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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Tips for Hosting an Interfaith Holiday Celebration

By Rebecca Cynamon-Murphy for ThanksgivukkahBoston

My family has always had a Thanksgivukkah tradition. Our local Whole Foods usually makes a special purchase of vegan, kosher marshmallows to top Thanksgiving sweet-potato casseroles. We always buy several bags—along with fair-trade chocolate coins in bulk—to also make s’mores for Hanukkah in our toaster oven. This year, as we celebrate both holidays on the same day, we look forward to our holiday s’mores, as well as preparing to make our usual Thanksgiving guests comfortable with celebrating our Jewish holiday alongside us.

As you start to think about your holiday plans, you might find that while Thanksgiving is normally a convergence of certain friends or family members, and Hanukkah is normally celebrated with other loved ones, this dual holiday will bring new people together. You might be at your in-laws’ house as usual for Thanksgiving, but this is the first time they will be celebrating Hanukkah. Or your children, who are just starting to grasp the meaning of each holiday, will have double the excitement on the second night of the Festival of Lights. Whomever you are celebrating with, it should be a fun and meaningful experience. Here are a few things to think about as you plan for your gathering, whether you’re a host or a guest.
Be a Hospitable Host

Consider sending a detailed email or having conversations with your guests to make clear any changes to the conventional Thanksgiving. Do you serve kosher meals on Jewish holidays? Will you light the candles of your menorah? Will guests bring their own to light? Will only the children light? Will gifts be given? Who gives to whom? What type of presents are usually exchanged?

At the gathering, practice the great Jewish tradition of teaching as we celebrate, and be prepared to provide translations of prayers, an easy-to-tell version of the miracle being celebrated, explanations of holiday foods, instructions for playing dreidel and even stories from your family’s previous celebrations to help guests get in the spirit. (And provide all of the necessary materials.)

Before the meal, consider altering prayers to be inclusive of all attendees. For instance, my father is Christian and usually concludes prayers with the phrase, “In Jesus’s name, amen.” When any of his children who are not Christian are present, he instead thanks God for Jesus within the prayer so that all can join him in the “amen” without feeling that they will have to pray in Jesus’s name. Examine your own prayer habits for similar ways you can encourage others to practice alongside you.

Be the Gracious Guest

If you’ll be guests in a home that isn’t Jewish (and you won’t be home before sundown), it is perfectly OK to call the host and discuss accommodations for your religious practice. If you are uncomfortable with prayers to the Trinity, work out a diplomatic way to share this. If you want to light candles and say the blessings, find out if your host is comfortable with that and, if so, offer to bring your usual holiday set-up and ask if you should bring extras so everyone can participate. Most people will be comfortable with this, but it’s also OK to politely explain that you will need to leave early.

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The Time is Now: Interfaith Activists from Interfaith Families

by Susan Katz Miller for State of Formation

On October 22, Beacon Press published Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family by former Newsweek reporter and popular interfaith blogger Susan Katz Miller (www.OnBeingBoth.com). In Being Both, Miller uniquely chronicles the steady rise in interfaith marriages and the subsequent (and sometimes controversial) decisions to raise children in both religions. Being Both has been praised by Reza Aslan as “A gorgeous and inspiring testament to the power of love to not only transcend the divides of faith and tradition, but to bring faiths together and create wholly new traditions,” and has also received praise in Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. We are pleased to share this blog post Susan Miller wrote especially for State of Formation:

When I search the internet for mentions of “interfaith,” I get news from two separate worlds. One is the world of interfaith “dialogue” and activism, in which people from different religions (or no religion) meet to share their stories, or engage in community service together. This movement has flourished since 9/11, through the important work of groups such as the Interfaith Youth Core.

But for me, the more intimate interfaith world is the world of interfaith families. I was born into this world. As families, we are intertwined, interwoven, and interconnected through intercourse in all of its definitions. We aren’t about to relinquish the interfaith label.

Now, the moment has come for these two interfaith worlds to collide and merge, as if at a giant, well, interfaith wedding. In other words, it is time for interfaith activists to welcome those from interfaith families, not only as allies, but as full partners, and even as leaders.

Interfaith families live and breathe interfaith engagement. Many of us in interfaith marriages or partnerships wrestle with theology together, share religious celebrations, study each other’s foundational texts, and work together on healing the world through social justice. Interfaith is not an activity we go to once a month, or a profession we choose, it’s an inherent feature of our daily lives.

