Why We’ll Never Forget What This Irish Catholic Woman Said to Us About Being Jewish

Jennifer Weiss and Lauren Franklin for Kveller
We met 30 years ago at the University of Michigan as freshman—two young women from different parts of the country, but with similar enough families, worlds, and lifestyles that it was as if we had grown up on the same block. We had a friend in common, but soon gravitated to each other when we mutually came up with the idea of finding a Friday night service to attend.

We knew that when you come to a “foreign” place (in our case, college), it’s important to find your grounding—and a synagogue seemed to fit that bill. The fact that we knew there would be wine and cute boys only influenced our decision slightly.

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Defining the Modern Orthodox Approach to Interfaith Dialogue

Revisiting Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s seminal 1964 essay “Confrontation,” which sets out parameters for interfaith dialogue—forbidding some kinds and encouraging others—Meir Soloveichik investigates its underlying theological argument that Jews are destined to constant tension between their identity as “a people apart” and their obligation to engage with the surrounding world. He then discusses the essay’s impact and its implications in light of American notions of religious freedom. (Interview by Eric Cohen; audio, about 1 hour.)

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Being Jewish (and Buddhist and Christian and Chinese)

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

By Amourence Lee

A good story is supposed to have a beginning, middle and end, right? Well, this story about being Jewish only has a beginning. Yep, I’m Jewish. Exactly 50% Ashkenazi according to my genome. And Jewish law says I’m 100 percent because my mother is Jewish—which also makes my kids Jewish.

I spent the first half of my life knowing this about myself, but that was literally all I knew about being Jewish. I never went to synagogue, didn’t become a bat mitzvah, we didn’t light candles or celebrate Jewish holidays or eat Jewish food. Since I don’t “look” Jewish, the only Jewish things about me are that I lived in New York and have a passion for lox and bagels.

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How Did This Nice Northern Catholic Boy Become Part of The Southern Jewish World?

By Bethany Berger for MyJewishLearning.com

My roommate Peter is neither Southern nor Jewish… and yet he somehow found himself an active part of Mississippi’s Southern and Jewish community.

Peter grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and went to college at the George Washington University in Washington DC. I went to school on the other side of DC at American University, but we did not meet until we both moved to Jackson — me, for the ISJL Education Fellowship, and Peter to work for Teach for America. Over the past two years, Peter has become one of my closest friends, and he recently told me about a professor he had in college who basically predicted our friendship. This gave me an idea for a blog… so enjoy my interview with Peter about how a Nice Northern Catholic Boy found himself in the Southern Jewish community!

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What Not to Say to an Interfaith Couple About to Get Married

Jacob Wake Up! for Jewschool

For better or for worse, we’ve become totally accustomed to it. I am Jewish, my fiancée is not, and we are getting married. People feel they have license to say some of the most chutzapahdik things to us–mostly her–both online and in real life. We’ve chosen to have a Jewish wedding, raise Jewish children, and keep a Jewish home. Not that this is a defense, it’s just some background. Our decisions are enough of a threat to people that they feel the need to say pretty aggressive things to us. We had grown used to it and it wasn’t until my fiance was having a conversation with my mother (who affectionately calls my fiancée and her family the machatunim, as she should). My mother was shocked and appalled that people would say such things to our faces. This led me to believe that maybe there were others who thought we were skating by.

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A Surprise Announcement (aka a Love Story)

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

by Amy Beth Starr

Once upon a time, Amy, a divorced Jewish girl from Jersey, met Matt, a divorced Irish Catholic boy from Philly, in the unlikely state of Maine. They went on some dates. Amy tried to convince herself Matt was too “nice and normal” and Matt ignored her and made her dinner and bought her flowers.They both realized pretty quickly that they were living a real-life Disney movie and suddenly the two found themselves blissfully in love, minus the talking animals of course.

