where the classes are located, as those who took them there; She will enter school with the idea that being Jewish makes her different somehow instead of something that you do after or in addition to regular school. Maybe a Shabbat sing-along would be enough?

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Rabbi Preferred, Judaism Essential

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

By Molly Ritvo*

Long before I met my now husband, I remember having tea in a rabbi’s home, after my grandmother passed. I recall the afternoon sun casting a slight glow around the wise rabbi. As I bit into a molasses cookie made by the rabbi’s loving wife, I remember him saying “I feel like Jewish people who intermarry miss out on a Jewish experience.” I remember his words hitting me hard. I was confused and saddened by his remark. I also remember not questioning why the rabbi said that.

As I left the rabbi’s house with even more cookies wrapped up in a small brown bag, my thoughts wandered to the many families I know that have only one Jewish parent. I recalled Shabbat dinners where the blessings were led by both parents and I remember attending Hanukkah parties filled with people from all different backgrounds lighting candles together while their children played. I thought of close family friends who have known me my whole life and who exemplified the word mensch, yet who may not know the first thing about Judaism. I also recalled my mother once telling me that all marriages are intermarriages in a way, as everyone has a different spiritual and religious background. Both of my parents came from Jewish families from the same Boston suburb, yet they expressed and felt their Jewishness in vastly different ways. I grew up believing and understanding that being Jewish comes from within and has nothing to do with labels.

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*Molly is the Content Manager at Jvillage Network

Unique Considerations for Interfaith Parents

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

According to the traditional Jewish movements (Orthodox and Conservative), a child is not Jewish unless he or she has a Jewish mother.

According to the progressive Jewish movements (Reform and Reconstructionist), a child with only one Jewish parent--either mother or father--is Jewish as long as the child is raised to identify as Jewish. Holding a bris or simchat bat for your infant can be the first step to raising the child Jewish.

Most mohels are Orthodox and therefore abide by the traditional definition of a Jewish child. In many cases they will agree to perform a circumcision for a mother who is not Jewish with the understanding that the child will later be immersed in a ritual bath (mikvah) to be converted to Judaism. If the father is not Jewish but the mother is, the mohel will skip the Hebrew line from the traditional brit ceremony where the father delegates his responsibility to circumcise the child to the mohel.

Mohels trained in the Reform tradition will perform a brit milah for children of interfaith parents without the expectation of further steps to conversion.

Generally speaking, mohels are quite accommodating to the needs of parents, so if you would like to have a grandmother or relative who is not Jewish to be involved in the ceremony, don't be afraid to include them. In rare cases a very traditional Orthodox mohel may insist that the sandek, the man who holds the baby, be Jewish.

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