My beloved old dog died in February. She was a part of our family and we all took it hard. When my sister died two months earlier there had been Jewish rituals and my synagogue family to gather around and comfort me. But what was there to acknowledge the loss of a dog? A…
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Though Purim is a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, it is widely observed and a favorite of children. According to the scroll of Esther 9:22, we are to observe Purim as a time of “feasting and gladness.” The holiday is marked not only the by reading of the scroll, but by Purim plays (spiels)…
Read More »My Mixed and Matched column for February 2015 is a response to a young woman whose family includes Modern Orthodox cousins and her secular and intermarried relatives. My answer is on the J-Weekly website. She is hurt by the conflict between the adults in her family. For many children, the most important thing is family…
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Another question from my Mixed and Matched column in the J-Weekly. I’m a 26-year-old Conservative Jew and celebrate the major Jewish holidays, although I’m not terribly religious. I’ve been dating a Korean girl who is Catholic but also not very religious. We are getting serious and I’m scared. I do love her, she’s my…
Read More »In the 1990’s, glory days of Interfaith Outreach, the American Jewish community was intently focused on successful approaches to teaching Judaism to children from interfaith homes. In their 1996 book, I Went to My Cousin’s Crispening, Margie Zeskind and Sheilia Silverberg were among the first Jewish educators to help Hebrew school teachers deal with the…
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March 2014 column of Mixed and Matched in the J-Weekly The question: I am Jewish and my husband is not. We adopted a girl, 8 months old, whose birth mother is not Jewish. We belong to a Reform synagogue and our rabbi said if we raise our daughter with Jewish lifecycle events and synagogue…
Read More »Our weekly email goes out to hundreds of interfaith couples & families in the Bay Area. Topics cover the many questions and mysteries that interfaith couples want answered.