My father is Jewish, my mother Episcopalian, and they are still happily married after more than 50 years. I grew up Jewish, but as an adult, I claim my complex interfaith identity as well as my Judaism. And I have insisted on raising my children with both Judaism and Christianity. At the moment, both of my teenagers like to describe themselves as “Jewish/Christian swirl, interested in Buddhism.” I am proud of their thoughtful and playful DIY identities.

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I May Not Be Jewish But I Want to Sit Shiva

 By Ashley Avidan for Kveller

This past week, my 85–year-old grandmother passed away rather suddenly. She was the only grandparent I ever met, and for a couple of years when I lived with her, she was more like a parent figure. My “Grams,” as we called her, was tough as nails. She raised four kids after her husband died at 45 years old, and she was left with nothing. She didn’t even have a driver’s license.

Grams worked 40 hours a week at a six pack store up until about two months before she passed. She always said she wanted to die by “getting hit in the a** by a mac truck.” Well, cancer was her mac truck and it happened rather quickly. Grams was checked into the hospital on a Wednesday, diagnosed on Friday with stage IV cancer, and died Saturday afternoon after the whole family got to say goodbye.

After recently losing my husband’s grandfather, I learned how the Jewish religion deals with death and funerals. But coming from a Catholic background, my experience with my grandmother was quite different. Not just because she was my best friend, or because I would miss calling her to talk politics or tell her a silly joke, but rather I felt that as a family, we didn’t properly mourn. There was no shiva for three days, no comforting the mourners, not even a meal where we came together as a family. After the burial we all went our separate ways. I picked my daughter up from preschool and went home to pack for our upcoming vacation.

After this past week, I decided that from now on, I would do things a little differently. If someone in my family dies, I want to sit shiva, or at least my version of it. I feel that we lost out on the time to sit together as a family and mourn, and maybe that’s why even now, it doesn’t seem real, as if it’s not final. I still find myself dialing Gram’s number once a week to talk about the Eagles, only to quickly remember she won’t answer. After my husband’s grandfather died, I found the shiva greatly helped the family with the loss. Maybe it was listening to all the stories, some of which people had never heard before, or maybe it is a reminder of how at the end of the day, family is what matters.

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I’m a Chinese American Married to a Jew, But Our Marriage Isn’t Trendy

By Lynnette Li-Rappaport for Kveller

I am often met by a “knowing look” when I (a Chinese American female) share that my husband is Jewish.

“Oh yeah, that’s a thing,” says [insert well-meaning person’s name here]. And you know, according to all sorts of sources–including the New York Times–it does seem to be a thing. It appears I’m one half of a “marriage trend” that’s sweeping the nation, or at least High Holiday Services. (A professor once mentioned to me that her synagogue had Asian women “sprouting up” all over the congregation.) People usually cite the most popular examples, e.g., Mark Zuckerberg and “his Asian wife,” Maury Povich and Connie Chung, Woody Allen and “his very young Asian wife.” (Hmmm, Connie excluded, I’d say we Asian women are getting the shaft in terms of name recognition. But this is all beside my point.)

Our marriage isn’t trendy. At first glance, we might fit the bill. But ours is not a Jewish boy meets Asian girl, and due to a number of conveniently shared values–“tight-knit families, money saving, hard work, and educational advancement” included–they fall in love kind of story.

We met in the choir room our freshman year of high school, where we rehearsed for The Sound of Music. As freshmen, we were lowly chorus members–he was a Jewish Nazi, and I, an evangelical Christian Chinese Austrian nun. Oh, and in the “So Long, Farewell” number, we got to put on fancy clothes and sing “Goodbye!” as the Von Trapp children marched off to bed. Our friendship began, developed, and thrived while we acted and sang over the course of those four years. It continued as each of us dated our own high school sweethearts. And it deepened over the next four years despite being on opposite sides of the country, he out at Stanford, I at Western Michigan.

People sometimes ask us, why didn’t you date sooner, wasn’t love in the air? We usually smile at each other, then give an innocuous “it just wasn’t the right time yet” sort of answer. But here’s the truth. I think I may have loved him for quite some time–maybe it started back in high school–but the faith gap between us was more than just a gap, it was a fiery-bottomed chasm.

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