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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Many years ago Christmas fell on a Saturday. My family was invited to the annual Christmas party of some friends and the party was on Friday night, AKA Christmas Eve. My husband and I typically took our kids to Erev Shabbat services. They were under ten and a short service worked well for them. But…
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(This letter originally appeared in my Mixed and Matched column in the J-weekly on July 7, 2020.) Dear Dawn: I need some objective advice. My husband is Jewish but no longer feels connected to Judaism. He openly states he has no interest in meeting with the Jewish community in our area. I’m a second-generation…
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(This originally appeared in my Mixed and Matched column of the J-weekly on 9/26/19) Dear Dawn: I married my Jewish husband a decade ago. We agreed to raise our children as Jews and joined a Reform synagogue when our daughter was born. Through my daughter I have become more and more involved in Judaism and…
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