I have meant to share this with you for some time. Working with Dr. Bruce Phillips to prepare a lecture for the Union for Reform Judaism we presented data from our interviews with adults from interfaith families. Our Jewish world – in this case the Reform movement – is woefully lacking in honest assessment and…
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(Image: Guinness Hamentashen for Irish Jewish kids!) What about the children? If you are in an interfaith/intercultural family then your children have family members who are not Jewish, who may follow other religions or traditions, yet these people are an important part of your child’s life. How can you recognize and honor this part of…
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I’ve scheduled a couple of terrific classes for 2022 and want to give you a heads-up. First, we’ll look at a topic that people fear for no reason: Honoring Your Jewish Child’s Non-Jewish Heritage How will you teach your children about the “other” parent’s traditions and heritage? Every child must know who they are, where…
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There’s a song from the sixties by Buffalo Springfield with the line, “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” It’s been more than 50 years and we still can’t seem to get past the idea that “I’m right and that makes everyone else wrong.” How appropriate is Cantor Linda Hirschhorn‘s email to her congregation, Beth Sholom of…
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(This column first appeared in the J-weekly on Feb. 10, 2021) Dear Dawn: I was raised Reform, but am now a nonpracticing Jew married to a non-Jewish woman. We were married by my Reform rabbi and are expecting a baby. My wife has no religion and has agreed to raise the child Jewish and even…
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Last week I wrote to you that experiencing Christmas will not destroy your child’s Jewish identity and it won’t. Period. But that still means you have to GIVE them a Jewish identity. Going without Christmas won’t build a Jewish identity; you have to proactively teach your child that they are Jewish. So if you’re hanging…
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