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Guide to Wedding Ceremonies for Interfaith Couples

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

If you or a loved one from a Jewish background is planning a wedding, you probably have tons of questions. What are the components of a Jewish wedding? How can we create a meaningful and interfaith-friendly ceremony? The links in the outline below will lead you to information about the various ceremony components and what they mean.

If you are looking for Jewish clergy to officiate at your interfaith wedding, we can help with that too!

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Interfaith marriage is common in U.S., particularly among the recently wed

By Caryle Murphy for the Pew Research Center

Marrying within the faith is still common in the United States, with nearly seven-in-ten married people (69%) saying that their spouse shares their religion, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. But a comparison of recent and older marriages shows that having a spouse of the same religion may be less important to many Americans today than it was decades ago.

Our Religious Landscape Study found that almost four-in-ten Americans (39%) who have married since 2010 have a spouse who is in a different religious group. By contrast, only 19% of those who wed before 1960 report being in a religious intermarriage.

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Why do Hindus seem to support Jews and Israel?

From quora.com

I see it while interacting with my friends and i see a lot of such comments online. Most Muslims seem to support palestine and most hindus seem to support Israel and Jews. What is the reason behind this?

Thanks for the A2A.

Harry, the short summary answer is that Hindus and Indians tend to like Jews and Israel because in general Israelis and Jews tend to like Indians and Hindus and are eager to be friends.


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Jewish-Muslim couples tell their stories

Nurit Canetti, Contributor, Israel Pulse

It was a real challenge to find people who agreed to be interviewed for this piece. While there are quite a few mixed couples in Israel, with one partner Jewish and the other Muslim, many of them are afraid to provide a glimpse into their fascinating lives. Now especially, when the street is becoming a jungle and hatred is bubbling over and blinding so many people from both religions, these families prefer to seclude themselves until the rage passes.

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A Passover Challenge: Welcome the Stranger

By Jane Larkin, Special to the Jewish Journal

Passover is the story of a journey, and as the holiday approaches, I’ve been reflecting on my interfaith family’s Jewish journey. When we moved to Dallas ten years ago, shortly before Passover, we were strangers in a strange land. We were also an intermarried couple with a baby, still trying to figure out how to be a Jewish family and where we fit in the Jewish community.

The only person we knew when we arrived was my stepsister’s college roommate who graciously invited us to spend Passover with her family. We were grateful for the invitation, but a little overwhelmed by the Conservadox seder, since we were accustomed to a Reform celebration. Still we were glad to spend the holiday in the company of others and received guidance on how to connect with young family programs and the Jewish community in the city.

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For more Passover news, check out our    page.

Passover is just about here, check out our Passover Holiday Spotlight Kit

 

Passover and Easter

Wondering whether you should go to Easter dinner at your mother-in-law's during Passover? Is it OK to eat matzah - and peeps? Learn how to solve the spring holiday dilemma with articles, resources and links from InterfaithFamily.

InterfaithFamily's website offers you everything from how to make a seder, what everything means, article on Passover and Easter, videos for adults and children, recipes, tips for engagement, and so much more.

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For more Passover news, check out our    page.

For even more Passover ideas, check out our Passover Holiday Spotlight Kit

The Interfaith-Humanist-Vegan Passover Seder: A Mouthful in Many Ways

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

By Jared David Berezin

When our eyes begin to burn and tear up my wife and I look at each other and laugh. That’s when we know the horseradish is ready. We also bake our own homemade matzah, and the unleavened flat bread resembles pita or injera (Ethiopian bread). Preparing Passover-friendly food from scratch and arranging the seder table is a ritual my wife and I enjoy as much as the seder itself.

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For more Passover news, check out our    page.
 
For more Passover ideas, check out our Passover Holiday Spotlight Kit

Easter vs. Passover: In Interfaith Marriages, Mom’s Faith Wins Out

By Naomi Schaefer Riley for The New York Times

I never thought of myself as part of an interfaith marriage — more of a faith/no-faith marriage. I am a Conservative Jew and my husband is a former Jehovah’s Witness, now an “aspiring atheist.” I told him on our first date that our children would be raised Jewish — indeed that they would go to Jewish day school. A little forward, perhaps, but I had friends who spent years arguing over faith until they finally decided their relationship just wasn’t going anywhere. And I had friends who wanted to expose kids to “a little bit of both” and then let them decide. Bringing up children as Unitarians or Jews for Jesus wasn’t in the cards for me.

