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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