BEYOND THE BASICS: DELVING DEEPER INTO JEWISH EXPERIENCE This course is intended for graduates of “Intro” courses as well as for those who have a basic knowledge of Judaism but who wish to look more deeply into the introductory topics. These three parts roughly follow the outline of topics in Introduction to the Jewish Experience,…
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Got Christmas Envy? Try a little Sukkot!
A friend of mine who is in an interfaith family recently told me, “I’m jealous of Christmas. My kids absolutely know they are Jewish but they LOVE Christmas and no Jewish holiday can touch it.” It is true that there is nothing we can do about the massive marketing blitz that this country launches…
Read More »All sorts of Sukkahs!
In 2010 there was a contest called Sukkah City. People were invited to construct unusual sukkahs. Now the movie about this wild and crazy event is out; you can see a trailer here. What the contest illustrated is that sukkahs can come in all sorts of shapes, colors and materials. Even kosher ones! I thought…
Read More »Interfaith Couples: In their own words
What is it like to participant in an interfaith/intercultural couples discussion group? Here’s one couples’ response. I am a practicing Orthodox Jew, and Birger is a Norwegian-heritage agnostic. We got engaged in August 2006 after a whirlwind courtship, and we planned to be married the following January. It was very important to me that we…
Read More »Cooking Jewish Whether You’re Jewish or Not: Hanukkah
We’ve done this one before and this year we are adding Hanukkah Party planning & recipes! This year Hanukkah begins on Nov. 28, the same day as Thanksgiving. We’ll talk about what that means for us THIS year but also how to balance Hanukkah and Christmas in future years. Food plays a big part in…
Read More »Conversion to Judaism
Everything You Always Wanted to Know but had No One to Ask Conversion can be a difficult conversation for an interfaith couple. The non-Jewish partner may want to learn about it without committing to anything or getting their partner’s hopes up. The Jewish partner can want to ask whether the non-Jew is open to discussing…
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