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For more Passover news, check out our    page.

Purim Booklet

InterfaithFamily.com is proud to offer Purim, a booklet explaining the holiday, its customs and traditions.

Purim is one of Judaism's most playful holidays. It is a time to dress up in costumes and masks and make fun of our enemies. It is a time to eat three-cornered hamentashen cookies or ear shaped orejas de haman. It is a time to give cookies to our friends and neighbors and charity to those who are poor. For children it is time for a carnival. Who can resist this invitation to be silly? This is a great holiday to share with family and friends whether they are Jewish or not!

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For more Purim news, check out our    page.

For more great Purim ideas, check out our Purim Holiday Spotlight Kit

Our Two Worlds Blend & Balance

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily 

by Hannah Dancing

My name is Hannah, and as one half of an engaged couple, I’m excited to share with you my experience planning our upcoming May wedding. I found InterfaithFamily online when I began searching for a rabbi who was willing to officiate the type of wedding ceremony my partner and I want to have: namely a non-traditional, and somewhat Jewish one!

Let me tell you a little bit about us:

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Rabbis and imams unite to help Calais refugees

From Jewish News Online

What do a former Nigerian breakdancing champion and a rabbi have in common? On the face of it, not much, until one realises that the one-time dancer is now Sheikh Mustafa Badru of the Harlesden Ummah Community Centre, and the rabbi is Rabbi David Mason of Muswell Hill United Synagogue, writes Jenni Frazer.

Both men, and four other rabbis plus a student rabbi, joined forces this week with a unique group of Orthodox rabbis and imams to visit the Calais refugee camp known as the jungle. Monday’s event marked the first time that Orthodox rabbis had addressed the Calais issue on-site.

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Creating a Jewish Identity within an Interfaith Family: A Discussion on Effectiveness and Empowerment

Marion Usher for Jewish Interfaith Couples
A few months ago, Phyllis Katz of Kol Shalom Congregation in Rockville, MD, contacted me to see if I was interested in speaking at her synagogue. She has organized a series of discussions to better serve the needs of her fellow congregants who have grandchildren in interfaith marriages or interfaith parents in the congregation raising Jewish children, and she wanted me to conduct one of these sessions. When I asked her who she thought would be in the audience, she said there might be both grandparents and parents. This intrigued me! I have conducted many workshops for each group, but this would be my first time having both together in the same room. As I prepared some points to present, I also tried to get ready to dance on one foot since some of the issues that are relevant for one group are really not that important to the other. On the other hand, many are common to both, such as, “How do you transmit a Jewish identity to a child (your child or grandchild)?”

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Malone Braves Ramsey’s Wrath

Photo credit: Fox

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

One of the culinary contestants braving the trial by fire (and the wrath of chef Gordon Ramsey) in the 15th season of Hell’s Kitchen is Ariel Malone, who announces in the January 15 premiere that she is bi-racial and Jewish. Her parents—she’s Jewish on her mother’s side—met at Drew University and later split.

“Growing up with divorced parents, being bi-racial and Jewish was interesting to say the least. Difficult is definitely an understatement,” Malone says. “I was raised, for the most part, in a town where my school had maybe five black children in the district and one Jew—at least practicing and not ashamed–me. Both of my parents raised me to take pride in both my black racial heritage and my Jewish roots so I always stood up for myself in both regards. I encountered the most opposition from my skin color since being Jewish isn't something you can see on the surface, but I never really took much offense. The upside is that I always had an awesome skin tone year round!”

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Unorthodox Celebrations Matches Couples With Officiants For Reform, Interfaith Weddings

The website matches users with rabbis and cantors to officiate at non-traditional weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

By Rachel Hirschhaut for The Jewish Week

As someone who identifies as “not super religious” but is drawn to the most meaningful aspects of Judaism, Jen Shuman of Boston “always planned on having a wedding with the iconic Jewish elements”.  However, her childhood rabbi cannot officiate at the wedding since she is marrying a non-practicing Catholic.   

So she heard of Unorthodox Celebrations through a close friend (also one of her bridesmaids), and decided it was the ideal program for the couple.

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I’m Trying to Figure Out How to Raise a Jewish Kid as a Non-Jewish Woman

Elizabeth Raphael for Kveller
2015 was a year of change for me, facilitated largely by the birth of my lovely dumpling of a daughter in February. Among the normal challenges of being a first-time parent (learning to cobble together a working brain when it has been addled by lack of sleep, perfecting the art of acting casually when your child decides to poop on you in a public place, and so on), I had the additional challenge of being a non-Jewish woman raising a Jewish daughter.

A bit of background on me: My religious upbringing can best be described as “vaguely Christian.” I went to a Catholic church a handful of times as a child, but I was never baptized, nor did I undergo confirmation (in fact, I had to do a quick Internet search while writing this article to make sure that “confirmation” was even the right term for the process I was thinking of).

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Welcome to the Interfaith Encounter Association!

The Interfaith Encounter Association is dedicated to promoting peace in the Middle East through interfaith dialogue and cross-cultural study. We believe that, rather than being a cause of the problem, religion can and should be a source of the solution for conflicts that exist in the region and beyond.


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Talking to Children About Jewish Identity in an Interfaith Family

ReformJudaism.org

Children begin to ask identity questions at an early age. Who am I? Who is my family? Where do I belong? Why does my family celebrate some holidays and not others? These are all standard questions children ask to determine how they fit into their world

The same is true about religious identity. Children want to know the different ways they connect to their parents, and members of their extended family. For children in interfaith families, clarifying the role of religion in the family dynamic and the child’s personal identity from an early age  is important. The following guidelines will assist you when talking about Jewish Identity.

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Our Jewish Catholic Mexican American Newborn

by Anna Keller. This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily.com

I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. My parents were liberals who met in the theatre where they had been professional actors. My father was a Brooklyn boy, born and raised in Crown Heights. My mother, a Baltimore native who said she always wanted to marry a Brooklyn boy, and so she did. They moved to Midwood, a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. They wanted to be close to my Grandmother and to buy a house and to teach their children my brother and I the importance of our Jewish heritage. My father wanted us to always remember where we came from.

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Interfaith Baby Namings

Planning a ceremony when your family is multi-faith or multi-cultural.

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Today there is a good chance that someone special in your life who isn’t Jewish will be at your bris, simchat bat, or other welcoming ceremony for your new baby. It may be an aunt or uncle, grandparents, or even yourself or your partner: a non-Jewish parent who has pledged to raise this child in a Jewish home.

Both parents will obviously be involved in the planning of your ceremony, and to a certain extent can tailor it to their personal comfort level. For example, how much is said in English versus Hebrew, how much is focused on the idea of the covenant between God and the Jewish people, and how much focuses on more universalistic Jewish ideas and traditions. Welcoming ceremonies for girls, which are a relatively new phenomenon, are not “fixed” as the ancient rite of brit milah, and so there is often far more room for flexibility.

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Muslim and Jewish Feminists Gather to Seek Common Ground

by Betsy Teutsch for The Jewish Daily Forward    

Heba Macksound, a founding member of the first Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom Jewish-Muslim women’s interfaith dialog chapter, tells her story. “I was in the detergent aisle at ShopRite, thinking about what most Muslim women think about in the detergent aisle — which brand, and how many ounces to buy — when a man started cursing my hijab.” Macksound had the presence of mind to seek out the manager. “I am afraid to shop in your store,” she told Mark Egan. Egan responded by personally escorting her on her shopping trip.

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